Flies in (and out of) Drag

Because of the recent and ongoing ruckus about honeybees and colony collapse disorder, I've been watching carefully for honeybees on the various flowering plants we've got outside this year. So far, not a one, though that might just mean we're not growing anything they find appealing.

There are plenty of other insects to look at, though. A few are even bees. They're just not honeybees.

Is there any plant that looks more like fireworks than dill does?
We sowed some dill seeds this year, because I was hoping to get swallowtail caterpillars and/or butterflies (also I just really like dill pickles, so now I can smell them all the time). Nothing so far, but I don't have much of a grasp of when swallowtail butterflies are supposed to be in Iowa in the first place.

What's appreciating the dill instead are mostly green bottle flies (Lucilia sericata). Which I suppose I don't mind, since nobody else was using it, and bottle flies do have their positive qualities, but this was hardly the original plan.

I should probably also note that we've used the dill once, in cooking. Turns out that there is in fact such a thing as too much dill.

The cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) that came with the house keeps popping up here and there; it's gotten moved at least two times so far, but every year, enough seeds manage to survive to keep the population going. We haven't done any cooking with it, despite having had it around for four years: I'm not particularly a fan (though I can understand why people could be), and really my main interest in it is visual: the clouds of little white flowers appeal to me.

"Morning, Ralph."
"Morning, Sam."
They're apparently also appealing to ants. I really like that picture. Something about their posture, or something.

Flies are also really fond of the Coriandrum flowers. I don't know what species this is, but they are everywhere this year. I see them all the time on the marigolds and Portulacas as well. I don't know the ID; I haven't even been able to come up with a general ballpark guess on an ID. They're flies of some kind, and that's as much as I can tell you.

Sometimes, I don't even know that the insects are there, when I take the picture. Like, I didn't see this until I uploaded the pictures to my computer:

Oh, what a nice picture of a flower OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT FUCKING THING GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY.
After some searching on-line, I've tentatively identified this as the larva of Coleomagilla maculata, the spotted lady beetle. This could be better news: C. maculata is allegedly capable of surviving almost entirely on pollen, so it's not necessarily helping me out that much with insect pests. Not that I've seen much in the way of insect pests this year. (A few whiteflies. No pictures of those yet.)

OTHER WAY! GO THE OTHER WAY!
There is at least one actual bee so far this year; I don't know which one it is. (I tried looking it up, but there are so many tiny bees in Iowa that I didn't even know where to start.)

They're not very picky, whatever they are. I think this is the same species, on Tagetes:

And maybe again on a dandelion:

But the insect I started this post to talk about is this last one.

Because it looked enough like a honeybee at first glance, I initially got excited about this, but the longer I looked, the more it seemed . . . not quite right. Once I'd uploaded the pictures to the computer, and had a chance to look around a bit, I concluded that, whatever it might be, it was definitely not a bee -- no pollen baskets on the legs, only one pair of wings, stubby antennae, huge eyes, and it didn't seem nearly fuzzy enough to be a bee.

After some research, I think the genus is probably Eristalis (hoverflies, drone flies). One of the more likely candidates for the species is E. tenax. Which seemed fine, until I read the Wikipedia entry for E. tenax. Now that I have, I'm kind of retroactively grossed out by it: I could have been perfectly happy not knowing that there was such a thing as a "rat-tailed maggot." No wonder it wants to dress up as something else.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXIX

It's hard to follow the plant profiles. Even when it's not a great profile, I've put enough effort into it that I usually don't have time to come up with something else. So: transmitted light photos.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Peperomia orba. I don't know why this wound up being such a crappy picture; the leaves are thick, but I've gotten better pictures with thicker leaves before. Unlucky, perhaps.

Taraxacum officinale. This one, on the other hand, is unpleasant because it was taken at the end of fall and the leaf in question was old. There may have been mildew on it too.

Senecio macroglossus.

Fragaria x 'Fort Laramie,' autumn. I was reminded last fall how brilliant the colors can be on strawberry plants. One of those things I knew at one time but forgot about.

Callisia repens.

Colocasia esculenta. If you only concentrate on the darker areas around the main veins, this sort of looks like a few very carefully-arranged green feathers.

Caladium 'Cardinal.'

Weigela florida 'Alexandra.' If I'm reading correctly, the on-line consensus is that this is the same as 'Wine and Roses.' Looks pretty, whatever you call it. A little dark for the yard, maybe.

Stromanthe sanguinea 'Triostar.' These often turn out nicely, but I rarely think that the photo came out looking like the leaf actually looked in person. This one isn't quite right either (though it's still a nice picture).

Quercus sp., autumn. I have a lot of autumn Quercus photos stockpiled; this isn't the best one by a long shot, but it's still my favorite from this set.

Assorted random plant events

When I quit smoking, some years ago, one of the things I missed about it was having an excuse to go stand outside for a few minutes at a time, several times a day. I'm not otherwise that motivated to go out. Also the nicotine. I still, sometimes, miss the nicotine. The down side of smoking was that it was giving me asthma. (Possibly lung cancer, also, but that wasn't motivation to stop. I bet very few people ever see their lives saved by asthma.) And it was increasingly expensive (I noticed about a week ago that a pack of Marlboros is up over $6.50/pack, around here; it was $1.40 or so when I started, which wasn't even that long ago.), too. But it wasn't without its benefits: there's something to be said for any activity that gets you outside looking at the weeds, bees, phases of the moon, etc.

So now, I take the dog out a couple times a day (first thing in the morning just to the yard, in case she has to go, and then for a 30-60 minute walk a couple hours after that), which leaves me in a really excellent position to notice not only the things that are happening in my very own yard, like the flowers on our maple tree (I suspect silver maple, Acer saccharinum) --


-- but also things happening in other people's yards. Like for example, I have no idea what tree this is (anybody know?), but the flowers are kind of neat:


I saw a bunch of Pulmonaria in full bloom in someone else's yard, so I checked the ones I planted here at the house. No flowers yet, but I have buds.


Being out and about with Sheba also means I saw my first dandelions a bit earlier than I probably would have otherwise, on April 1:


Nothing particularly showy and gorgeous in this post, but it's interesting anyway, I think. In particular, I don't very often get to look closely at tree flowers, and would almost certainly not have checked out the Pulmonaria at home, if not for the walks. So there's some horticultural benefit to having a dog. Unintended consequences.