When an insect such as an aphid penetrates the rich phloem cells of a plant with its needle-like mouth parts and sucks in the sweet liquid, what goes in must come out. Out the terminal gut opening. Sweet, sticky, aphid feces. Falling from trees and shrubs and coating windshields, sleeping dogs, or stream stones (see red arrows below).
Ants especially enjoy eating this honeydew secretion and will guard the aphids from predators such as lady beetles. The infant Zeus fed on honeydew on the island of Crete. Jews marched in circles en route to a land flowing with honey, or possibly honeydew. The Norse ash tree Yggdrasil drips with it. (The world-tree drips with honeydew!) If gods, chosen ones, and mythological trees do well by honeydew, we can feel honored down at the Creek that some of the rocks under our cedar elms have been made sticky with the sweet excrement of aphids.
Oh yes. Focus. (see below)
Speaking of dry. Wanted to insert these two images of what dry looks like up above the Creek near where we people stay.
The first is a Comanche Skimmer (Libellula Comanche). This one has a pretty good probability of having the correct name. Abbot’s book of Dragonflies of Texas says “the only other dragonfly with a bicolored pterostigma is Spangled Skinner … which has a black face”. A pterostigma is the darker rectangle at the leading edge of the wings near the tip. In this case it is dark toward the tip (distally) and white closer in (proximally).
The second is a Checkered Setwing (Dythemis fugax). This name is also a pretty good bet. In A Dazzle of Dragonflies by Mitchell and Lasswell is the observation that “A male Checkered Setwing is readily recognized by the lacy brown pattern at the base of the wings, p. 168”. On the preceding page it says setwings like to sit with their tail end straight up (called obelisking) to decrease the “amount of body surface exposed to the sun, thus reducing the dragonfly’s body temperature”.
Here are a couple of pictures of one of your Cissus incisa (cowitch vine). The berries are black when they are ripe. The flower picture includes a bug getting a bit of refreshment from some cowitch flowers. The Shinner’s manual says: “flowers 4-merous, perfect or unisexual, greenish; stamens 4; disk a 4-lobed cup; style 1, capitate” which seems about right. I think I’ve seen cow-itch flowers before but I’m not sure I’ve been around at the right time to see the berries.
This particular vine is in the clump of brush along the bank close the south edge of the pond.
This web page says the vine causes contact dermatitis on some people. Also, it hyphenates the common name: “cow-itch”. There are sites which say that “cow-itch” is a common name for trumpetcreeper (Campsis radicans), but a cursory look around suggests that the lists made by botanists stick the cow-itch name with the genus Cissus.
The Clematis drummondii (Old Man’s Beard) vine is about 20 feet north of the property line and along the bank. You had mentioned wanting to collecting some seeds and here there are thousands.
Ants especially enjoy eating this honeydew secretion and will guard the aphids from predators such as lady beetles. The infant Zeus fed on honeydew on the island of Crete. Jews marched in circles en route to a land flowing with honey, or possibly honeydew. The Norse ash tree Yggdrasil drips with it. (The world-tree drips with honeydew!) If gods, chosen ones, and mythological trees do well by honeydew, we can feel honored down at the Creek that some of the rocks under our cedar elms have been made sticky with the sweet excrement of aphids.
While on the subject of poop, here it is across the floor of the creek. Bass feces? Probably.
The next series of images looks in on the most striking flower that we find blooming on the place now. Seen only among the stones of the west side of the Creek bed and growing to about three feet in height, Leavenworth's Eryngo (Eryngium leavenworthii) prefers, so we're told, late summers, rocky prairies, and calcium-rich soils. Its sharply pointed metalic purple bracts and pineapple-shaped flower head have earned a place as an official color: "Red Eryngium." And some enjoy eating its roots, young leaves, and young shoots (the latter serving as a substitute for asparagus).
The first photograph places our flowering specimen in a context typical of this second year of drought here at the Creek.
Speaking of dry. Wanted to insert these two images of what dry looks like up above the Creek near where we people stay.
And now for some of Harlin's dragonflies and plants.
The second is a Checkered Setwing (Dythemis fugax). This name is also a pretty good bet. In A Dazzle of Dragonflies by Mitchell and Lasswell is the observation that “A male Checkered Setwing is readily recognized by the lacy brown pattern at the base of the wings, p. 168”. On the preceding page it says setwings like to sit with their tail end straight up (called obelisking) to decrease the “amount of body surface exposed to the sun, thus reducing the dragonfly’s body temperature”.
And two Leaftails (Phyllogomphoides stigmata).
Here are a couple of pictures of one of your Cissus incisa (cowitch vine). The berries are black when they are ripe. The flower picture includes a bug getting a bit of refreshment from some cowitch flowers. The Shinner’s manual says: “flowers 4-merous, perfect or unisexual, greenish; stamens 4; disk a 4-lobed cup; style 1, capitate” which seems about right. I think I’ve seen cow-itch flowers before but I’m not sure I’ve been around at the right time to see the berries.
This particular vine is in the clump of brush along the bank close the south edge of the pond.
This web page says the vine causes contact dermatitis on some people. Also, it hyphenates the common name: “cow-itch”. There are sites which say that “cow-itch” is a common name for trumpetcreeper (Campsis radicans), but a cursory look around suggests that the lists made by botanists stick the cow-itch name with the genus Cissus.
The Clematis drummondii (Old Man’s Beard) vine is about 20 feet north of the property line and along the bank. You had mentioned wanting to collecting some seeds and here there are thousands.
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| Cissus incisa |
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| Cissus incisa |
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| Clematis drummondii |
