Hello Friends of Root! This week, I will be busy preparing for my talk at the Andes Roundtable on Wednesday, June 8th. It is an overview of the natural history and biology of parasitism as exemplified by local parasitic wasps, and the role that these wasps play in the…
Last week I talked about Garlic Mustard, a garden foe, a plant in the mustard family of plants. I described the distinctive characteristics of this common plant family, which is such an important component of the local vegetation here in the Catskills. Plants in this family have a distinctive 4-petaled cross-shaped flower.…
The mustard or cabbage family of plants includes plants we grow and eat such as broccoli, cabbage and radish. Many members of the family, though not native to the Catskills, have become so widespread and naturalized that they are a significant component of the local vegetation. Some have become weeds…
A lot of insects are called flies like dragonflies or butterflies, but true flies are insects with only one pair of wings. We are most familiar with the obnoxious members of the group – the bloodsuckers such as mosquitoes and deer flies and their ilk, but the preponderance of fly…
The bumble bee is a conspicuous insect at this time of year. It is large, over an inch long, with lots of long hair colored black and yellow and/or orange. There are 47 species of Bumble bee in North and Central America, with maybe 15 species in the Catskills region.…
