Backyard and Beyond

A month of summer yet, at least as the calendar goes. But Carol Gracie’s Summer Wildflowers is good the whole year through. You’ll love opening this in early January!

I can’t better the foreword by NYBG’s Robert Naczi: “Gracie seamlessly integrates diverse facets about these plants—history, geography, habitats, human uses, morphology, classification, pollination, conservation, and more. Truly, this book has something for everyone, whether beginner or expert,hikeror gardener, entomologist or etymologist.”

In honor of Carol, who reads this blog (!), here are some interactions with common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. (If you’ve ever wondered why the species epithet means, essentially, “of Syria,” she explains the chain of errors that resulted in that.)
A tiny bee. Perhaps a sweat bee.
Nomada genus bee.
Scirtes orbiculatus, a marsh beetle.
Monarch egg.
That’s a honeybee on the left. I was trying to capture in pixels the pale ant here, but this is a bonus since it shows a yellow pollinarium, the two connected pollen sacs, or pollinia, that milkweed sticks to you in exchange for giving up its nectar.
Bembix genus sand wasp.
Great Golden Digger wasp.
And right next to this patch of milkweed in Green-Wood, a Great Golden Digger digs her nest site. While she sups on nectar, she provisions her young with crickets and katydids.