An Eventful Week in the Abbott Annex of Homegrown National Park

 What a week it's been!

Last Wednesday, an immature Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) caught, killed, and ate a Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) right outside my office window.  Yes, I felt bad for the dove...but the hawk has to eat, too.  It seemed really hungry and stayed in that same spot, eating nonstop, for over 90 minutes.

A new species of firefly has started flashing in the yard lately, during the time immediately after dark.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos to share.  We noticed them Friday night, when our cable went out due to a storm.  With no internet to distract us, we sat on the front porch watching the storm - and serendipitously noticed the fireflies.  This species seems to flash in a fairly long, horizontal single flash - no "J dip".  I haven't been able to find an adult during the day yet; I'm hoping to so that I can try to identify which species this is.

This evening I thought I might re-enact my childhood and catch a couple in a jar, look at them up close, and then release them...but either fireflies have gotten a lot more elusive or I've gotten a lot worse at catching them.  It didn't help that it was lightly raining, thunder was grumbling, and there were occasional flashes of lightning in the sky.  My heart just wasn't in the project.  I kept seeing headlines that read, "68 Year Old Woman Struck By Lightning As She Tried To Catch Fireflies In A Jar".  I guess it would make a good family history story, though.

A new-to-the-yard firefly species would bring our yard total up to 4 different species of fireflies.

The eggs of the Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) have hatched.  Not only are Mom and Dad Bluebird busy getting food for the chicks, but there's a juvenile hanging around that I think may be from an earlier clutch.

Right outside the bluebird box, the berries on our large American Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) have started to change color, and the birds are eating them as fast as they ripen.  Note the bright pink remnants of a berry cluster?  THAT bunch didn't last long!  

Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) seem to be very common consumers, as do the Bluebirds themselves.  Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) tried to come in to snack on the berries, too, but the Bluebirds were having none of that, thank you very kindly.  They were  extremely vigorous in driving the jays away.  The Bluebirds didn't seem to mind the Cardinals, though.  I saw one juvenile Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) hop into the bush, but a human visitor scared him away before I could see if he was just passing through or if he was actually there to eat.  And, if the latter, whether he would upset the Bluebirds.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to see a Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) bopping all around the back yard, laying eggs on a large number of Violets (Viola sororia).  I've understood for years that violets are the host plants for fritillaries, but I've never seen any sign of caterpillars on any violets that I've grown.  I'm looking forward to being a fritillary grandparent now!

The Variegated Fritillary took a few moments to relax from her labors and I was able to snap a photo - not a good one, but still enough to let you know what she looks like in general.  She was about the size of a Painted Lady or Red Admiral.

Note:  Apparently this species of fritillary differs from many of the other fritillary species in having additional host plants besides violets.  According to iNaturalist, in our yard the other host plants would be Plantain (Plantago sp.), Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), and possibly Yellow Passionvine (Passiflora lutea), since 3 other Passiflora species are listed as host plants.

Shortly after I lost sight of the Variegated Fritillary, a Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) zipped in and seemed to lay eggs on the Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) by the back shed.  I was able to capture a photo of the butterfly, but I didn't catch her "in the act".  Now I know, though, that I'm likely to see the folded leaves that signal Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars in the near future.  

As I meander in the yard this summer, I feel like I'm seeing an exciting increase in insect species, especially in butterflies and moths.  So far this year I've seen Spicebush Swallowtails (Papilio troilus), a Pipeline Swallowtail (Battus philenor), Tulip-tree Beauties (Epimecis hortaria), 2 species of Underwing Moths, Baltimore Snouts (Hypena baltimoralis), and over 15 other moth species that are "new to the yard".  Those are just the ones I've been able to take photos of that were clear enough to identify.  There have been many, many more moths and butterflies than fluttered away without posing for me.  And I'm only seeing the adults, the ones that weren't turned into baby birds or other animals when they were caterpillars!

I recently finished reading Oliver Milman's The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World, published in 2022.  It was a sobering read and reinforced my passion for rewilding our little space, working to create a bit of habitat where native plants and insects have a chance to live and flourish.

