Friday, August 3, 2012

Wandering through the Meadow


Look what I spotted on the purple milkweed vine! A monarch caterpillar! But wait a minute...it can't be. Once I started looking a photos of Danaus plexippus caterpillars, I realized I was wrong. For one thing, this child has red tinges of color, which monarch caterpillars don't have. A little nosing around on the Internet, and I found the answer: it's a queen (Danaus gilippus)! 
Another clue: Monarch caerpillars have two sets of tubercles (those antenna-looking appendages) and queens have three. 
I guess it's been a LONG time since I've seen a queen caterpillar. Cool!
Texas bindweed (Convolvulus equitans)
Waiting for help from Jerry Stacy, a fellow Texas Master Naturalist, for the ID of this mystery plant. Aren't the tiny flowers sweet?
UPDATE–What a sleuth! Jerry figured out my mystery plants: Knotweed leaf-flower (Phyllanthus polygonoides). How'd you do that, I asked him. "A big book. Flora of North Central Texas," he wrote back. That IS a BIG book! I've seen it! Thanks, Jerry!
Carolina snailseed (Cocculus carolinus)
I've seen this plant for years and always ignored it. In my email, I asked Jerry if he could ID it, too. "Looks like prostrate euphorbia," he wrote. "Ground spurge." He's right! Euphorbia maculata is "a late-germinating, low growing, mat-producing summer annual," according to Michigan State University's Turf Weeds.net. Another mystery solved! Thanks, Jerry!

7 comments:

sandy lawrence said...

Oooo, I hate that ground spurge! Comes up in my decomposed granite drive every year. I don't use chemicals, so have to pull every one of those suckers up by hand.
You know, that plant you're waiting for an ID on looks like a TX native mock orange. Are the little star blooms white and aromatic?

Sheryl Smith-Rodgers said...

Hmm, I looked up Texas mock orange, and the species looks like it grows larger. Does it? You'd miss this little plant in our Meadow unless you looked really hard. Which I had to do this morning when I went looking for it. Grows like a "weed."

sandy lawrence said...

Sheryl, I got my TX mock orange this year. It is about 18" tall now and no blooms yet. I found it at the Medina Native Plant Nursery, where I was told it enjoys a caliche soil and that I should find a place where I hadn't amended the soil too much with compost. The stems and leaves look very much like your plant. I didn't grasp the small size of it in your photo, though I should have from the grass around it.

Sheryl Smith-Rodgers said...

We've been there! Neat place. And how's your mock orange doing?

Carolyn ♥ said...

Pull the spurge... it multiplies by the bazillions over night. But enjoy the caterpillar, I'm so jealous. I check my milkweed daily for eggs/caterpillars... so far no such luck.

Sheryl Smith-Rodgers said...

I'm just glad to know what it is. It's really kinda fun to be able to walk through the Meadow and call everyone by name! :-)

sandy lawrence said...

Sheryl, the native mock orange is doing well, and I'm pleasantly surprised. Medina Nsry says it is not an easy plant to grow. I like challenges ... I'll let you know when (if) it blooms. The flowers are supposedly very small but pack a delicious aroma. I really love the large-flowered mock orange, too. Though not a native, it does well here and is so beautiful. I'm not a "natives only" gardener, but do avoid the invasives.

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