Hairy Elephant's Foot, A Surprising Pollinator Magnet

At least until you get to know them well, there are some plants that are hard to get excited about.  Often that's because they don't have fascinating foliage or stunning flowers.  Just because a plant isn't classically beautiful, though, that doesn't mean it isn't greatly loved by pollinators and other insects.

Frankly, Hairy Elephant's Foot (Elephantopus tomentosus) is just such a plant.  It is a hard plant to photograph well.  For the first few months of spring and summer, it consists of a few large, hairy leaves lying flat on the ground, all coming from a central point.  Not glamorous, but definitely easy to photograph.

It's in July that the trouble begins.  The plants start to put up their flowering stalks, which rise for 12-15" above the basal leaves.  There is hardly any foliage on these stems at all.  At the top of each stalk, sudden branches stick out awkwardly, each crowned with a trio of small, bright green, hairy, pointy "leaves".  Nestled within those bracts, the small, lavender flowers open, dainty and subtle.  They open in the morning and close in mid afternoon.

These delicate little blooms wash out readily in a photo, especially in any bright light.   Their dainty airiness just looks sparse on "film", even though it looks charming en masse in real life.

A great plant for shade, Hairy Elephant's Foot grows well there, although it tends to be rather widely scattered.  Unexpectedly last year, I had an experiment in our yard when a neighbor cut down several large trees right near our joint property line and turned what had been almost complete shade into full sun, for 5-6 hours each day.

I expected the shade-loving understory plants that grew in that area to frazzle and die, which many of them did.  The Hairy Elephant's Foot, however, had a banner year, blooming prolifically and attracting an amazing number of pollinators and other insects - 21 different species that I was able to photograph!

So how do I best share the amazing number and diversity of insects that I observed?  A simple list, even illustrated with photos and spiced with bits of (hopefully) interesting information, seems overwhelming and ultimately boring.  So I thought I would talk about a few of the "categories" of insects that I observed:  1) Butterflies and Skippers, 2) Pest Control Squad - Solitary Wasps and Syrphid Flies, 3) A Predator and Prey Duo, 4) Native Bees - Pollinators Extraordinaire, 5) Flies, and 6) Passersby.

Two of the species I photographed using Hairy Elephant's Foot last summer are considered somewhat rare or threatened:  the American Bumble Bee and the Yellow-thighed Thick-leg Fly, a form of syrphid fly.  Both are shown below in their appropriate categories.

BUTTERFLIES AND SKIPPERS:

It's always fun to start with "the pretties" - and I've come to think of butterflies and skippers as "flying flowers", the prettiest group of insects overall.

Butterflies and skippers (and moths) are more than just pretty, though.  Their caterpillars are, according to Dr. Doug Tallamy, one of the primary ways that energy, captured by plants from the sun, moves up the food chain.  EVERYTHING seems to eat caterpillars.  For those of us who are birders, that's especially true of most of the songbirds, 95% of whom raise their young on insects, especially caterpillars.  

So in feeding adult butterflies and skippers, Hairy Elephant's Foot is also helping to keep those adults in our yard, thus supporting the production of caterpillars to feed the upcoming generation of birds and other animals here.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), 8/19/23.   With a variety of host plants in the Magnolia and the Rose families, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are fairly common across a wide range in North America.  In our yard, I'm guessing that they usually spend their larval time on Tulip Poplars, since we have several extremely large specimens of that majestic tree.  It's often easy to overlook the fact that trees can serve as important host and pollinator plants.

Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus), 8/19/23).  If you don't have pawpaws, you won't have Zebra Swallowtails.  Our neighborhood has a plethora of pawpaws, in great part because deer don't like it and so it spreads with little competition in our deer-challenged yards.  Consequently, we have a plethora of zebra swallowtails.  Most of the time, these ethereal beauties are just floating through, but Hairy Elephant's Foot got them to stick around for a bit.

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia), 8/20/23.  This was the first time I had seen a Common Buckeye in our yard.  I've started planting Carolina Petunias (Ruellia caroliniensis) as a "matrix plant" and it turns out that they, along with plantains, are host plants for Common Buckeye caterpillars, along with several other species.  So, was it a coincidence to see this one last summer, a year or two after I started adding Carolina Petunias to the yard?  Or the result of adding yet another native plant species to the local plantscape?

Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus), 8/23/23.  If you look very closely, you can also see a little crab spider under the flowers to the right of the skipper.  The caterpillars of Silver-spotted Skippers feed on many plants in the pea family, from Wisteria to Tick-trefoils, where they build a shelter with silk.  According to iNaturalist, it's unusual to see this species visiting yellow flowers;  they prefer blue, pink, red, purple and even white blooms.

Wavy-lined Emerald Moth caterpillar (Synchlora aerata), 8/23/23.  This is the only species of butterfly or skipper (or moth) that I have seen using Hairy Elephant's Foot as a host plant.  These little guys camouflage themselves by sticking pieces of the flower they are eating to their bodies, so this one has purple bits pasted to it, but the same species will have bright yellow bits on one of the Rudbeckias, white bits on Mountain Mint, etc.  Many times, it's hard to see the caterpillar body at all!  The adult moth is a very pretty light emerald green with wavy lines, as suggested by its name.

Other butterflies that I've observed nectarting on Hairy Elephant's Foot include the Sleepy Orange (Abaeis nicippe) and the Cabbage White (Pieris rapae).  Other skippers that I've observed include Horace's Duskywing (Erynnis horatius), Common Checkered Skipper (Burnsius communis), and Zabulon Skipper (Lon zabulon).

PEST CONTROL SQUAD - SOLITARY WASPS:

Wasps seem scary to many of us, but it's literally a few "bad apples" that have spoiled the barrel of public opinion.  Social wasps (paper wasps and yellowjackets) live in colonies, which they defend vigorously.  Solitary wasps, on the other hand, build nests by themselves and are not at all aggressive.  They will only sting if you attempt to catch them in your bare hands.  I have not observed any social wasps using Hairy Elephant's Foot, but I've observed several solitary wasp species doing so.

All wasps raise their larvae (their "babies") on meat, usually on paralyzed insects, sometimes on paralyzed spiders, and (for social wasps) on chewed up insects.  Because they raise their young on other insects and on spiders, wasps are important predators in our yards and gardens, helping to keep the populations of other species in balance and under control.

Solitary wasps paralyze various species of insect or spider and then lay an egg on the paralyzed prey.   Each different species of wasp preys on a different species of insect or spider.  After being paralyzed, the prey animal lives and provides fresh food for the larva when the wasp egg hatches.  Gruesome, to my mind, but very effective.

Double-banded Scoliid Wasp (Scolia bicincta), 8/20/23.  Scoliid wasps are scarab beetle predators, digging for beetle larvae (a.k.a. grubs) in the soil, paralyzing them, and laying an egg on each.  When the egg hatches, the wasp larva eats the beetle larva, then pupates in the host body.   These wasps are excellent grub control!  About 10 years ago, when we lived in south-central Kansas, I did an entire blog post on this species:  http://gaiagarden.blogspot.com/2014/08/double-banded-scoliid-wasp.html

Blue-winged Scoliid Wasp (Scolia dubia), 8/20/23.  Isn't this a cool looking wasp?!  I had never seen this interesting looking species before last summer.  As a scoliid wasp, it is another species that preys on scarab beetle larvae (white grubs), like the Double-banded Scoliid Wasp above.  It is thought that these species may also parasitize Japanese beetle larvae!  

Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp (Eremnophila aureonotata), 8/21-3/23.  I've always wondered how anything - food, blood, etc. - gets through that narrow waist!  Anyway, this interesting looking solitary wasp preys on larger moth larvae, like those of the sphinx moths and owlet & cutworm moths, for food for its larvae.

Fraternal Potter Wasp (Eumenes fraternus), 8/20/23.  There's a reason this little wasp is called a "potter wasp" - the female builds a gorgeous little mud pot in which she stashes the caterpillars that she paralyzes for her young to eat.  She then lays an egg and closes the pot, also with mud, making a perfect little nursery.

Weevil Wasp (Cerceris halone), 8/23/23.  Another solitary wasp, this wasp provisions the cells in her nursery burrows with paralyzed weevils from the genus Curculio.