We started caring for this yard in the fall of 2019.  Over the course of that first year, I saw just a couple butterfly and skipper species - and no moths, despite being outside pulling Japanese Stiltgrass for what felt like days on end.  

The difference between then and now is so incredibly heartening.  It gives me hope.  We've removed invasive species, left the leaves, left native seedlings that were "planted" by birds, and we've also planted more native plants.  We haven't sprayed insecticides or herbicides.  That's it.  Nothing fancy or complicated.  That's been our management plan as we try to give nature some breathing space to recover.  And our yard has responded: it is infinitely more full of life now than it was 4 years ago.  We CAN have a positive impact.

This Week in Pest-Controlling and Pollinating Wasps

While I'd love to be seeing more insect life in our yard, I have to admit that I AM seeing some interesting insects - including a few that are totally new to me.  So I thought it would be fun to share what I'm seeing as well as the blooms that are bringing them in.

How to organize this????  By day?  By bloom?  By type of insect?  I'll just have to see what flows best.....

I started out to make this post an overview of all the pollinators I've seen over the week, but it quickly became apparent that would be overwhelming, so I decided to focus this post just on wasps.

Wasps have been quite prominent recently, especially solitary wasps.  Last Friday, July 20th, was when I first noticed some unusual ones -3 in a row, in fact, over the course of about 10 minutes, on the clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum).

The first was a large scarab hunter wasp that has no common name so I've nicknamed it the fuzzy scarab hunter wasp (Campsomeris plumipes).  Like other scarab hunters, this wasp flies low above the ground, searching for (buried) scarab beetle larvae, a.k.a. beetle grubs.  When she finds one, she digs down to it, paralyzes it, lays an egg on it, and flies away.  The egg hatches out and the wasp larva consumes the beetle grub.  One wasp egg on one beetle grub, so every one of these you see means that a scarab beetle of some sort - say a June bug or green June beetle - didn't make it to adulthood.

As you can see, the adult wasp actually eats nectar to sustain itself, as is true for most of these solitary wasps.  Also as solitary wasps, they are not aggressive and they will not sting unless you actively try to handle them or they get caught in your clothing, stepped on in bare feet, etc.  You can assume this is true for all solitary wasps unless someone mentions otherwise.  It's a nice change from the more problematic social wasps.

As an aside, all the solitary wasps I'm familiar with have only one generation each year, so if you take them out (for example, by spraying insecticides), it may be several years before their population numbers can rebuild by migrating in from surrounding areas.  Given how well they function as both pollinators and, probably more importantly, as pest control, that would seem to be extremely short sighted to me.

Back to my magic 10 minutes by the mountain mint, the next insect to fly in, while I was photographing the fuzzy scarab hunter wasp, was the great golden digger wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus).  This is a species I've seen before, both here and in Kansas, and I love its fiery color and large size.  You just can't mistake this distinctive wasp with its red legs and black-tipped red abdomen for any other species.  Look, too, at the golden glow created by the gold hair on its head and thorax.  That's something you almost have to take a picture of to appreciate, although I've seen it highlighted occasionally as one of these beauties nectars. 

Another solitary wasp, great golden digger wasps hunt for and paralyze grasshoppers and crickets as food for their larvae.  The female digs a burrow in sandy soil, with a central, almost vertical, main burrow and individual cells radiating out from this primary burrow.  She places one paralyzed grasshopper or cricket in each cell, lays an egg on it, then seals up the cell.

As I was finishing up my "photo session" with the great golden digger wasp and taking a few last photos of the fuzzy scarab hunter wasp, I noticed more movement in the air space around the mountain mint - a thread waisted wasp had come in to feed, too. 

This rather bizarre looking wasp not only held its abdomen up at a strange angle as it flew, but the sun caught metallic glimmers of color on its otherwise black body and wings.  Researching on BugGuide.net, I identified this species as Eremnophila aureonotata.  Again there is no common name, so I've nicknamed it the gold-marked thread-waisted wasp, "aureonotata" meaning "gold-marked" in Latin.  This solitary wasp species feeds its larvae on a wide variety of (paralyzed) moth caterpillars, utilizing a burrow in the ground, as far as I can tell.

