100 Species #70: Sunflower

This sunflower Helianthus annuus is part of a little garden of the flowers Alexis planted this year, in the corner of the side yard.

Sunflowers have always been my favorite cultivated flower, because they are simple and big, and they are named for and symbolize my favorite thing in the sky. It's something of a coincidence that big disk surrounded by yellow ray flowers looks so much like our two dimensional representation of the day star. But it's a nice symmetry, especially the way the big disk faces east to "look at" the ball of gas that gave it life.

Sunflowers are native to the New World, domesticated and carried to North America long before European colonization. They are cultivated in the plains states in massive plantations for their seeds and oil, and for potted or cut ornamental flowers. Wild sunflowers grown from seeds cached by birds and rodents are often encountered. There are 50 or so relatives in the genus, all found in North America, and all bearing the common name "sunflower" except for the "Jerusalem artichoke" which has appeared in this blog, probably as a slight misidentification.

Predation on the flower by chipmunks cures some people of their belief that these animals are cute, while others simply make sunflower seeds available to them. The use of sunflower seeds as an artificial winter food source has probably contributed to the expansion of the range of several songbirds, such as cardinals, titmice, and others that were not in New England before the 20th century.

100 Species #71: Yellow jacket hover fly

This yellow jacket hover fly Milesia virginiensis was discovered by my stepdaughter, in the living room at night. Indoors and after dark are not where this animal is normally found. Here we have it trapped for a photo session under a whiskey glass in the kitchen.

Hover flies are soft harmless bugs that visit flowers and hover eerily in the air. Many soft harmless insects have adapted over time to resemble fearsome stinging insects. That high-contrast yellow and black striped outfit is so effective a deterrent that it's a wonder all insects aren't patterned like that. This species is among the biggest of the hover flies, and is probably the biggest in New England, at just about 2cm (or one inch). I caught a picture of a hover fly hovering in this post. The larvae of some hover flies are called rat-tailed maggots, which is pretty awesome you must admit (the tail is a snorkel for living in oxygen-poor stagnant water). Other hover fly larvae are aphid predators (and I did find one page listing M. virginiensis as one of these, but I think it's mistaken), or detritivores. The weight of the online information leans toward this fly's larvae feeding in rotten logs on wet decaying wood.