Posted by Amanda Gallinat
“I find a fine tupelo near Sam Barrett's now all turned scarlet. I find that it has borne much fruit -small oval bluish berries, those I see - and a very little not ripe is still left.”
-Thoreau in his Journal, Sept 30, 1854
Over the past several years, we have worked with an international group of researchers to record and analyze fleshy fruit ripening times at five botanical gardens located in the United States, Germany, and China. Our findings were recently published in the American Journal of Botany, in an article entitled Patterns and predictors of fleshy fruit phenology at five international botanical gardens.
Amanda Gallinat monitoring fruit phenology at the Arnold Arboretum
We found striking variation in fruiting times among species, with ripe fruits available from May until March of the following year, and fruiting durations ranging from under 1 week to over 150 days! We also found that early stages are more consistent than late stages (likely due to variable fruit removal by wildlife) and early stages are highly consistent with one another.
Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) fruits persisted into the winter at several gardens; here they are pictured at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.; photo by Alan Whittemore
We also found a fairly consistent order in which species fruit across years and gardens and that fruiting times are phylogenetically conserved; that is, related species tend to fruit at similar times. This suggests that plants have evolved particular strategies for when they fruit and interact with wildlife.
Ripe silverberry (Eleagnus lanceolata) fruits at the Arnold Arboretum
Interactions between fruits and wildlife also recently appeared in the Boston Globe! An article entitled Autumn’s Other Colors are for the Birds featured the Primack Lab’s research and commentary on bird-fruit interactions in Massachusetts.
A robin eating crabapple fruits at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, MA; photo by Sam Roberts
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