So, according to the time stamps on my photos, in just over 10 minutes my mountain mint had nurtured predators working to control beetle grubs, grasshoppers and mole crickets, and moth caterpillars in my gardens.  Not too shabby!!!  And it didn't cost me a dime beyond the initial cost of a very pretty perennial plant.

I've seen a couple other wasps this week, too.  One I've been seeing frequently for several weeks now is less than half the size of the big guys above.  It's a cute little black mason wasp with 2 white stripes on its abdomen (Euodynerus sp.).  When I grabbed its picture above, I think it was hunting for caterpillars among the ferns.  Again, there is no common name for this wasp, so my description above ("cute little black mason wasp") will have to suffice.  Mason and potter wasps feed their larvae primarily on moth caterpillars, although some species also use the larvae of leaf-eating beetles.  If you see smallish wasps using mud to fill up small holes (for example in brick, where your hurricane shutters have gone up in the past), it may well be one of these mason wasps.  They build cells out of mud in hollow tubes, provisioning each cell with a paralyzed caterpillar or beetle larvae on which they lay an egg before closing up the cell and moving on. 

Do you sense a pattern among the solitary wasps here?! They've found a good gig in paralyzing prey to keep it fresh for their young to eat after hatching, then tweaked the process in a myriad of different ways so that each species has its own spin...and ecological niche.

I've seen these little black and white mason wasps nectaring on blossoms as well as hunting in my gardens.  I've found small holes filled with dried mud, which I presume are their nest cells.  These are enjoyable little creatures for me to notice as I go out and about weeding, planting, transplanting, watering, and photographing.  Just in the last week I have photographs of this species hunting in these ferns, shown above, as well as in camphorweed and in and out of leaves and mulch at the base of phlox and lyreleaf sage.  Front yard, back yard.  Sun, shade.  This little wasp is a "busy bee" in its work habits.

At the other end of the size spectrum from the cute little mason wasp is the gigantic 4-spotted scarab hunter wasp (Campsomeris quadrimaculata) that I've seen a couple times now.  Boy, am I ever glad that these guys aren't at all aggressive, because they are HUGE and they give me pause even though I know they won't bother me.  The photo above shows this big black beauty all coated with pollen from nectaring at maypop flowers (Passiflora incarnata).

Here is a photo I took about 2 weeks ago of a "clean" 4 spotted scarab hunter wasp, nectaring on sweet pepperbush blooms (Clethra alnifolia).   See how much pollen the individual nectaring at the passion vine is wearing in comparison?!  That's what I call a pollinator!

For the sake of clarity, again I've made up a nickname for this wasp as, again, it has not been given an official common name.  Its specific Latin name, "quadrimaculata", means "4-spotted", while the entire genus is known as scarab hunter wasps, hence the "4-spotted scarab hunter wasp".   This is another great predator in the garden, paralyzing and laying eggs in scarab beetle grubs.

Big and little, I've got wasps sharing my gardens that are making life easier - and much more interesting - for me.  I used to hate wasps, but now I smile whenever I see one.  I hope you're seeing some great solitary wasps in your gardens, too.

 

Secrets of An Assassin Bug's Diet, or Beware of First Impressions!

When I went out with the dog, first thing this morning, I noticed a ladybug on one of my milkweeds, so I went inside and grabbed my camera to photograph it.  I just don't see ladybugs very often any more.  The ladybug turned out to be a Multi-Colored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis), which is very disappointing but not too surprising.  This is the species that is displacing so many of our native ladybugs.

As usually happens when I get my camera out, however, I found a couple other things to photograph while I was outside, and I'd like to share one of them with you tonight.

As I was photographing the ladybug, I noticed another orangish red and black insect nearby, a nymph of a Milkweed Assassin Bug (Zelus longipes).  I'm fairly used to seeing these in my garden nowadays, so I didn't pay too much attention to it at first....