A PREDATOR AND PREY DUO:

There are bees known as "cuckoo bees" that parasitize the nests of other bees.  Often this happens by the cuckoo bee following the female of its host species back to her nest.  When the host female departs for another load of pollen and nectar to provision her latest brood cell, the female cuckoo bee quickly ducks in and lays an egg.  Generally, when the egg of the cuckoo bee hatches, it either attacks and kills the larva of the host bee, or it hatches first and eats the egg of the host bee before it hatches.  Either way, the cuckoo bee larva then eats the provisions that the mother host bee stored for her own offspring, pupates, and emerges the following year in place of the young of the host bee.

The relationship between the host bee and the cuckoo bee is often very specific, with each cuckoo bee parasitizing only a single species.

How does the cuckoo bee find the host bee?  Well, she hangs out at the same "bar", so to speak.  The life cycles of the host bee and the cuckoo bee are perfectly timed to overlap, and both will be found nectaring at the same flowers.  I found such a pair using the blooms of Hairy Elephant's Foot in our yard:  the Two-spotted Longhorn Bee (host) and the Lunate Longhorn-cuckoo Bee (parasite).

Two-spotted Longhorn Bee (Melissodes bimaculatus), 8/20/23 - host bee.  This almost pure black bee gets its name from the two squarish white spots on either side of its abdomen.  Unfortunately, you can't see those field marks in this photo.

Lunate Longhorn-cuckoo Bee (Triepeolus lunatus), 8/20/23 - cuckoo bee (parasite).

NATIVE BEES - POLLINATORS EXTRAORDINAIRE:

More people are understanding the importance of our native bees for pollination.  The beloved Honey Bee is actually a European import, brought here by colonists who unsurprisingly wanted the honey it produced, as well as its pollination services.  But, for all we hear about honey bees pollinating plants, they are not as efficient at the job as many of our native bees are.

Before the European colonists arrived, there was no problem with pollination in North America.  This continent has almost 4000 species of native bees, often with life cycles exquisitely timed to coincide with those of the plant they evolved to partner with.  Some of these native bees are generalist pollinators, others are specialists who only pollinate one single species, still others pollinate the flowers of just a few plants.

I have not seen honey bees use Hairy Elephant's Foot, although that certainly doesn't mean they don't.  The bees I've seen pollinating this plant all fall under the heading of generalist native bees.  I'll start with two different bumble bee species.....

American Bumble Bee (Bombus pensylvanicus), 8/23/23.  According to iNaturalist, this species used to be one of the most common types of bumble bee, especially in the south, but 90% of its population has been lost in the last 20 years.  It is now considered threatened throughout much of its range.

Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens), 8/20/23.  As its name implies, this is the bumble bee that I see most commonly in our yard.

Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica), 8/20/23.  What looks like a bumble bee but has a smooth abdomen?  A carpenter bee.  Great pollinators, they do NOT eat wood...although they do tunnel into it to make their solitary nests.  The females will reuse existing nest tunnels, only taking the time and energy to excavate new tunnels when absolutely necessary.

Pure Green Sweat Bee (Augochlora pura), 8/20/23.  This beautiful little bee nests in rotting logs, a habitat that we have been restoring on our property.  The fertilized females also overwinter underneath rotting logs, waiting until it's time for them to emerge in the spring.

FLIES:

Many flies act as pollinators, although they are not as well known in that role as bees are.  The first species I share here is one of the relatively rare species I've seen on Hairy Elephant's Foot.

Yellow-thighed Thick-leg Fly (Tropidia albistylum), 8/23/23.  This is a relatively rare species of syrphid fly with a very unattractive common name.  As of this writing, there are only 212 observations of this species in iNaturalist, as opposed to 25,000-50,000 observations of two more common syrphid fly species that I've seen in our yard.

Greenbottle Fly (Lucilia sp.), 8/20/23.  This genus of flies (I can't identify this photo below that level) are scavengers, generally speaking.

There were at least 2 other species of flies that I photographed on Hairy Elephant's Foot, but I was unable to identify either of them further.

PASSERSBY:

Of course, in watching any plant or area, there will be some insects that just happen to perch for a while.  Rounding out this line-up of Hairy Elephant's Foot insect fans are a couple of those more incidental visitors....

Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), 8/22/23.  This is a dimorphic species, meaning that the male and female look dissimilar.  This individual is a female;  it is the male that has the blue coloration for which the species is named.  Dragonflies are fierce predators of smaller insects.  I'm always hoping the ones I see are living up to their colloquial name of "mosquito hawks".

Eastern Tailed Blue butterflies (Cupido comyntas)  - and a Midge (7/30/23).   Hairy Elephant's Foot can even be used for a bit of canoodling, with or without a voyeuristic midge looking on.

In conclusion, Hairy Elephant's Foot is not a classically "beautiful" plant, but it sure packs a powerful punch for wildlife.  Including insects I've seen but not photographed, I've noticed over 30 different species using this plant - and the deer don't bother it at all.  If you can find a corner somewhere, I highly recommend it.  I've never seen Hairy Elephant's Foot "in the trade", but personal experience tells me that it transplants well.  Mine just showed up on their own.  Keep your eyes peeled or ask if anyone you know has some they'd be willing to share.  You'll be glad you did.  

Insects Using Gaillardia in My Gardens

Another staple of my (native) pollinator plants is Indian blanket or Gaillardia, Gaillardia pulchella to be precise.   This widespread, short-lived perennial blooms for months and months;  the colorful blossoms almost always seem to have some sort of insect on them. 

Interestingly, though, as I went through my photos, the variety of insects utilizing Gaillardia was not as great as it was for fogfruit.  For 2018, I have photos of only 6 different species using Gaillardia in my gardens. 

By far the most frequent visitor to my Indian blanket flowers was Poey's Furrow Bee (Halictus poeyi), one of the small, somewhat nondescript, native bees. 

I saw this little bee a lot, from early June through the end of October, and it could well have been present before or after I have it documented photographically.  As I understand it, the hook on the back, lower corner of the head, which you can see in this photo, is "diagnostic" of this species.  Even in photographs, though, it can be hard to see this feature due to the diminutive size of this bee and the fact that it tends to round its back and tuck its head a bit as it feeds.

This is typical of what I usually see, even through the camera lens, when looking at Poey's Furrow Bee.

Throughout the summer months, the Brown-winged Striped Sweat Bees (Agapostemon splendens) visited regularly.  I love these vivid little green jewels.  The females are solid green, while the males have black and yellow striped abdomens and a green "jacket" on the thorax. 

In the photo above, the male is probably more interested in the female than in the flower.

Here is a closer view of a different female, giving you a bit more of a feel for the vivid coloration of these little sweethearts.  What a disappointment the common name of this bee is - "Brown-Winged Striped Sweat Bee".  The "A. splendens" of the Latin name much more closely describes how I feel about them!

An insect that I've seen on several different plants around the yard, this Camouflaged Looper, a.k.a. the caterpillar of the Wavy Emerald Moth (Synchlora aerata), looks a bit different depending on which bloom it's raiding for its wardrobe.

What looks like a large, brightly colored piece of debris hanging from the underside of the flower is, in fact, the caterpillar with bits of petal attached.   

Yes, the bloom this little guy raided looks rather tattered, but I personally think it's well worth the less than perfect blossom to see how the flower finery has been used!  In 2018, I photographed camouflaged loopers on Gaillardia blooms on June 23 and again on August 5.

Getting back to native bees, one of my favorite groups is the leafcutter bees.   Females in this group are easy to recognize because they carry pollen in hairs on the underside of their abdomen, giving them a potbellied appearance.

This cute little female (Megachile sp.) demonstrates that trait perfectly.

The only insect I photographed utilizing something besides the bloom of Gaillardia was this paper wasp, which I saw on July 18th.

Truthfully, I don't know if I just didn't notice other insects on the stems and leaves, or if few insects actually utilize the foliage of this plant.

The final insect in my Gaillardia roundup is this flower beetle, the Pygmy Chafer (Strigoderma pygmaea).

