Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.
Usually growing as a single stalk, occasionally branching near the top. The stalk staying low, at perhaps 6 inches, or growing to 2 1/2 feet tall with alternate leaves.
The bitter plant is noxious and is avoided by mammalian herbivores and is even avoided by White-tailed Deer. Humans also need to avoid eating the plant.
The flowers bloom in a variety of soft colors, pale blue, pale violet, and pale pale almost white-purple, most having just a hint of yellow-green just inside the flower. Each flower is tiny, measuring just 1/4 inch to 1/3 inch long.
At the bottom of each flower there is a calyx having 5 long spreading spikes. As the flower begins to wilt the calyx will begin to swell. It becomes a seed capsule 1/3 inch in width. The seed capsule is divided into 2 cells which contain many very small seeds that are distributed by the wind.
Though really small, I enjoy having this plant volunteer in my gardens. After all what could be better than a plant that is avoided by White-tailed Deer.
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These creatures amaze me. Just 1/4 inch in length, and such BIG eyes! A species of Robber Fly (Holcocephala). There are about1,000 species of Robber Fly in North America the largest being about 2 inches long.
These two photos are Gnat Ogres (Holcocephala fusca) and this one is posing with a gnat it has captured.
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This is a caterpillar of the Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia), chomping away on a Violet (Viola) leaf, one of many host plants of this species. A few other examples of their host plants are Passion Vines, Pansies, Purslane, Flax, and Mayapple.
As an adult, the Variegated Fritillary can live over 10 months. That’s a mighty long life for a butterfly!
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“Vernal pools, also called vernal ponds or ephemeral pools, are seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals.” Wikipedia
Occasionally there is water in a vernal pool next to the yoga studio where I take classes three days a week. It’s a special place. Well, yes indeed, the studio is a special place. That’s why I’m there three days a week, but I’m speaking now of the vernal pool. It has very seldom been there in its wet form for quite some time. I miss it. It presents all sorts of fascinating things to me when it is there providing moisture for plants and animals that need it.
This is one of those fascinating things. Something I didn’t know anything about until this evening as I sit here thumbing through various articles about it.
Today my dear yoga teacher, Kumud Vanderveer, happened to point out some Cattails growing in a ditch next to the road going past the studio. She asked me a couple things about them and I realized I knew nothing at all about them.
These pictures were taken in the vernal pool back when it was filled with water providing me with all sorts of picture opportunities. These are Broadleaf Cattail (Typha latifolia), a perennial herbaceous wetland plant native in expansive areas of Eurasia and North America, and in more limited areas of Africa and South America. It survives only in shallow water, up to two feet deep, and can tolerate some periods of drying out.
Now I know that the sausage or hotdog looking things on the stems (referred to as pods in one article I just read) are the plants’ flowers. There are two separate sections. The very tiny male flowers are on the upper portion of the stalk, in the photo above looking nearly black and gray. The very tiny female flowers are just below, the rust colored hotdog looking things. Once seeds begin to form the male flowers fade and drop into the water. These pictures are at the point where seeds have already started to form.
As the seeds mature and dry out the seed head bursts, spreading the seeds on the wind.
Tiny seeds. Oodles of seeds. Each seed head can contain 100,000 to 200,000 seeds. Every seed has hairs attached that help it drift with the wind.
And now Cattails are not quite the mystery plant that they were.
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A Flat-tailed Leaf-cutter Bee(Megachile mendica) on Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota). A small bee, the female is usually between 1/3 and 1/2 inch and the male is slightly smaller. They eat pollen and nectar from many different flowers, pollinating while they eat.
These bees cut beautiful circles from leaves to line their nests which are built in tubelike cavities — hollow stems, holes in trees, abandoned burrows carved in trees by beetles.
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A total sense of GLEE hit me this morning as I watched the interaction between a squirrel and a larger animal. A scuffling sound started at the bottom of our front steps and immediately the two animals ran out toward the woods on the other side of our lane. I couldn’t identify the larger animal. Smaller than a full sized deer. It was so quick I couldn’t assess anything except the size, but a few seconds later a Bobcat came back out into the open. With pleading eyes saying, “Where did the squirrel go?”.
A seldom seen Bobcat (Lynx rufus) was just outside my front door.
My camera was just ten steps away but all this happened so quickly. So no picture, but here are two photos from previous encounters.
I’m totally delighted that I got to see this incredible creature again.
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A female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark morph)(Papilio glaucus). Females of this species of butterfly can be either the color you would expect, yellow and black, or mostly black, like this one. This is called sexual dimorphism.
The dark morph looks similar to a Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) which has a disagreeable taste. That appearance helps protect the dark morph female Tiger Swallowtail from predators.
Isn’t nature amazing?
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