Then I noticed the long, small, white insect it was eating.  "Damn!" I thought to myself, "It's a tiny monarch caterpillar!  No wonder I haven't been seeing any larger monarch caterpillars around."

Since I'm a pretty firm believer in "the circle of life", especially when the life forms involved are native, I did nothing but take a couple pictures.  The assassin bug nymph soon finished its meal and started hunting again, but I didn't notice it capture anything else.

Tonight I went through this morning's photos on the computer - and, lo and behold, that wasn't a tiny monarch caterpillar!  The Milkweed Assassin Bug nymph was actually eating a newly molted (still white) leafhopper!  The leafhopper was just so small that my eyes couldn't make out what it actually was until the magic of photography enlarged it for me.

I have no idea which species of leafhopper this was, but all leafhoppers drink plant sap, so this is a perfect example of a predator keeping a plant-eating insect population under control.  (To be brutally honest, of course, the same could be said if the assassin bug HAD actually been eating a monarch caterpillar.)

Once again I had a dope slap moment and had to remind myself not to jump to conclusions when I'm out in the garden, observing.  I am continually amazed at the intricate functioning of the web of life...when we humans can avoid mucking around with it.

Red Aphids on Milkweed?

Many years ago I found aphids infesting a little milkweed plant I'd purchased but had yet to plant.  I didn't want to spray chemicals, but I was concerned that the little plant wouldn't make it - and I was concerned that the aphids would spread to all the other plants in my garden.  Feeling very noble and "green", I hooked up a strong sprayer to the hose and simply, carefully, sprayed all those little yellow aphids off the plant.  Ah, I'd saved it!

Except that when I got to looking at the milkweed plant after I'd washed the aphids off, I noticed a lacewing egg on its willowy stalk.  I'd washed off all the food that the lacewing mother had planned for her offspring to eat and thus I'd managed to kill the beneficial-predator-to-be.

Note:  The photo above is of a lacewing egg, but on a tree leaf, rather than on a milkweed.  The egg on the tip of the stalk is diagnostic, as far as I know, of a lacewing egg.  Sadly, I don't appear to have photographed my little milkweed/aphid/hose experiment, but I thought you might be interested in what a lacewing egg looks like.

Back to the story.....   Feeling a little sick at heart after spraying off the aphids and finding the lacewing egg, I took to the web to do some research.  WHY didn't I do that research BEFORE I reached for the hose sprayer?

It turns out that most aphids are pretty species specific regarding their host plants.  The little yellow aphids with black legs on milkweed are oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) and are found primarily on milkweeds and oleanders.  These little aphids were never going to be a problem on my asters or Echinacea or garden vegetables. 

Interestingly, oleander aphids are not native to North America.  They were brought here along with oleanders, which are also not native.  Luckily, unlike with many other non-native insects like Japanese beetles, there ARE predators and parasites that will help keep oleander aphid populations under control.

In this photo, for example, it's easy to see both the yellow oleander aphids and the aphid-eating syrphid fly larvae on the tropical milkweed.  The syrphid fly larvae are some of the predators on oleander aphids.



Fast forward to recent days.


Evidently, with so many more people planting milkweed for monarchs these days, a lot of folks are suddenly noticing oleander aphids on their milkweeds.  Questions abound about how to kill these aphids without jeopardizing the monarch caterpillars.

In my experience, thanks to the work of predatory insects, the populations of oleander aphids on milkweeds will cycle up and down, but will almost never hurt the plant.  Since I think chemical alternatives do far more harm than any possible good, I freely share my experiences whenever it seems appropriate.

In the above photo, for example, there are at least two aphid mummies and two syrphid fly larvae among the aphids. 

The aphid mummies (round, dark brown remains of aphids) are what happens when small wasps parasitize the aphids.  Each aphid mummy produces one new adult wasp.

The syrphid fly larvae feed exclusively on aphids and look like moist bird droppings to me.  You can also see the out-of-focus, brown ball of another aphid mummy in the upper left hand corner of this closeup, too.

Going back to the original photo above, here is a closeup of the second syrphid fly larva in the upper left corner.  This looks like a different species of syrphid fly larva to me.

