So do you agree that the hot weather is here? Yesterday the heat index at our house was 120 degrees. Yikes! Furthermore Jeanne agreed with me that it would best to get our exploring by foot early. So we opted for both walking and a driving tour.
First flower of the day! The Whorled Milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) can easily be told apart from the Slim Leaf Milkweed (Asclepias stenophylla) when blooming. The more common Whorled Milkweed’s flower (gynostegium) is up on a pedestal like shown here.
Second plant was the Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis)! The pod was just splitting and the seeds were all lined up.
The Meadow Pinks (Sabatia campestris) are having a great year!
Thank goodness for the breeze, but it makes it hard to catch the plants. This was a two-fer, a long-horned flower beetle and a bee!
The Question Mark let me get surprisingly close!
The next plant that caught our attention was the Wing-rib Sumac (Rhus copallinum)! Always looking for more bugs and larvae of course.
Indeed, the all important ants were there on the flowers!
This little orange blob was on the stem and some of the flowers. At the time I was thinking it was egg. But now I wonder if it might be poop after looking at some of my photos.
Final critter on the sumac! It was a plant bug (Neurocolpus) in the nubilus group. Don’t you just love the bottle brush part of the antenna? Certainly it caught my eye!
So there were many special critters and plants we saw. Hence yesterday’s outing will be covered in multiple posts. I don’t want you to miss out on any of our great finds!
Hot here too but looks like the critters doing good so far!
Yes maybe since they still have water?
Milkweed blooms. Beautiful and interesting. Wonder what info the bottle brush antennas pick up that others don’t.
I wonder too. Thanks!