Golden Afternoon

Top Photo: Common buckeye on goldenrod. Positioning oneself next to a stand of goldenrod on a sunny fall afternoon is a wise choice for a naturalist interested in getting a quick inventory of the local flying insects. The insects are attracted to the yellow flowers for their nectar and accessibility. There are no long tubular flowers requiring a lengthy proboscis to reach the sweet liquid. No hovering necessary either, the flowers are right there on top of the plant. SmallRead more

A Passion For Flowers

Located around our campus there grows two different varieties of passionflower or passion vine, yellow (passiflora lutea) and purple (Passiflora incarnata). The yellow variety is a small, more delicate plant than the purple variety. Although the flower is structurally similar it is smaller and less ornate. The leaves are three lobed as in the purple passionflower vine but with little or no sinus separating the lobes. The flowers on the purple variety are about three inches across whereas the yellowRead more

Datana in the Birch

It’s caterpillar time. Although you can see caterpillars munching and crawling about the landscape from March to October, now is the time when you’ll encounter more of them in both numbers of individuals and diversity of species. Daily, people approach me with smartphone images, or even live caterpillars in their hands, asking “what is this?” Sometimes I know what it is, other times I don’t. Fortunately, if I don’t immediately recognize what it is they hold in their hands or haveRead more

Black Swallowtail

Black Swallowtail Butterflies lay their eggs on parsley, fennel, Queen Anne’s Lace, and other plants in the carrot family. Plant some parsley in a pot on your back porch and watch the fun!Read more