Yellow colored, oleander aphids are the only kinds of aphids I've ever noticed on milkweeds, so imagine my surprise the other morning when I went out and found a cluster of what looked suspiciously like bright red aphids on one of the flower clusters.  What in the world?!  I couldn't help but think of Sheldon Cooper when he exclaims, "Oh, what fresh hell is this?!"

After photographing my unusual "red aphids", I realized they were actually newly hatched nymphs of the large milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) that I've been seeing on my milkweed plants in recent weeks, regularly having x-rated fun.  It surprised me a little bit, as I was under the impression that large milkweed bug nymphs primarily eat milkweed seeds and these were on flower bud clusters.  However, insects don't read instructions on what they are supposed to do, as we all learn daily.

Now I'm curious to see if I can tell what predators will show up to help thin the ranks of the young large milkweed bugs.  How could anyone ever be bored in a garden?!

A Trickle of Native Insects Begins to Appear....

FINALLY!  We've lived here for about 16 months now and at last I am beginning to see a greater variety of  insects attracted to and living in our yard.  It's so exciting to go outside and see native pollinators nectaring at the few little blooms we have scattered around, or predatory insects patrolling the foliage and flowers.  It sure goes to show that changes don't have to be big or dramatic to have an impact.  Every little bit counts.

So here are some of my recent finds....

Gulf fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae) are gorgeous butterflies, with silver patterns on the undersides of their wings and an almost fluorescent orange coloration on the top side.  The fresh individual in the top photo was nectaring at garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), while the tattered one in the lower photo is nectarying at Flyr's Nemesis (Brickellia cordifolia), a rare wildflower in Florida that has recently become available at some native plant nurseries, including 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery in DeFuniak Springs.

Out and about, I'm seeing more gulf fritillaries flying everywhere these days, presumably due to the time of year.  However, I'm starting to count on seeing them regularly in our yard since we finally have some caterpillars eating the maypop vines (Passiflora incarnata) that we planted on the lower terraces last spring.  Just as monarch caterpillars only eat milkweeds, plants in the genus Asclepias, so gulf fritillary caterpillars only eat maypops and passionflowers, plants in the genus Passiflora.

Predators are pretty rare in the yard still.  It took me around 5 years to start noticing them regularly in my Kansas gardens, so I'm trusting that they'll increase in number as I garden naturally here.

With a lake right out the back door, however, we do have several dragonfly and damselfly species.  One of the species I've just started to see is the eastern amberwing (Perithemis tenera).  A male and a female have staked out the small patch of powderpuff (Mimosa strigillosa) in the front yard and I can count on finding them there essentially every day.

Although this species is quite small for a dragonfly, the male eastern amberwing, shown above, is easy to spot since he's dramatically colored, with shining amber-colored wings and a darker amber body.  Up close, the camera captures yellow markings on the thorax and abdomen that the eye generally misses.  The female, however, is much different....

...and much drabber.  Her darkly blotched wings and more sober colors don't attract the eye as her mate's colors do, but that's probably the point.  She, too, has yellow markings on her thorax and abdomen. 

These small dragonflies are said to eat "tiny, flying insects", which I interpret to mean mosquitoes.  Hopefully my male and female eastern amberwings will produce lots and lots of baby eastern amberwings to patrol my yard even more thoroughly!

Another colorful species that I've observed, photographed, and been able to identify is the metallic green bee, Agapostemon splendens.  I've always loved the metallic green bees, especially the ones that are entirely green, because of their vibrant coloring.

Shown above, the females of Agapostemon splendens are especially beautiful to my eye and earn their "splendid" moniker based on the beautiful shadings of blue and green on their abdomen.  Note:  I have no real idea why this species was labeled the splendid green metallic bee, but I think the abdomenal color IS splendid.

Here's another, closer look at that gorgeous color.  Look, too, at the pollen load that this little bee is carrying - the pollen from this species of flower is white, not yellow, and that's a LOT of pollen clustered on her hind legs!  She still has to finish her load and, most importantly, fly back to her nest with her carefully gathered provisions.  Like many other native bees, the Agapostemon bees nest in the ground, usually in a tunnel dug by the female.  After digging the tunnel, the female gathers together a ball of pollen and nectar, lays an egg on it, seals off the cell, and repeats the process several times.