In conclusion, I enjoy having Gaillardia in my gardens a lot, finding that it brings in a reasonable number of insects and provides a nice pop of color throughout most of the growing season.  Loving full sun and tolerating pretty dry conditions, it's usually very easy to grow.  The only downside I've found to Gaillardia pulchella is that each individual plant lasts for 2-3 years at most.  It will reseed a bit and, if I watch for seedlings, I can usually keep it as a garden presence without having to buy it again each year.  If you live within its (wide) native range, I'd definitely recommend it for your pollinator garden.

Turkey Tangle Fogfruit Community

Certain plants seem to create large communities of insects and other wildlife within my garden.  I thought I'd do a series on a couple of these species, starting with Turkey Tangle Fogfruit (Phyla nodiflora).  As I've gone through my photos from last year, I realized I've got pictures from at least 23 different species of animals using this species in 2018 alone - and that's just the number I captured with my camera.  I know there were animals using it that I wasn't able to capture on film (like swallowtail butterflies).  I'm equally certain there were animals using it that I simply didn't see.

Fogfruit is not a showy species to my eye.  Although some people really like its dainty flowers, to be honest, I find this plant rather blah visually.  It is, however, a powerhouse for supporting pollinators and other insects and, as such, has earned a place in my yard whenever possible.

Essentially a groundcover, fogfruit grows around 8" tall.  About 3 years ago, I started out with 2 plants in gallon containers, planted 2' apart.  The fogfruit now covers an area that is about 6' X 8' - and it would be happy to be out in the driveway and into the street, too, if we didn't keep it trimmed back.  On the plus side, fogfruit manages to hold its space fairly well, once established, and doesn't need much of any care.

The first photos I have of the animals it harbored last year are from mid-May.

Here is a small spider that I saw on May 15th, then didn't see again all year.  It's a pretty little thing which the great folks at Antman's Hill on Facebook helped me to identify as an orbweaver, Gea heptagon.

On the same day, I captured a photo of this little syrphid fly (Toxomerus sp.) nectaring at one of the fogfruit blossoms.

Like others in this genus, the larvae of this fly feed on aphids, thrips, and small caterpillars throughout the garden, so it's nice to see the adult visiting.

By June 10th, the action was heating up.  There was this cute little orange "teddy bear" nectaring, a bee fly (Chrysanthrax cypris).

Cute as this guy is, its life cycle is less cuddly.  Flies in the Chrysanthrax genus are external parasitoids on the cocoons of some solitary bees and on the cocoons of tiphiid wasps, which are themselves predators of beetle larvae.  The "balance of nature" is sometimes hard for me to feel comfortable with and gracefully accept, but I do my best.

Throughout June and again in August, I have photos of another bee fly (Exoprosopa fascipennis) nectaring at the fogfruit.

Again, I find this an attractive little creature, but again its life cycle is rather fearsome.  The bee flies in Exoprosopa feed on the cocoons of many different kinds of wasps, including the tiphiid wasps mentioned above, spider wasps, and a group of solitary wasps known as sphecid wasps.

Speaking of wasps, in mid June, this scoliid wasp (Scolia nobilitata) was enjoying the fogfruit nectar, too.

Scoliid wasps are parasitoids of beetle grubs, especially the grubs of May beetles.  The females dig down to the grub, sting it to paralyze it, and deposit on egg. When the egg hatches, the wasp larva eats the perfectly preserved beetle grub.  I like my grub control to be natural (even if it is rather gruesome that way)!

Since both the bee flies and the scoliid wasp were nectaring at the same time on the same plant, it is possible that one or the other of the bee fly species parasitizes this scoliid wasp species, following females as they leave their feeding ground and search for beetle grubs to parasitize.  There is so much about these little guys that we simply don't know, even things as basic as which bee fly species parasitizes which wasp species.  Often these predator/prey relationships with parasitoids are very specific, confined to just one or two species, or perhaps between two particular genuses.

Moving back to less gory lifecycles, a couple days after photographing the pretty wasp above, I started capturing images of butterflies and skippers.  First was this Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus) on June 16th.

 Since the larvae of fiery skippers dine on grasses such as St. Augustine, this species is relatively common.

On June 22nd, I photographed the first Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon) of the year, although these photos are from later in the summer.

