The Urban Pantheist

Somebody gave Alexis 150 bulbs, so on Sunday she started planting them. Pocket is helping.


Also on the to do list, pull out the large volunteer sunflower. She put an echinacea in its place.


And let Pocket clamber onto Maggie, who didn't protest.

We did not plant this sunflower--probably some bird or rodent did. Whatever they did, it seems to have worked, this plant is about 9 feet root to crown. (just took the tape measure outside, it's just about 8 feet)

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The treehopper Entylia carinata lives on herbaceous weeds--this one appears to have laid eggs in the midrib of the leaf of one of our sunflowers.

A look across the side yard in early August. The trees are Norway maple, the growth on the fence is Concord grapes, butterfly bushes to the right. Poke and sunflowers growing on the retaining wall.

Alexis amid the sunflowers and phragmites. I took a very similar picture almost exactly one year ago.


This polypore was growing on the dirt nearby. Hidden in the soil is the wood of a long-dead tree. If the tree was a broadleaf, this mushroom is Ganoderma lucidum; if it was a conifer, the mushroom is G. tsugae.

Alexis hates flash photography, but it was impossible to capture this hen without it.


Posing with the giant wild sunflowers..

Alexis and I were surprised by a newly blooming batch of wild sunflowers in the Riverway.( Read more... )

Photo by cottonmanifesto. Location: Ward's Pond, Boston.

Urban species #232: Sunflower Helianthus annuus

Sunflower seeds are relatively large, fatty, and tasty. They are the staple filling for most birdfeeders. With a feeder full of sunflower seeds in Boston, you can attract chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, blue jays, house sparrows and squirrels, just for starters. The presence of feeders full of sunflower seeds lured formerly more southern species like the cardinal and titmouse to live in New England year-round. These animals spill the sunflower seeds on the ground, where they are eaten by pigeons, mourning doves, juncos, chipmunks, and if you live in the right neighborhood, wild turkeys and even white-tailed deer. In other cities there will be some other assemblage of urban species drawn to this food source. Some of these species, notably the jays and woodpeckers, carry the seed away, and cache it to be eaten later. Uneaten seed may germinate and result in "volunteer" (to use a nice bit of gardener jargon) sunflowers.

The plant itself is familiar to all: a single rough stalk topped with a large cheery disc surrounded by rays, facing the sun, and appearing to have been crafted in its image. It is native to western North America, where the indigenous people cultivated them, favoring the plants with the biggest seeds. It was brought to Europe, where further cultivation took place, and new varieties were reintroduced to North America. Industrial cultivation for flowers, seeds, and seed oil has helped make it well known to nearly everyone on earth. There are many different species, but the most familiar, and most often cultivated species is the common sunflower, Helianthus annuus.

Wild sunflowers can grow to nearly ten feet tall, hoisting their payload of seeds up to where only the most agile diners, often goldfinches, can reach. Squirrels will cheat, and chew the whole plant to the ground. The plant must reproduce by seed, and is an annual, dying away completely in winter. Then the birdfeeders are filled and put out, and the urban life cycle starts again.


A sunflower seed cached in a stone wall (in the Riverway, in the wall of the stairway leading to Longwood Ave.) sprouted in June of this year. The plant did not survive to flower. Photo by urbpan.