Interestingly, like the eastern amberwing dragonfly above, Agapostemon splendens is another dimorphic insect species, with the male looking significantly different from the female.  The photo above is a male of the same species.  While the thorax is similar to the female's, the abdomen is completely different - males sporting a natty black and yellow stripe pattern that is vibrant, but not as pleasing to my eye.  This little guy was fun to watch.  He seemed to perform head stands as he fed, diving deeply into the flower to get his prize.

Unlike the colorful green metallic bees, the next bees I want to share with you are somber black with a few white markings.

Another native bee, this is a carpenter-mimic cuckoo-leaf-cutter (Coelioxys dolichos) - a name that seems more interesting than the bee looks, at least on first appraisal.  That's the bloom of a wild lettuce (Lactuca sp.) that she's feeding on.

What drew my attention to this bee was the pointed abdomen, which is very distinctive.  Cuckoo bees are parasites on other bees.  The females of this genus of cuckoo bee, Coelioxys, use that sharp abdomen to break into the nests of their host species and lay eggs on the pollen and nectar stored there for the host's eggs.  Because female cuckoo bees don't have to provision their own nests, they don't have pollen baskets and they aren't seen carrying pollen;  they do, however, still have to feed themselves.

This particular species, the carpenter-mimic cuckoo-leaf-cutter, is a parasite on a single bee species called the carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee (Megachile xylocopoides). Ironically, when I went to look up M. xylocopoides, I recognized the pictures as showing the same species as another, unidentified bee species in my recent photos!  I even took the photos of the two different species within a few feet of each other, just 1 day apart!

Here is the male carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee (Megachile xylocopoides), also feeding on wild lettuce blooms.  Did the two bees, the predator and the prey, hatch out of the same nest?  There's probably a good chance of it.  At the very least, it would appear that the nests were nearby.

There are many more sightings I'd love to share, but this post is long enough for now.  Hope you're seeing lots of interesting insects in your gardens, too!

Smiling at Wasps

Just outside our kitchen window are the lower branches of a pignut hickory tree.  The leaves are typical for hickory in June - bright green, compound, and in pretty good condition, but nothing showy or unusual.  Often, when I look out the window, I see a wasp or two flying in and out of the leaves, seeming to inspect them top and bottom.

A few years ago I would have freaked out a bit.  Where was the wasp nest?  Would I get stung as I was changing out the hummingbird feeder water or emptying and refilling the small birdbath just below these branches?  What is that wasp DOING out there?!

Now I relax...and quietly thank each wasp I see.  Why this change in my attitude?

After living on this Earth for almost 60 years, I finally realized that wasps weren't my enemies, they were my friends.  The wasps I see inspecting the hickory leaves are looking for caterpillars to paralyze and take to their nest as food for their progeny.  Those very wasps are probably almost completely responsible for the fact that the hickory leaves still look good, even this early in the growing season.  To my knowledge, all wasp young are raised on meat, a.k.a. caterpillars and other insects/arthropods.  Some wasp species hunt cicadas, some wasp species hunt grasshoppers, some wasp species hunt spiders...and many wasp species hunt caterpillars.

Meanwhile, most adult wasps feed on nectar and/or pollen.  You can often see them feeding on flowers, as in my photo from Kansas, taken in October, 2014.

It's only in defense of their nest - their eggs and young and queen - that wasps generally get nasty-tempered, and many wasps are solitary nesters, so they don't get nasty-tempered even then.

Meanwhile, the female wasps patrol our yards and gardens all day long, hunting for the caterpillars or even grasshoppers munching on our plants.

Will I happily allow a paper wasp nest to be built right outside a commonly used doorway?  No.  However, I do allow mud daubers to build there, since they are solitary wasps and not aggressive.  Now, too, I allow paper wasp nests to be built in out-of-the-way places, although I do note carefully where they are, so I can steer clear of them.