These cute little orange butterflies utilize fogfruit as their larval plant, as well as obviously nectaring on it.  Since I see quite a few of them, I'm pretty sure that my little patch of fogfruit is producing phaon crescents, but I've never actutally found one of the caterpillars.

Something sure likes to eat the fogfruit leaves, though!

I spotted this dainty damselfly hanging out around the fogfruit several times last summer. It's the only damselfly or dragonfly species that I photographed on the fogfruit last year, and the folks at Antman's Hill identified it for me as a male Rambur's Forktail (Ischnura ramburii).  That makes sense, as I've seen the (orange) female Rambur's Forktail in the yard multiple times, although I've never photographed one on the fogfruit.

There were several more wasps and bees over the course of the summer, including this potter or mason wasp on July 20th, .....

...and this paper wasp (Polistes metricus) on August 10th.

I actually don't see many paper wasps in the yard - which is fine with me.  Instead, I see lots of solitary wasps, who are generally much easier to share space with. 

One of my favorite finds was this cute little black leafcutter bee, the Carpenter Mimic Leafcutter Bee (Megachile xylocopoides).  As the name suggests, this stunning black bee with the fluorescent blue shimmer is considered a mimic of larger carpenter bees, specifically the Southern Carpenter Bee, which I also saw in my yard last summer.

Note the long hairs on the underside of the abdomen?  That's how you can tell it's a leafcutter bee - at least if it's a female.  Female leafcutter bees carry pollen in those hairs, often giving them a potbellied appearance.  This gal was apparently feeding herself, not gathering pollen for future offspring.

On August 8th, I was able to capture photos of a Barred Sulfur (Eurema daira) visiting...

...and if you look closely at the stem a few inches below the blossom, you'll see the wad of spittle that signifies a spittlebug nymph feeding - yet another insect species utilizing the fogfruit.

A few days later, I photographed this crisp Checkered Skipper (Pyrgus sp.).

Apparently, most skipper larvae fold and sew leaves together to make tent shelters for themselves, so don't be too quick to destroy any such structures you might come across in your garden.

Of the 23 species I photographed on my Turkey Tangle Fogfruit in 2018, the above photos were the most interesting and/or the insects were the most photogenic.  Rounding out my 23 species were 4 more species of flies, 2-3 species of small beetles, a honeybee, and two other bees I haven't been able to identify yet.

Like the plant they were visiting, most of these animals aren't large or particularly beautiful.  They are the everyday denizens of our gardens, busily living their lives and often feeding other animals in the process.  To me, each of these species has the right to exist, the right to its place on this Earth, just as much as any other species has that same right.  I hope that, someday soon, we humans can learn to coexist with the other plants and animals on this planet, instead of needlessly and carelessly destroying them.

Dollarweed - What Good Is It?

Talk about a plant that everybody loves to hate!  Dollarweed (Hydrocotyle sp.) is a native plant, also known as pennywort, that loves to grow in the same conditions that also favor lawn grass:  bright sun, plentiful water, low surrounding vegetation.  It's hardy and it requires essentially no care.  With its single, round, silver dollar sized leaves, it is easily recognizable and it boldly stands out in a mass of linear grass leaves.  As such, dollarweed has gained great notoriety - heaven forbid that a non-grass plant disturb the carpet-like splendor of a lawn!

If you look at dollarweed simply as a plant, however, it's really rather attractive.  The bright, shiny green leaves reflect sunlight and are held aloft on pliable, sturdy stems. 

The flowers are umbels of white that are not glamorous, perhaps, but that are quite attractive in a quiet, lacy way.

 This photo shows how the umbels open up as they get older.

This morning, as I took photos, the insects I found on these flowers in a garden bed were tiny ants.  Truthfully, I didn't even see the ants until I opened the photos up on my computer screen.

Perhaps dollarweed's biggest flaw as a garden plant is that it doesn't tend to form solid mats but, instead, prefers to interweave through other plants, refusing to stay neatly in one place.  It's also difficult to completely eradicate from a lawn or flower bed with underground rhizomes that break off readily at each node. 

