The Urban Pantheist

One of the nice things about autumn is the blooming of asters. This one is probably blue wood aster Symphyotrichum cordifolium. These look like rangy weeds all summer long, then burst out in lovely unkempt daisylike composite flowers.

Franklin Park Zoo has a new organic garden project, with the goal of growing produce that can be fed to the zoo animals, using compost from the zoo animals, and with no pesticide use. The horticulture director asked me to look around and to help identify insects and train volunteers to tell beneficial insects from pests.


These guys are definitely not beneficial. They've stripped the leaves of this viburnum bush almost completely bare. It took me some time to identify them, since they look rather caterpillar-like. I thought perhaps they were sawfly larvae, which can resemble caterpillars. Knowing the host plant is very helpful, and I soon stumbled across the viburnum leaf beetle Pyrrhalta viburni


These European beetles have been in North America for 60 years or so, and have become a serious pest of Viburnum. Hopefully we can convince local songbirds or assassin bugs to eat them.


Alongside the garden there are many weeds, most of which are being left alone, with the exception of a few especially noxious plants. This slender speedwell Veronica filiformus doesn't seem to be causing any problems, and its little flowers may attract early pollinators to visit the garden.

Well the snow melted away finally, and what should we see but the bold leaves of dwarf cinquefoil (on the left) and chickweed (on the right) and possibly dandelion (in the middle).
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Our last stop on the vacation was the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. I was keen to see the botanical laboratories and such, not so much the big houses of two rich men I don't particularly admire. Edison was a ruthless capitalist and elephant electrocutor and Ford was a noted anti-Semite. We saw some cool stuff there though--check out the tree behind this statue of Edison.

I made sure to show my dad the Oatmeal strip about Tesla, after we got back, just so you know.
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Blue wood aster (Heart-leaf aster) Symphyotrichum cordifolium

In late September my deliberate neglect of the yard bears fruit. Tall rangy weeds in the shady corners and other places finally burst forth with bluish daisy-like flowers. This year one plant came up right in front of a frequently used gate--it took all of our collective patience not to pull the darned thing, but now it's made the transformation from weed to wildflower.


The side of the yard under the white pines is especially thick with blue wood asters.


Insects have eaten the foliage so thoroughly that it took me a while to find a heart-shaped leaf that was intact.

This species appeared on this blog as 365 urban species #269: Heart-leaf Aster.

I'd like to plant some common milkweed in our yard to help support the sharply declining monarch butterfly population, but we don't have that cinderblock-and-asphalt habitat it seems to need.

This past Sunday we had an Urban Nature Walk in the Bussey Brook Meadow Urban Wild. This little chunk of land connects the Forest Hills rapid transit stop to the Arnold Arboretum, making it very easy for any car-free Bostonian to get there. As it happens, two of us came by car, two by bicycle. This photo is from the end of the walk, when we emerged from an Arboretum gate to find an abundance of black raspberries!

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See other pics from the walk from lizziebelle here: http://lizziebelle.livejournal.com/846229.html
And from Ajay here:
http://sicloot.com/blog/2013/07/urban-nature-walk-bussey-meadow/

Ground Ivy (Also Creeping Charlie, Gill-Over-the-Ground) Glechoma hederacea

"You know that viney weed with the scalloped-edged leaves that takes over your yard? That one that you can tell is a long, climbing thing, but when you try to rip it out of your flower beds, just the part in your hands breaks off instead of pulling up the whole thing? The one that gets those pretty little purple flowers in the spring? Turns out Europeans brought it here on purpose, just like garlic mustard. It's a salad green. You can use it in soups. You can make tea out of it. The Saxons used to use it like hops in beer. It has medicinal properties. A 1986 study found it inhibits EBV and skin tumors. It's part of the mint family, and mints were traditionally used as all-purpose antibiotics." - gigglingwizard

I don't have much to add, except that it smells really nice when you mow it. It's a common urban and suburban plant, and first joined us as 365 urban species number 118.



But what the hell is growing on it?! I was just sitting in my yard when I saw this thing. I assumed it was a small lawnmower's mushroom and went to pluck it--to my surprise I pulled out a plant with a foreign growth.



I knew that it had to be a gall, but had no idea that any creature made use of ground ivy for this purpose!


Ground Ivy Gall Wasp Liposthenes glechomae

I cut it open to see a single wormlike larva inside, very much like an oak apple gall. Wormlike larvae are usually the babies of wasps or flies, two groups known to produce galls. At least mites and pathogens were eliminated as the causal agent. I searched the index of my copy of Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates but ground ivy was not in the index, nor its scientific name. I posted pics here, on facebook, and on bugguide. One of the authors of the above book chimed in to identify the gall as belonging to Lisposthenes glechomae, a tiny wasp in the same family as the one that causes oak apples. He also pointed out that this gall appears in his book (p. 395--it's in the index under galls, ground ivy).

The gall protects the developing larva from predation while providing a food source for it. The insect causes little to no damage to the plant. This wasp is native to Europe, and was translocated inadvertently with its host.

A weird crow call drew me out from my office. Just outside, a red tail was getting harassed by a single crow and few songbirds. This grackle was the most persistent of the mob.

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I didn't take as many pics on the 20th, so I can share all the good ones, even though they are exceptionally random. Here's a big green tree lizard--another species of anole Anolis leachii.

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