It never ceases to amaze me how well "nature" works when we get out of its way.  It's never as scary as it seems before we take the time to realize what's actually going on.
 

Learning the Local Native Plants

Ashamedly, I have to admit that it took me living here for over 10 months to get off my duff and go back out to the nearby wild area for a walk-about to look for native plants.  Even then, my friend Anna had to initiate the outing.  I can't believe I waited this long - and I'm kicking myself about all the interesting sights I have been missing.

On Monday morning, Anna and I sallied forth to the same road/trail that my family and I visited 18 months ago.  I blogged about our finds in "We're Not in Kansas Any More!" as well as two subsequent posts about specific plants.  Walking on Monday, I actually recognized the American holly tree that I talked about in that original post, but otherwise my attention was generally drawn to very different plants this time.

We were scouting for lupine, which Anna had seen along this sand road just a week or two earlier.  Unfortunately, in the intervening time, some "maintenance" had been done on the trail by a bulldozer, carelessly and messily widening it, and we found no trace of the lupine.  We did, however, discover some other treasures.

One of the first plants we noticed was Pinewoods Milkweed, Asclepias humistrata.

This plant is also known by the common names of sandhill milkweed, for its preferred habitat, and pink-veined milkweed or purple milkweed for rather obvious reasons.  This is a plant that I would love to grow in my yard, as I find the leaves gorgeous just by themselves. 

Add in the attractive pinkish flowers and its function as food for monarch caterpillars and this plant becomes almost irresistible.

Another attractive plant that we noticed was this little white-flowered beauty with its beautifully shaped, dark green leaves.

As I researched to figure out what we were seeing, I was very glad that we didn't try to pick any of the flowers we saw, just to save us from picking this one.  This plant is called Tread-Softly, Cnidoscolus stimulosus, and all of the green, above-ground parts of the plant are covered with stinging hairs.  While this isn't not a true nettle, it is sometimes called bull nettle or spurge nettle.  Another name for it is finger rot, which makes my imagination run wild in all sorts of nasty ways.  Needless to say, this is NOT a plant that I plan on trying to import into our yard!   Ironically, at least one source said that the tuberous roots are edible...but getting to those roots might take some serious caution.

Silphium is a genus that I became somewhat familiar with on the prairie, where one of its most famous members is Compass Plant, Silphium laciniatum.  As soon as I saw the leaves of this basal rosette, my mind yelled, "Silphium!", and I think that instinctive reaction is probably correct.

While I won't know for sure until later in the year when I see it bloom, I think this beautiful little clump of big, bright green leaves belongs to Kidneyleaf Rosinweed, Silphium compositum.   I'm not sure you could dream up a much uglier name for a plant.  Despite its ugly name, I hope to find a source for this species, since I think the leaves would look really nice in a native flower bed, adding some dramatic size and visual texture to the overall mix.

There were two flowers that we found that I haven't been able to identify yet.  First was this pinky-purple little beauty.

That's reindeer moss nestled beside it, to give you a sense of scale.  We saw several of these plants blooming and they were all less than 12" tall.

Second was this yellow-green, almost abstract bloomer that I suspect is in the Euphorbiaceae family. We saw several;  they seemed to run about 15-18" tall.

If anyone knows the identity of either of these plants, I would love to know what they are.

Another plant we noticed was this silvery, quiet-looking plant.

A little research gave me the identity, Healing Croton, Croton argyranthemus. 

What I haven't been able to determine is why it's been given the common name of Healing Croton.  It is the larval food for a pretty little butterfly known as a goatweed leafwing.   I haven't seen a goatweed leafwing since moving here to Florida, although they do occur here, but here are photos of one in Kansas, taken in September 2013.

Speaking of butterflies, at one point we found this large chrysalis hanging from a bare branch.  I don't know enough about such things to begin to guess what species made this chrysalis, but I think it's cool.

Another insect sighting was this black and white wasp, working busily to deal with a caterpillar, presumably extracted from this stitched together clump of leaves.