Because it's a native plant, I've wondered how dollarweed fits into the ecosystem here, but I haven't taken the time to really study it.  All I've noticed on the plant in my yard is an occasional leaf miner.   I'm not sure what insect is doing this particular leaf mining - the larva of a fly? of a moth? of a sawfly? of a beetle?  Any of these different types on insects have certain species whose larvae are leaf miners, feeding on the leaf tissue between the upper and lower surfaces of leaves.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a closeup photo of the bloom of dollarweed on Instagram.   Responding to the photo, which was identified only by the scientific name, presumably to minimize automatic knee-jerk negative responses, I commented on my interest about how this plant worked in the ecosystem.  The poster replied back with a list of Hymenopterans (bees, ants, and wasps) that had been observed by scientists in 2015 on dollarweed flowers at Archbold Biological Station here in Florida. (See note below.)

Here's the list "floridaplants" sent, comprised of 10 solitary wasps and one native bee.  As you scan it, be sure to note the prey that these wasps use for feeding their young: orb weaver spiders, beetles, flies, leafhoppers or planthoppers, leafhoppers, flies, flies, flies, moth caterpillars, and moth caterpillars.

Episyron conterminus posterus - a spider wasp specializing in orb weavers to provision their nests
Cerceris blakei - a digger wasp that provisions its nest with beetles
Ectemnius rufipes ais - a square-headed wasp that nests in dead wood, provisioning its nest with flies
Epinysson melippes - a solitary wasp that provisions its nest with leafhoppers or planthoppers
Hoplisoides dentriculatus dentriculatus - a sand wasp that provisions its nest with leafhoppers
Oxybelus emarginatus - a prong-backed flyhunter wasp that provisions its nest with flies
Tachysphex apicaulis - a square-headed wasp that provisions its nest with flies
Tachysphex similis - a square-headed wasp that provisions its nest with flies
Leptochilus acolhuus - a mason wasp provisioning its nest with moth caterpillars
Parancistrocerus salcularis rufulus - a mason wasp provisioning its nest with moth caterpillars
Halictus poeyi - Poey's Furrow Bee, a small native bee in the sweat bee family that provisions its nest with nectar and pollen

Wouldn't it be great to get some free, round-the-clock pest control in your gardens?  Especially pest control that specializes in controlling some of the insects above without, at the same time, killing praying mantids, honeybees, or monarch butterflies?

Well, you can have exactly that sort of pest control - IF you leave dollarweed and other small, flowering plants alone in your lawn, instead of treating them like public enemy #1.  In fact, this sort of situation is why Greg and I don't use chemicals on our lawn.  If it grows low, is generally green, and can be mowed, we let it be.  Because of their relationships with native pollinators, I prefer to have native plants as weeds in my grass - rustweed and some of the sedges, for example, as well as dollarweed - but it's almost impossible to have native broadleafed plants without also having non-natives, so we "live and let live".  

The only one of the insects in the list above that I've knowingly observed in my yard is the native bee, Halictus poeyi, Poey's Furrow Bee, shown in the photo above on Gaillardia and identified on BugGuide.net.  Coincidentally, it's the only one of the insects on the Archbold Biological Station's list with a common name. That doesn't mean the wasps aren't an important part of the natural web of nature, too, it just means that people haven't paid a lot of attention to them.  They're generally small.  They're not very colorful.  They don't bother people. Until recently, it's simply that nobody has paid much attention to them.  Generally, scientists often don't know which species, exactly, each wasp specializes in utilizing as prey for food for its larvae.

What a shame that we've ignored these important parts of the ecosystems in our yards and gardens...but what an interesting chance for everyday gardeners to help restore the balance of nature.  Literally as well as figuratively.  Best of all, this ability to help restore Earth's ecosystems is as easy as refraining from using chemicals on our lawns.  Seems like a no-brainer to me.


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Note:  According to the Instagram poster "floridaplants", self described as a botanist, this is the list of wasps and bees that were observed nectaring at dollarweed, Hydrocotyle umbellatus, at Archbold Biological Station in Florida.  The scientific paper (?) is Deyrup, M.A. and M.D. 2015. Database of observations of Hymenoptera visitations to flowers of plants on Archbold Biological Station, Florida, USA.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a copy of this database online, so I'm going out on a limb here and assuming the information is accurate.  After all, it's not like many people have the interest or ability to make up a list of scientific names like this.