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Whose Botanic Garden?
The NY State Legislature reserved 39 acres for a botanical garden in Brooklyn in 1897, on land that had originally been part of the proposed site of Prospect Park. The triangle northwest of Flatbush Avenue became instead Institute Park, home to the Brooklyn Museum, Mount Prospect Park, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden…
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Ant, Wing
An ant wrestles with a lepidoptera wing. An aerodynamic challenge.
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Duckweed
Duckweeds, considered the smallest flowering plants, are in the Lemnoideae family and are currently coating our ponds. I think this is Common Duckweed, aka Lesser Duckweed (Lemna minor). The tiny floating leaves make good landing pads for all sorts of tiny creatures, just one aspect of this aquatic plant’s part in the freshwater web. A…
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Mollusks
Some of the highlights of our gastropod crawl in Central Park on Monday and Tuesday: Helisoma trivolvis, called the Ramshorn or Three-whorled Rams Horn, a fresh-water species fished out of the Meer. This specimen, the only one found, was 1/2″ or 14mm long.The ground was quite dry, so we knew that land snails would be…
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Time bees
In August of 2010 I found a feral honeybee hive here. In 2011 and 2012, I didn’t notice any activity here at all, although I have to say my checking in was sporadic at best — Green-Wood is a big place and my routes didn’t always go past this tree — but still, I don’t…
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BioBlitz!
The 24-hour Central Park BioBlitz begins this afternoon at 3pm. An effort to collect as much information on biological diversity in the park as possible, the CPBB is sponsored by the the Central Park Conservancy and The Macaulay Honors College at CUNY. The event is using the iNaturalist app to track discoveries. There will be…
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Backyard and Beyond 