At the time, I was concerned that it might be a bald-faced hornet, so I didn't get too close. 

When I got home and downloaded the photos, I realized that this little beauty is actually a potter or mason wasp, a solitary wasp, presumably collecting caterpillars to paralyze and store for its young to eat as it grows.

Reindeer moss, sparkleberry, blooming yaupon, black cherry, beach rosemary.....  We saw a lot of other things that entranced us.  I'll leave you with a photo of the sky through the pine trees - a slice of heaven.

The Milkweed Community Beyond Monarchs

My attempt to rescue 4 monarch caterpillars that were about to eat out their food source seemed to fail, despite my provisioning them with 6 white milkweed and 2 swamp milkweed plants from 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery.  The last - and largest - of the caterpillars curled up in a question mark on the soil surface one day and then disappeared overnight.  Eaten?  Probably.  Pupated somewhere?  Possibly.  At any rate, I have no more monarch caterpillars to watch right now.

However, I do have my 8 milkweed plants.  Making me quite sure that these plants weren't being treated with neonics, my milkweeds came pre-supplied with bright yellow aphids.  A little research on BugGuide.net informed me that these aphids are oleander aphids, Aphis nerii.  Oleander aphids are actually native to the Mediterranean area, but they have become common around the globe, having traveled everywhere on oleander plants.  Oleander aphids are especially common on oleander and on milkweed plants, although they are known to feed on several other types of plants as well.

As I was looking for the monarch caterpillars, I noticed a fly hovering about 6" from the milkweed plants. Watching more closely, I noticed there were actually about 6 flies, and that occasionally one would dart in, look like it was depositing something, and return to hovering.

So I got my camera and tried to take a photo.  After a long time - and many attempts - I hadn't managed to get a nicely clear photo, but I had managed to get a couple shots where I was able to at least get a feel for the flies I was seeing.

Between the blurry photos, the gestalt I had, and the research I did, I think that this little fly is a species of syrphid fly, Ocyptamus fuscipennis, known both for its dark colored wings and its diet of aphids in the larval stage.  That's just my best guess, however.  It's not a verified identification.

As I was trying, again and again, to get a clear photo of one of the syrphid flies, I suddenly noticed a couple tiny, tiny wasps walking among the aphids.  As I looked through the camera lens, I watched one of the wasps curl its abdomen and seem to poke the aphids individually.  This was a little odd, because the wasp curled its abdomen relatively far away from the aphids, but I was sure that it was laying eggs on them.  Again I took photos, but again I didn't get any good shots - to get clear photos of such minuscule insects, I needed a tripod for stability and a windless day with no sway in the plant stems.

Despite my lack of good photos, I saw enough to have a good idea of what was going on.  After more research, I suspect that the small wasps were braconid wasps, which parasitize aphids by inserting an egg in an individual aphid.  The egg hatches and the larval wasp eats the aphid from the inside, killing the aphid and leaving an "aphid mummy", which is essentially the shell of the aphid with the larva, then pupa, of the wasp inside.  When the wasp emerges from its pupal stage, it cuts a hole in the aphid mummy and emerges, to repeat the cycle.  If you click on the link I've highlighted, you'll see a great photo posted on BugGuide.net of one of these wasps in egg-laying stance, ready to lay an egg on an oleander aphid.

Note:  Looking at several of my photos from this series, there are many little dots on them.  The dots were only visible when I enlarged the images and they only occurred in the middle of the milkweed plants.  I don't think it was a dirty lens (although I will certainly be cleaning it to verify).  There is also a small, beetle-like insect on the vein of the milkweed leaf in the very bottom right of the photo above, which I haven't identified.  I think it might be some sort of weevil, but that is simply another guess.

So right now, with no milkweed blooms to be had, I've already got 4 species that are relying on my milkweeds for the basis of their life cycle:  monarchs, oleander aphids, a syrphid fly, and a braconid wasp.  I've also seen examples of herbivory (monarch caterpillars and oleander aphids), predator-prey relationships (syrphid flies and aphids), and parasitism (braconid wasps and aphids).  Pretty cool for February!