Saturday: 8 September 2007
We’ve been a bit starved for flowering plants here, this summer, and we did run across some nice ones on Wednesday’s hike.
As well as a number of orb weavers, including this one - probably a Marbled Orb Weaver, Araneus marmoreus.
At first I thought it might be a Cross Spider, Araneus diadematus, but probably not. Marbled Orb Weavers are probably our signature spider for late warm season and will last through the fall, eventually becoming enormous and stringing their webs into and between trees high high off the ground.
Here’s a larger view:
They weren’t exactly everywhere, but here and there I did spy a patch of Cardinalflowers, Lobelia cardinalis. They’re probably escapes from deer predation, since they were usually in an isolated, steep or rock-protected location. And yes, they really are that red. USDA Plants shows them in all but the nortwesternmost tier of states, so I’d bet they’re found well into Canada as well. A plant we can all enjoy.
We also saw their close, blue relatives. There are a number of obscure, similar species but I’m going with Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica. This one’s range is a little more restricted, east of the Rockies.
I didn’t catch the occupant of this flowering branch until I’d looked at the photo. Must have been a fairly large spider, but probably not enough info to identify it.
They may be nonnative and considered noxious in Arkansas and Arizona, but I still like seeing Small Red Morning Glory, Ipomoea coccinea, aka Redstar, twining its way through the underbrush in a sunny spot.
Morning glories are in the family Convolvulaceae. There are 68 species of Ipomoea, morning glories, listed by USDA Plants, and every one of them are tagged as noxious. Looks like about third of them are nonnative.
As well as a number of orb weavers, including this one - probably a Marbled Orb Weaver, Araneus marmoreus.
At first I thought it might be a Cross Spider, Araneus diadematus, but probably not. Marbled Orb Weavers are probably our signature spider for late warm season and will last through the fall, eventually becoming enormous and stringing their webs into and between trees high high off the ground.
Here’s a larger view:
They weren’t exactly everywhere, but here and there I did spy a patch of Cardinalflowers, Lobelia cardinalis. They’re probably escapes from deer predation, since they were usually in an isolated, steep or rock-protected location. And yes, they really are that red. USDA Plants shows them in all but the nortwesternmost tier of states, so I’d bet they’re found well into Canada as well. A plant we can all enjoy.
We also saw their close, blue relatives. There are a number of obscure, similar species but I’m going with Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica. This one’s range is a little more restricted, east of the Rockies.
I didn’t catch the occupant of this flowering branch until I’d looked at the photo. Must have been a fairly large spider, but probably not enough info to identify it.
They may be nonnative and considered noxious in Arkansas and Arizona, but I still like seeing Small Red Morning Glory, Ipomoea coccinea, aka Redstar, twining its way through the underbrush in a sunny spot.
Morning glories are in the family Convolvulaceae. There are 68 species of Ipomoea, morning glories, listed by USDA Plants, and every one of them are tagged as noxious. Looks like about third of them are nonnative.
