Tag Archives: nature

Fall allergies? Don’t blame Goldenrod!

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American Lady on Goldenrod

In mid summer and throughout fall, if your eyes start to water and itch and you can’t stop sneezing, you look around for something to blame.  You see fields of bright clusters of tiny yellow flowers belonging to various species of goldenrods, and you think, “Aha!  They must be the culprits!”

If that’s what you think, you would be wrong.

The perpetrator is something far more subtle, something that you could walk right past without really noticing, something with very inconspicuous, greenish flowering parts.  Continue reading →

Mountain Mints Are Pollinator Magnets!

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Looking for a deer-resistant pollinator magnet?  Mountain Mints are your answer.

Usually blooming from late June through August, Mountain Mints attract a spectacular assortment of butterflies, bees, moths, and other critters.  These beneficial insects graze amiably together for nectar, since the profusion of tiny blossoms offered by these plants provide enough food for everyone to dine in harmony for many weeks throughout the summer.  From morning until evening Mountain Mints are alive with the dance of pollinators.

There are several species of Mountain Mints, but my favorites are Short-toothed Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) and Hoary Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum incanum).  The genus name, Pycnanthemum, means densely flowered, hinting at the reason that these plants can accommodate so many hungry visitors simultaneously.  The foliage of these two species is as showy as the flowers, enhancing their visual appeal.

Plants are all about surviving and reproducing, and Mountain Mints are among the plant species whose survival strategy is to produce clusters of diminutive flowers, together forming a showy inflorescence, a strategy that has evolved to attract insects as assistants in the pollination process.  Individual flowers in each cluster bloom progressively over many weeks, increasing each plant’s chances for successful reproduction.  This works out really well for their pollinator partners, who are looking for a continuing reliable source of food.

Short-toothed Mountain Mint grows to a maximum height of about three feet, topped with round heads of tiny white flowers smudged with bright magenta.  The plants are truly ‘densely flowered’.  A soft velvety bed of pale blue-green foliage frames the blossoms.  Rub or crush the leaves and you’ll be rewarded with a scent that confirms that this is a mint family member.  Short-toothed Mountain Mint can tolerate part shade to full sun, and likes moist but well-drained, average soil.

Hoary Mountain Mint, as the name implies, has foliage very similar to Short-toothed Mountain Mint, with the leaves just below the flower heads looking as if they had been lightly but evenly dusted with powdered sugar.  Each delicate flower is white with a sprinkling of tiny purple spots.  The flowers grow in rounded heads much like Short-toothed Mountain Mint, but the blossoms are somewhat larger, growing in multiple tiers on each stem. The branching habit is open and graceful, showing off the layers of flowers, and providing easy access to their many visitors.  This species grows to a height of 2-4 feet, prefers sun, and average to dry soil.

Virginia (Pycnanthemum virginianum) and Narrow-leaved (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium) Mountain Mints are also good garden candidates.  Narrow-leaved Mountain Mint grows to a height of 1-3 feet, while Virginia may achieve a slightly taller stature, depending on growing conditions.

The seemingly endless supply of nectar makes Mountain Mints a great option for attracting butterflies.  Short-toothed, Narrow-leaved and Virginia Mountain Mints all attract small to medium-size butterflies;  expect to see hairstreaks, blues, Common Buckeyes, ladies and smaller fritillaries.  Hoary Mountain Mint flowers are large enough to also accommodate larger butterflies, like some of the swallowtails.

If you have a vegetable garden, you might consider planting some Mountain Mint nearby.  Good nectar producing plants like these attract many bee species that will help increase your garden’s yield.

Because of their strongly fragrant foliage, foraging deer reject Mountain Mints.     In fall the flower heads dry to a dramatic steel gray, and can be an eye-catching addition to a garden in winter.

The Mountain Mints have adapted to thrive in a fairly broad range of weather conditions.  All of these species are native to much of the eastern half of the United States, some as far west as Texas, and as far north as the eastern Canadian Provinces.  In the northeastern U.S., they have been holding their own very well even during this hot, dry summer.  To see if a particular species is native in your area, and for additional Mountain Mint species, check the USDA website:  http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PYCNA

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Cardinal-flower – A Perfect Partnership!

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Ruby-throated Hummingbird drinking nectar from Cardinal-flower

From late July to early September, Cardinal-flower’s brilliant scarlet blossoms beckon to thirsty little Ruby-throated Hummingbirds like a neon sign to a hungry traveler, promising a long satisfying drink to this industrious bird.  Hummingbirds can’t resist bright tubular flowers that are shaped to accommodate their long narrow bills and tongues, a design that allows them to access the bounty that is out of reach to less compatibly designed diners.

Each Cardinal-flower (Lobelia cardinalis) plant has a tall cluster of flowers that bloom around a central stem.  In order to maximize the chances of successful pollination (and by happy coincidence, our viewing pleasure), Cardinal-flower stages the opening of its flowers over a period of weeks.  Blooming begins with the lowest buds on the stem, gradually moving up until all the flowers in a cluster have opened for business.  Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will likely be regular visitors throughout this process.

But the Cardinal-flower expects something in return from the Hummingbird for its gift of nectar.  The unsuspecting little bird carries out an essential service for the Cardinal-flower:  pollination.

