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.…
Mints are a huge family of plants with many representatives, both in the wild and and in the garden. Besides spearmint and peppermint, obviously mints, thyme and sage of the herb garden, and the beebalm (genus Monarda) one of the most popular flowers in Catskills gardens – all are members…
Hyacinths are flowers known and loved for their fragrance. In in the Catskills, these early spring bulbs are planted in the garden and are most effective when located near the doorstep, where their fragrance welcomes the passerby. Many millions more people buy hyacinths forced in pots, and are able to enjoy their…
This last week’s snowfall made a post about spring garden flowers seem somewhat unseasonal. During the warm spell preceding the snow fall, however, I sampled some leaf litter from my backyard, and I found some interesting critters doing their thing to help break down the fallen leaves from last summer.…
Maples are not considered by most folks to be a flowering tree. Most people won’t even notice them until the fallen flowers collect on the windshields of their vehicles. Close up, maples flowers are recognizable as flowers. Red maple and sugar maple are the two most common species here…
There’s an orgy going on underfoot. In that thin film of water that coats the ground on a wet day, the sex cells of these primitive plants are on the move. The mosses were among the first plants to live on the land, while seaweeds and freshwater algae remained in…
