Seen: Albino Milkweed

albino milkweed

Yesterday, while tending to the pollinator garden I coordinate in a nearby public park, I was surprised to see this common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) exhibiting albinism.

Apparently albino milkweeds occur infrequently in nature, likely due to a genetic mutation. Because they lack chlorophyll, they are unable to photosynthesize and, reportedly, do not live as long or grow as large as ordinary milkweeds. However, milkweeds spread by rhizome, meaning that albino milkweeds may gain nutrients from fellow plants to whom they are connected.

Albinism in plants is never common, but reportedly occurs often enough in redwood trees and orchid plants to suggest it may confer some evolutionary advantage (perhaps especially in shade and understory environments), wherein non-chlorophyll-producing plants—known as mycoheterotrophs—forgo photosynthesis in favour of parasitizing mycorrhizal fungi. One wildflower native to Canada, Monotropa uniflora or ghost pipe, is fully mycoheterotrophic.

[Personally, I object to the term “parasite” to describe mycoheterotrophic plants. If the mycoheterotroph gains or borrows energy without harming the source plant or fungal organism, it seems to me it would more properly be described as a commensal.]

I cannot say whether the albino milkweed in my local park has ‘chosen’ a mycoheterotrophic strategy or is simply a mutant plant. It is noticeably smaller than its peers, but seems healthy so far and shows the beginnings of a blousy blossom head. I will monitor it through the season to see how it grows. I’m curious to see whether it will remain healthy and, equally, whether its blossoms will attract insects.

In the meantime, my mutant milkweed is a thing of beauty and a source of wonder, nestled in among her green sisters. I am grateful to her for existing, and for giving me the opportunity to learn something new about plant genetics and physiology.

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Thrifted Treasures, 7 Mar 2025

Thrifted treasures: dresses, a book, fish napkin rings, and vintage jewelry.

Twice a week, after visiting my mother-in-law at the long term care facility where she now resides, we stop in at a nearby north Toronto thrift store. While my husband, being a man, checks out the electronics and science fiction, I browse … everything else.

I like thrifting: it’s a lot like foraging or beach-combing, and an hour spent browsing idly in a thrift store is an hour not spent worrying about the state of the world. After having death-cleaned both our parents’ homes, and having become increasingly mindful of our own propensity to accumulate clutter, we try to be careful about what we bring home. Our first stop at the thrift store is usually the donation bin, where we drop off things we no longer need. And a question we ask of any object before putting it in the cart is: “Does this add to our life?”

A good example is this Wood & Sons ‘Holly Cottage’ teapot, which made it into the cart about a month ago. It most definitely adds to our life even though it cost about $10 and I have not yet used it for tea. Wood & Sons 'Holly Cottage' teapot.

Is it not delightful?

Today’s treasures included two dresses, a set of brightly painted wooden fish napkin holders, two unusual pendants, and a copy of horticultural historian Judyth A. McLeod’s In a Unicorn’s Garden: Recreating the mystery and magic of medieval gardens (Murdoch, 2009).

I love these vintage (?) jade-chip pendants so much.

Vintage brass pendants (an owl and a fish).

I don’t even use napkin rings, but do, of course, have fish-themed dinnerware and will definitely deploy these as table decor.

Brightly painted wooden fish-shaped napkin rings.

I have donated many of my practical gardening books to the little library down the street, but love scholarly works on horticulture. This book, whose title draws on the mythos of unicorns in medieval art and fable, is copiously illustrated and looks like a cracker. It definitely adds to our life.

Image of a book: Judyth A. McLeod's In a Unicorn's Garden: Recreating the mystery and magic of medieval gardens (Murdoch, 2009).

As anyone can see, today’s thrifted finds unquestionably add to our life. If one ascribes, as I try to, to the advice often attributed to William Morris—to “have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”—these items exemplify the latter.

Not pictured, but useful: some electronic doo-dad my husband found among the old computer monitors and disused printers.

P.S. The green velvet chair in the first picture is also a thrift find (for $15!), from late last year.

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March Light

At the beginning of March—sometimes earlier; sometimes a little later–there is a change in the light. After months of darkness, light returns to the hemisphere. At first it is muted, and then pale, and then it leaves us blinking at its unaccustomed strength.

Let us be strong in this light.

 

 

 

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Shelter

Image shows a small burrow entrance through snow into a dead tree stumpManitoba maples (Acer negundo) are native to northwestern Ontario and the prairie provinces, but have controversial status in southern Ontario, where they can spread aggressively. Manitoba maples grow quickly, colonizing disturbed areas such as vacant lots and along urban alleyways. Due in part to rapid growth, Manitoba maples tend to have brittle branches, leading to their reputation as ‘junk trees.’

But Manitoba maples also provide useful ecosystem services. They reduce erosion, hold soil, and grow where many other trees struggle to take root—especially important in disturbed areas. Their seeds feed squirrels and (among other birds) attract the evening grosbeak, a member of the finch family with distinctive yellow plumage. Manitoba maples also host boxelder beetles and rosy maple moth.

I am ambivalent about Manitoba maples. For years we had several growing on the margins of our city property. One, out front, we maintained as a privacy hedge until, tired of the need to prune it twice every summer (Manitoba maple branches grow as much as 2 metres each year, with pliable green shoots turning woody and dense by the following growing season), I cut it down. Fortunately an eastern redbud had volunteered beneath it— a slow-growing native species which produces a dreamlike halo of violet blooms early in the spring.

In the back, between our and our neighbours’ garages, a Manitoba maple once quickly grew tall and thick enough to crack the pavement in the walkway and damage the eavestroughs on both structures. With regret we took that tree down—except for an eight foot stump my husband suggested we leave in place to serve as a post supporting our back gate.

Over the past decade that stump, now weathered to bare wood, has housed a surprising variety of creatures. For several years a colony of carpenter ants dwelt within its chambers, hollowing out the wood until the stump resonated like a drum when rapped. One year, after the ants had moved on, it housed a small colony of native bumblebees. The stump has also housed a variety of shelf fungus, including turkey tail and Dryad’s saddle, and from time to time raspberry canes have sprouted from openings in its trunk.

Each year the stump wobbles a bit more on its axis, as what remains of its roots decay and gravity calls it back to earth. Last summer my husband stabilized the top with wood and wire, hoping to buy another two or three years out of our organic gate post. Our plan, when the trunk finally falls, is to take it to the circle park just down the street, where I coordinate a community pollinator garden, to enrich the soil and provide valuable habitat as it returns to earth.

Over the last few days Toronto has received a major dumping of snow, with about 50 cm accumulated over a three-day period. Between snowfalls we’ve managed to keep the sidewalks and walkways clear, albeit with snow mounded high on either side. While clearing snow near the back gate some of it, inevitably, ended up piled against our Manitoba maple stump.

This morning, on the way out back to shovel out the car, I noticed several small openings in the snow right against the trunk. Burrow holes, for a mouse, or a chipmunk, or possibly even a rat. Alongside them was a small cascade of wood shavings, sawdust from burrowing, Somebody, it seems, is overwintering in the long-dead stump of our Manitoba maple, taking shelter against the storm.

The next time I go out, I will leave it a small offering.

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