When the Hummingbird inserts its bill in the center of the bright red corolla to drink, the top of its head is snugly brushed by a long tube that arches above the flower’s scarlet lobes, the flower and the Hummingbird fitting so perfectly together that it looks like a custom tailoring job.  In newly blossoming flowers, the tube is tipped with a fused set of pollen-rich stamens that brush the Hummingbird’s head, leaving a precious cargo of pollen for the little bird to take to the next Cardinal-flower it visits.  In the picture above, you can see the yellow pollen at the tip of the stamen resting on the Hummingbird’s head.

As the flowers mature, the stamens are succeeded by the flower’s female parts, called pistils, which are now perfectly positioned to receive the pollen transported to them on the head of a Hummingbird.  As a plant matures, it will likely have flowers in their female stage lower on the stem, with flowers higher on the stem in the male stage.  In the photo above, the flowers on either side of the Hummingbird are lower on the plant’s stem than the one from which the Hummer is drinking, and they have matured enough to be offering the reddish stigmas as pollen receptors at the tips of the pistils.  The little bird drinks systematically from the lowest flowers in a cluster to the highest, bringing the pollen acquired from the male flowers of one plant to the female flowers of the next.  This helps increase the likelihood of cross pollination, which will result in genetically stronger offspring.

In between visits of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, keep an eye out for butterflies. Cardinal-flowers don’t offer much of a landing platform for pollinators, since their perfect partner, the Hummingbird, hovers and doesn’t need one.  (Why invite freeloaders?)  But Swallowtail butterflies are also willing to put forth the effort to grasp the tenuous flower platform and hover for a drink.  Spicebush Swallowtails like the one pictured below  seem to be especially drawn to these flowers.  From the Cardinal-flower’s perspective, however, they are a much less effective pollinator.  The butterfly’s anatomy is not so perfectly tailored to acquiring and distributing the pollen of this plant, so successful pollination by a butterfly would be much more random.

Spicebush Swallowtail drinking nectar from Cardinal-flower

Cardinal-flowers depend on Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to effect pollination and continuation of the species.  In return, the Hummingbirds depend on this reliable nectar source.

Cardinal-flower can grow to a height of three feet, and will tolerate sun to light shade.  Although it prefers moist soil, established plants usually do well even in hot, dry summer weather.

This gorgeous gaudy plant with its bold blossoms is a wonderful way to entice Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to visit your garden.

Recent Butterfly Sightings at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve

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The up side of the recent heat wave is that butterfly activity has increased.  This gallery shows some of the butterflies I’ve seen recently at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, near New Hope, Pennsylvania.  The Sleepy Orange, a butterfly not regularly present this far north, has returned for at least the third year in a row, possibly encouraged by the presence of its caterpillar food plant, Wild Senna.  Young Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars are also in evidence.

The Preserve is sponsoring its first butterfly count July 21, as part of the national effort spearheaded by the North American Butterfly Association.  The Bucks County Audubon Society at Honey Hollow in Solebury, Pennsylvania is also participating in this event, and we have volunteers covering several New Jersey sites, too. 

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Purple Giant Hyssop

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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail with Bumble Bee on Purple Giant Hyssop

Pictured here are an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a Bumble Bee, dining together amicably at Purple Giant Hyssop (Agastache scrophulariifolia) flowers.  This graceful plant is quite an attraction to butterflies and other beneficial pollinators, including many species of bees.  They may be seen on a single flower spike drinking contentedly.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds may also sip nectar from the tiny purple tubular flowers.  Although the individual flowers are tiny, they can still accommodate this thirsty, industrious little bird.

Generally blooming from late July or early August through September, like so many other plants this year Purple Giant Hyssop started blooming many weeks earlier than normal, encouraged by the unusually warm temperatures.  It started blooming in June, and shows no sign of stopping.

Reaching to a height of two to four feet, Purple Giant Hyssop can tolerate part shade to full sun, and prefers a moist soil.  Characteristic of the mint family, this plant has a square stem, and opposite leaves that are fragrant when crushed.

Tiny flowers mass in showy spikes five to six inches long, adorning the candelabra-like plant.  As with other mint family members, blooming takes place out over a long period, since the individual flowers on each spike don’t all open at once.  The flowers open gradually over a period of several weeks, maximizing the plant’s chances of successful pollination, with the assistance of its insect partners.  This long bloom period is good for the pollinators, too, since it offers a continuing supply of food.  Individual flowers on the spike open to a tasteful shade of purple when in bloom, and provide a softer background color when the flower is spent.

If the dry flower spikes are left standing in the garden after the bloom period is finished, you may find that you have an unexpected bonus: a source of food for birds.  Local Chickadees and Goldfinches may seek out the seeds that result from flowers pollinated by the summer visits of butterflies and bees.  Left in the garden, the flower heads will last through the winter, retaining their shape and form.  Purple Giant Hyssop will readily reproduce from seed, so if you prefer that it not spread, deadhead the spent flowers before they produce and release their seeds.

If pale yellow is more your color, there is a close relative, Yellow Giant Hyssop (Agastache nepetoides), with similar characteristics, but pale yellow flowers.

Both Purple and Yellow Giant Hyssop are rated as imperiled species in New Jersey because of their rarity, primarily due to habitat destruction.

Purple Giant Hyssop is easy to grow, and those fragrant leaves make it deer resistant.  It is native in the eastern United States from New Hampshire to Georgia, and as far north and west as Ontario province, Minnesota and North Dakota, and south to Kansas, so it has adapted to the growing conditions in this broad area.

Include this plant in your garden, and enjoy the butterflies, birds and bees that visit.