This and That

From time to time, I end up with pictures that didn't fit in the latest posts and will probably be outdated by the time I publish another.  That's happening now, so this post is really to just empty my photo gallery.

Some of the wildflowers are now starting to blossom, but the Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot - Daucus carota) has been blooming for about two weeks.  Some have a black dot in their centers - actually just off center - which at first I always think is an insect, but it's actually a separate flower (that's probably better described as dark purple).  I haven't found much inforation about them, but according to several sites, those single dark flowers are infertile.  

The plant was named after England's Queen Anne (which one seems to be a point of disagreement), "an expert lace maker," and there is a legend that says she pricked her finger with a needle, whereupon a single drop of blood fell onto the lace she was making; thus the dark purple floret.   Sweet, but why the heck is it really there?

Queen Annes are lovely, but each of the little white flowers,  unlike the single dark one, IS fertile, and they self-seed at amazing rates.  The Carrot Museum website says: " Each compound umbel consists of 20-90 umbellets, and each umbellet has 15-60 flowers."  (Umbel is the type of form the flower takes - kind of like an umbrella.) That's a lot of seed.  This may be great from the flower's point of view, but from mine, it's definitely a drawback.  They invade every corner of the garden.  The seeds have bajillions of little hairs that make them stick to your clothing if you so much as breathe in their direction, so if you wander into a patch when they're producing seed, you'll be picking the little buggers off you one by one.  I find myself pulling scores of Queen Anne's lace by the roots every year, trying to get them out before they go to seed.  Don't worry, I couldn't possibly get them all.

The Carrot Museum says no one knows what that little dark flower is for.  But I rather like the idea presented by some botanists that it's there to trick other insects into thinking there's another insect feeding on the plant, so it must be desirable.  Sort of like a barker.  So far, research data has not provided evidence this works.  Maybe it's there to puzzle us.

I find plant propagation so interesting, and whatever their mechanism for getting pollinated and reproduced, it's a good trick.  They can't get up and walk away.

Speaking of reproduction, I just noticed the seed pod of a pansy.  I've often seen seed pods of the pansy cousin, violet, but I don't think I've seen them until after the seeds have all been expelled.

Cute, huh?

Want to see some pretty poppies?

Here's something I just researched, because I didn't know what it was...a Red Admiral butterfly - Vanessa atalanta:

Sorry I couldn't give you a better picture, but they flit around so quickly and are disturbed so easily that I couldn't manage it.  Here's a picture from the Butterfly Conservation website:

I don't recall seeing this kind before, but I may have missed it, or, since they move so fast, I may just have assumed it was another painted lady.   I read they're migratory butterflies whose populations boom about every ten years, and that's when people tend to notice them.  The last boom was in 2010.  The first one of these I saw was on June 7, and then three days later there were dozens of them flitting about.  Just that one day.  So I guess they moved on toward their summer homes in the northern states.  Since then, I've seen only two or three solitary ones.

Again, another insect I haven't seen before.  I believe this is the white-marked tussock moth - Orgyia leucostigma.  The literature says they feed on trees, mainly oak, but can get blown by the wind to other plants on which they'll feed if they're stranded there.  This one was on my 'Grande Amore' rose.

Switching gears, I got another pea harvest. 

'Improved Maestro'

Peas and cheese.  And a boatload of butter.  Yum.

And I'm excited that it appears I'm going to get to eat more than one raspberry at a time.

'Glencoe'

My 'Mrs. Maxwell's Big Italian' tomato plants may be small - I only transplanted the little guys into the garden  May 17 - but the larger of the two already has a couple little fruits on it.  I did read that this variety is one of the earliest to produce.  My array of 'Missouri Pink Love Apple' plants are twice the size and still only have flowers.

The cucumbers also have lots of flowers, and I'm trying to keep a closer eye on them than I usually do, because I always seem to miss the first fruits, hidden in the leaves as they always are.

The onions in that same bed are eight to ten inches high now.

Being unseasonably cool lately, I found myself in the mood to dig out more of the wildflowers in my perennial bed project.  

I'm going to need that space in a few weeks to plant out my gaura seedlings.

Till next time...

'Poseidon'