A Garden Foe

I was walking through a garden this week and noticed that the meadow-rue (Thalictrum) was stripped of leaves, pictured below. The culprits were still at the scene, very striking caterpillars, pictured above. These are caterpillars of  the Canadian Owlet (Calyptra canadensis), which, as an adult, is a very plain brown moth.…

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Anatomy of a Flower

I was walking through my garden and saw this poppy flower. The petals had fallen off and the underlying structure of the flower was quite visible. Flowers are the sex organs of plants, and the variations in their form are myriad and wonderful. Some flowers have male parts, some have…

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