New To The Garden

There was a new vendor, Beloved Brook Natives, at the Greene Farmers Market yesterday morning, with marvelous native plants. My wonderful husband bought two Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata), and brought them home, along with a farmers market breakfast. This afternoon I put them into a garden just outside the kitchen window. I got a good sign as I was finishing up the work, when a Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) and a Sweat Bee (Halictidae) came by to check out the flowers. Seems they approve of the addition to the garden.

Blue Vervain is native to all of the continental US and most of Canada. And much to my delight it is the host plant of Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia), a butterfly that is very special to me, though I don’t see them nearly often enough. I’m so pleased that in planting these Vervains, perhaps I’ll be seeing more Common Buckeyes.

Got my fingers crossed!

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Confusing Bumblebees Revisited

Confusing Bumblebee on Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

Confusing Bumblebee (Bombus perplexus), a species of Bumblebee that is native to northern North America, where it can be found in Canada and the eastern United States.

Confusing Bumblebee on PowWow White Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

Confusing Bumblebees live in colonies made up of one queen and the female workers. New, mated queens, overwinter in a state of dormancy emerging in the spring. The queen is responsible for finding a nest site where she lays her eggs.

A Confusing Bumblebee on a Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurpea)

Now that I’ve become familiar with this species of Bumblebee, I am noticing more and more of them. They continue to amaze me with their beautiful yellow color.

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Ghost Pipe

Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora), quite the surprise to find. What in the world?It’s an herbaceous perennial plant which is found in much of the United States, with the exception of the Southwest, intermountain west and the central Rocky mountains. It’s also found in Canada, and in parts of northern South America.

Ghost Pipe is a small plant, growing to between 4 and 8 inches tall. It’s color varies a bit, from snow white to pale pink.

It also varies to that same snow white with added specks of black or pink. These black specked white pipes make me think of black and white Holsteins roaming a hillside in Vermont, particularly that one flower that is looking straight at us on the right side of the image above. Do you see it Gary? These flowers sometimes are a rich bright pink too, though I’ve never seen them in that color. I’ll keep looking. Surely I’ll find some in that color way.

The Ghost Pipe starts out its week long life with its flower nodding down much like a full bent tobacco pipe. As the pipe ages, it ends up with its flower looking straight up.

And then those fascinating flowers become seed pods.

So these flowers are white. No green. That means they don’t perform photosynthesis. They are part of a group of flowers which are called mycotrophic. Rather than being like green plants using photosynthesis, these mycotrophic plants get their energy from other organisms. From fungi.

The Ghost Pipe gets its nutrients and carbohydrates through tree roots depending upon a “middle man” or that fungi.

The woods around me are filled with many enchanting plants and animals. This certainly is one of them.

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This Afternoon

This afternoon a Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) caught my attention as it alighted on a Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurpea). Looking well-worn, as if it had spent its few weeks taking great chances, perhaps escaping a predator or two.

I appreciate Great Spangled Fritillaries in part because their host plants are various species of native Violets. Violets, special plants, and with no Violets, there would be no Fritillaries.

The time that this Fritillary is able to fly as a butterfly is 2 to 10 weeks. Their native range is nearly the entirety of Canada and the United States north of Georgia.

A lovely splash of orange up here in the woods.

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Correction To Common Yarrow

Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). A native plant with wispy, fernlike, delicate leaves. A herbaceous perennial plant that grows to 3 feet tall that generally produces just one stem, but sometimes up to 3 stems. Those delicate leaves are alternate 3 to 5 inches long with leaflets on each side of the central stem, and those leaflets again are divided into smaller leaflets, which give me the impression of a fern.

These flower heads consist of a dense cluster of tiny, stalkless flowers. A member of the Aster or Composite family, Asteraceae. Each individual flower consists of disk flowers, surrounded by ray flowers, the same composition that a Daisy has. A composite flower. These flowers have a strong scent which attracts pollinators.

A plant that I encourage to just pop up in my gardens.

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Common Eastern Bumblebee

Common Eastern Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens). This one at Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens).

And this one, also a Common Eastern Bumblebee, on Peppermint (Mentha piperita).

These Bumblebees are gentle creatures. They don’t form swarms. Only the females have stingers and if you are stung by a Common Eastern Bumblebee, perhaps you deserve it. It takes much provocation to receive a sting.

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Orange Sulphur

Ah, what a beautiful summer day. Lots of rain the past few days along with loads of humidity. Now, today, a tiny bit cooler and the humidity is down. A good day for being outside seeing the world of nature.

Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurpea) with a pollinator visitor, an Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme).

As butterflies, these Orange Sulphurs gobble down the nectar from many kinds of flowers including these Purple Coneflowers, Dandelions, Milkweeds, Goldenrods, and Asters.

Quite the common and widespread butterfly in North America. Found, southern Canada to central Mexico, coast to coast in the United States except for the Florida peninsula.

Summer’s wonderful, with all the native flowers blooming and butterflies helping with their pollination.

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Dessert Tonight

Oh such beautiful berries. Wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius). Unfortunately they are native to China, Japan, and Korea. Introduced to North America as an ornamental plant, and for its use in breeding hybrid raspberries. A vigorous plant that now grows in many parts of the United States, primarily in the Appalachian Mountains where they can form dense thickets preventing native plants from growing.

But the berries that can be found here on the mountain are collected and made into a syrup, cream is then whipped into soft peaks and the syrup is added to the cream.

It’s in the ice cream churn for a short while, and then we’ve got a delicious dessert. Wineberry Sherbet. Mighty fine!

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Frogs At The Pond

There are several species frogs that visit the pond that I have just above the vegetable garden. The one that I see most often, and frequently in large numbers, is the Green Frog (Rana clamitans).

They’re the first ones to become active in February, when it is mating time.

The top two images are Green Frogs at the pond. This third image is a short distance away at a spring box where five Green Frogs have gathered to discuss happenings on the mountain. You can easily see four of the frogs on the front wall. The fifth frog is at the rear of the box, at the bottom of the square opening.

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Flowering Spurge

Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata). A plant that’s in the Spurge family (Euphorbiaceae). Flowering Spurge has a milky sap that is caustic, so be careful.

Those flowers are really small at just 1/4 inch. The plant grows to 2 or 3 feet tall and has a taproot which makes it difficult to transplant. It can be found in Ontario, and in the United States from Texas north to South Dakota and east through all of the states to the Atlantic.

With a good amount of pollen and nectar to share, the plant attracts many pollinators and the edible seeds are a magnet for Wild Turkeys, Greater Prairie-chicken, and Bobwhite Quail.