Macro photography in my yard

[urbpan]

Some of these are pictures I took for aesthetic reasons, and some are creatures I'm not confident enough of to use in my project. If anyone knows more specifically what these things are, let me know and it'll count as one of the hundred. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy.



This is a wireworm, the larva of a click beetle. They live in the soil feeding on detritus or plant roots. I found a bunch when I was pulling up the knotweed. I hope they eat the knotweed roots.


This is a nymph of an assassin bug, a predator that pierces it's prey with a beaklike proboscis, sucking out the goo inside.


A jumping spider crouches camouflaged in the duff.


The big tree in my front yard has these flowers. I'm starting to get the sad sinking feeling that it's Norway maple.


Dandelion, super close up.


Tulip, which will have its own entry soon. I just liked catching it immediately before blooming.


Some miniscule silk spinner tangled its gossamer between the petal tips!


This small attractive ornamental grass sedge is festooned with yellow pollen.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Is the problem with the Norway Maple that it's not a native species?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Not just that it's not native, but that it's invasive. (Alexis deliberately planted several non-native Japanese maples.) Already I've pulled out a dozen tiny sapling Norways. In an urban forest it tends to crowd out everything else. We appear to have three big ones and a whole mess of little 4 inch diameter ones. The little ones help create privacy, so I'm torn about removing them.

[anais2.livejournal.com]

But...those are male flowers, aren't they? The Norway?
They need an accomplice.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I had to look it up: "Norway Maple can be monoecious or dioecious, producing male (staminate) flowers and female (pistillate) flowers on either the same or separate trees." http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/trees/plants/norway_maple.htm

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

norway maples are fast growing and get huge and then fall apart and smash children with falling limbs. japanese maples take forever and are like 20 feet tall.