joe pye weed

A single Joe Pye Weed plant popped up near the pond.  

This plant Eutrochium maculatum, is also called Spotted Joe-pye Weed, Purple Boneset, Spotted Trumpetweed.  It is related to the similar Boneset which blooms white instead of purple or pink.

goldfinches on goldenrod

 Sneezeweed is blooming in the background.

Lonicera

The Lonicera is blooming, now through November.  This perennial vine is a favorite of hummingbirds.

blue lobelia and goldenrod

 

monardas - bee balm - bergamot

Wild Bergamot Monarda fistulosa starting blooming last week all around the pond and in the meadows near here. (left)

The Scarlet Beebalm Monarda didyma started blooming a few weeks ago. (below)

Both plants are in the mint family. 

nectar and pollen

Before June, dandelion flowers are one of a few important food source for pollinators, providing both nectar and pollen for bumblebees and honey bees. Other various insects like beetles, hoverflies and butterflies use the nectar as food. Some birds eat the seeds. 

purple asters

 

New England Asters

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae

bloom along with the white and lavender 

colored asters around the pond. 

 They add to the display of riotous color

 in late summer.

strong stem

The strong stiff stems of Ironweed are known for proudly holding flowers, pollen, and nectar above the other native plants. Butterflies, bees, and other insects find Vernonia fasciculate, ‘Prairie' or ‘Common' Ironweed plants, a source of nourishment.  This plant also helps filter water that percolates back into the soil. That means less toxins in water that recharges the groundwater aquifers.

Ironweed is one of a few host plants for American Painted Lady butterfly. ‘Host plants’ are those that the butterfly lives on, lays eggs on, and their larvae are sustained by.

See also the post on 8-21-2020 

blue lobelia

Blue Lobelia, a native perennial, started blooming several weeks ago in the wetland around the pond.  Each spike of flowers opens from the bottom up.  This plant Lobelia siphilitica is related to the intense red Cardinal Flower Lobelia siphilitica.  In fact, sometimes Blue Lobelia is called  Blue Cardinal Flower.  It should bloom until frost, now that we received some rain after a dry summer. 

ladybug on milkweed

royal catchfly

 

Royal Catchfly Silene regia makes its bright red flowers stand out among the white and purple wildflowers now blooming. 

This family of plants was named 'catchfly' because it has a sticky seed pod behind the flower.  Little flies, gnats, and other tiny insects get stuck on the sticky pod or stem.

Butterflies also pollinate this wildflower.

September wildflowers

 Coneflower, Mountain Mint, Sneezeweed, Ironweed, Asters, Goldenrod.

asters

White asters are common wildflowers across Minnesota.  They pop up along pond shores, woodland edges, meadows, fens, roadsides, and ditches. This may be Panicled Aster Symphyotrichum lanceolatum, complementing the yellows and purples of late summer blooms around the pond now.  The center disk is bright yellow, and turns reddish as the flower goes to seed.

 

bee on sneezeweed

 

planthopper

 

Planthoppers are masters of disguise. A green Acanalonid Planthopper, hiding on a stem, can look like part of the plant -- a seed pod, leaf, bract, or stipule. 

This one is only 3/8 inch long.  It was perched on a stem at the leaf sheath, probably sucking sap from the grass.  Planthoppers, true to their name, can leap many times the length of their bodies.  And they are very agile insects that can move easily forwards, backwards, or sideways. 

goldenrod

 

To complement all the blue and purple flowers around the pond this week, the Goldenrod has unfurled its blooms.  Solidago species, commonly called Goldenrods, are in a genus of more than 100 species of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae.

Goldenrods are often blamed for allergies, but they have sticky pollen and rely on insects to move most of it.  The wind borne pollen of ragweeds and pigweeds are to blame for 'hay fever' in late summer.

These plants are habitat for a large number of insect species. Blooming in late summer, they are a critical nectar source for many bees, butterflies, and moths to fortify themselves before freezing weather comes. 

wasp on white sweet clover