This afternoon I toured the Thomsen Foundation with Lisa Bellows, Executive Director, by truck to catch up on the latest plans. This was in preparation for the Shirley Lusk Day which is on Saturday. If you would like come, check out the details in the Trinity Fork’s April newsletter. The weather forecasted looks to be darn nice!
Only getting out of the truck once to take a photo. This one had ties back to Shirley. It is a Spiderlily (Hymenocallis). This came from Shirley through her Aunt Marie. They (Thomsen) have also planted Louisiana irises as well from Shirley (via Aunt Marie) for erosion control. The flowers were about finished. The beetle was a Fruit and Flower Chafer (Cetoniinae).
On my walk at home I found this guy in Texas Thistle (Cirsium texanum). What white eyes or were they?
In fact what looked like eyes were actually the rear end. It was a Fruit and Flower Chafer (Trichiotinus assimilis)! Oh there was crab spider there too. As I watched, the crab spider was not interested in the Chafer.
Nothing is more beautiful than to see a plant being eaten by the insects like this Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata)! Love our bugs!
At this point the Geometer caterpillar looked like a weed poking through the Clasping-leaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia amplexicaulis). I might not have noticed if I hadn’t just seen it in a curved position moments before.
The very sneaky Geometer cat on Sensitive Briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis var platycarpa)!
Scientific name question for you Mary. Sensitive Briar Mimosa roemeriana shows an older synonym in Flora of NCTX as the name you have above. Did they revert back to the quadrivalvis var. platycarpa? Page 678 in Flora. I didn’t look on those websites you have told me. Just thought I would ask you.
Love those geometers. So funny on the coneflower like it stood at attention hoping you wouldn’t see it.
I saw something today that I hadn’t seen before. It appeared to be a mama hummingbird feeding a juvenile in flight. They hovered with one above the other but not like when fighting. After the above on touched bills with the lower one, the lower one perched on a branch close by and the other flew to a nearby perch and wiped its bill off. Then flew off to assumably get more food. I saw one early going to various low plants and touching each one. My guess, since it wasn’t nectaring, it was collecting small insects maybe to feed young. This was in a different spot in my backyard about an hour sooner. Most fledglings of bird species beg for food and the parents come around and feed them so my thought is maybe the hummingbirds do this hovering in the air.
Kathy, many botanists around here have started using the Flora of the Southeastern US in lieu of the Flora of NC Texas since the taxonomic information in the FNCT is quite dated. The FSUS undergoes constant updating.
I did a search and it appears that Mimosa quadrivalvis once was classified as two varieties, nuttalli and platycarpa. They have now been elevated to species level, M. nuttalli and M. roemeriana. M. quadrivalvis is no longer in use.
Kathy and Suzanne,
Ok I was in a hurry last night and did not check the name. I did a quick cut and paste. Usually I will go to the World Flora Online as I have mentioned before.
As you can see it the WFO still is using the snapshot name as of Dec 2022.
What Suzanne said is certainly what a lot folks do use since names are changing so rapidly these days. Or they just use what iNat uses. However to me it doesn’t matter that much if you use the older name or the new name for my purposes. The WFO will list all the synonyms and so you will know which plant it is. And one of the synonyms is Mimosa roemeriana according to WFO.🤷🏻♀️ Furthermore, because I had ID it to this plant long ago, I do not check it closely to see if it is a different species anymore. Maybe just calling it Sensitive Briar is enough, eh.
So anyway that is what I do. And sometimes I am in hurry or too tire to check or just plain forget. 🤷🏻♀️
Thanks Kathy for sharing that. Very interesting observation! It feels so special to see how the critters behave! I don’t think I have seen such before. Love nature!!
Thanks Suzanne.
I so prefer books over using the internet. I don’t use a smart phone or anything that technical so get caught in outdated info from books. Well guess that is just that way it will be with me. Unfortunately books can’t be reprinted everyday, of course.
I learned much from books over the last 40 years when that is all we had. I poured over pages and pages in field guides until when I came across a plant in the wild I had never seen, my brain would recall a species in a book. Nowadays people post pics on FB and want someone to do the work for them and identify a plant. I think you learn more studying and figuring it out yourself then asking experts if you are right. Sorry, got on my soapbox 🙂
All such beautiful flowers. And neat bugs too. Especially the backwards beatle.
Scientific name question for you Mary. Sensitive Briar Mimosa roemeriana shows an older synonym in Flora of NCTX as the name you have above. Did they revert back to the quadrivalvis var. platycarpa? Page 678 in Flora. I didn’t look on those websites you have told me. Just thought I would ask you.
Love those geometers. So funny on the coneflower like it stood at attention hoping you wouldn’t see it.
I saw something today that I hadn’t seen before. It appeared to be a mama hummingbird feeding a juvenile in flight. They hovered with one above the other but not like when fighting. After the above on touched bills with the lower one, the lower one perched on a branch close by and the other flew to a nearby perch and wiped its bill off. Then flew off to assumably get more food. I saw one early going to various low plants and touching each one. My guess, since it wasn’t nectaring, it was collecting small insects maybe to feed young. This was in a different spot in my backyard about an hour sooner. Most fledglings of bird species beg for food and the parents come around and feed them so my thought is maybe the hummingbirds do this hovering in the air.
Kathy, many botanists around here have started using the Flora of the Southeastern US in lieu of the Flora of NC Texas since the taxonomic information in the FNCT is quite dated. The FSUS undergoes constant updating.
https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/
I did a search and it appears that Mimosa quadrivalvis once was classified as two varieties, nuttalli and platycarpa. They have now been elevated to species level, M. nuttalli and M. roemeriana. M. quadrivalvis is no longer in use.
Kathy and Suzanne,
Ok I was in a hurry last night and did not check the name. I did a quick cut and paste. Usually I will go to the World Flora Online as I have mentioned before.
https://wfoplantlist.org/plant-list/taxon/wfo-0000187426-2018-07?page=1
As you can see it the WFO still is using the snapshot name as of Dec 2022.
What Suzanne said is certainly what a lot folks do use since names are changing so rapidly these days. Or they just use what iNat uses. However to me it doesn’t matter that much if you use the older name or the new name for my purposes. The WFO will list all the synonyms and so you will know which plant it is. And one of the synonyms is Mimosa roemeriana according to WFO.🤷🏻♀️ Furthermore, because I had ID it to this plant long ago, I do not check it closely to see if it is a different species anymore. Maybe just calling it Sensitive Briar is enough, eh.
So anyway that is what I do. And sometimes I am in hurry or too tire to check or just plain forget. 🤷🏻♀️
Thanks Kathy and Suzanne for your input!
Thanks Kathy for sharing that. Very interesting observation! It feels so special to see how the critters behave! I don’t think I have seen such before. Love nature!!
Thanks again!
I love those geometers!
Cute cats again! Good articles too. I can’t wait to switch to solar but it’s still going to be a few years before we can do it 😭
Thanks Suzanne.
I so prefer books over using the internet. I don’t use a smart phone or anything that technical so get caught in outdated info from books. Well guess that is just that way it will be with me. Unfortunately books can’t be reprinted everyday, of course.
I learned much from books over the last 40 years when that is all we had. I poured over pages and pages in field guides until when I came across a plant in the wild I had never seen, my brain would recall a species in a book. Nowadays people post pics on FB and want someone to do the work for them and identify a plant. I think you learn more studying and figuring it out yourself then asking experts if you are right. Sorry, got on my soapbox 🙂