Some road ditches and fields are displaying yellow flowers which are attracting a lot of bees. Birdsfoot Trefoil is a plant used in agriculture as a forage plant for pasture, hay and silage and used as an alternative to alfalfa in poor soils. It has become an invasive species in some regions of North America.
The flowers develop into small pea-like pods or legumes. The name ‘bird’s foot’ refers to the appearance of the seed pods on their stalk. There are five leaflets, but with the central three held conspicuously above the others, hence the use of the name trefoil.
Sometimes when going in close for a flower picture, you might encounter something else besides the flower. These flowers were attracting a lot of honey bees and this longhorn beetle. Commonly known as the Red Milkweed Beetle, it is also called Milkweed Borers and Four-eyed beetles. The “four eyes” refer to the way the socket of an antenna divides each compound eye in two, resulting in a “lower eye” and an “upper eye”.
Normally this beetles are found on milkweeds, hence their name, but this guy seems to find this leaf very tasty. It is said that these beetles will “squeak” when held and purr when feeding on milkweeds. I didn’t hold him to see if that is true so I guess I will have to try that the next time I see a Red Milkweed Beetle.
About the time that milkweed buds are swelling and beginning to flower, these small black-dotted red beetles will emerge looking for a mate and the female will lay her eggs on the stem near ground level. The young will bore into the stem to feed and eventually bore to the roots to spend the winter emerging in the spring to start the cycle again.
Milkweeds have fairly potent toxins, and the insects that eat milkweed become, in turn, toxic. Such insects are often colored in bright red or orange to advertise that fact and less likely to be eaten by birds.
Since it seems that I have started a pond theme for this week with the frogs and dragonflies, I might as well continue the theme with a water lily. There may be a single water lily here and there or a solid mass of lilies covering the surface of a pond.
Water lilies create shade and protection for fish in landscape ponds, and they provide a gentle resting spot for frogs and dragonflies. They also bloom periodically dressing up the water surface.
Another bright object in the fields and ditches now is another noxious weed commonly known as Orange Hawkweed.
Do hawks eat this plant to improve their vision? According to a folktale this is how this plant was named. In fact, hawkweed was brought to America from Europe by herb doctors to cure eye diseases.
But Hawkweed is also referred to as the “devil’s paintbrush” because it invades farmers fields and out-competes many native species.
The daisies are creating little smiley faces even if the sun doesn’t shine on them very often with the rainy days. The Oxeye Daisy is another flower that was brought over from Europe and has escaped since a daisy can produce up to 26,000 seeds per plant.
