Monday: 5 November 2007
For the last few days and certainly through today, we’ve been at a Class 5 fire danger alert. Temperatures have been high, for early November, peaking today in the mid-70s, and there are winds. The absence of rain plays a part, of course, and the humidity in the afternoons has been down around 20-30%. We had no sooner finished the business meeting on Thursday night and arrived home when there was a fire pageout for Wolfskin, for a fully involved vehicle fire. It was an easily controlled situation but there were some safety and operational issues that should be addressed.
Closer to home, there have been some late summer-early autumn flowering plants but even the goldenrods and asters have been sparse and short-lived. In the early summer I planted a number of large pots with a number of species of natives just to see what would happen. We were able to keep these conservatively watered, and have been rewarded with periodic flowerings.
Right now, numerous individuals of a very nice wasp species (I’m guessing) are enjoying the Helianthus porteri, Porter’s Sunflower (aka, Stone Mountain Daisy). This is a species USDA Plants targets for AL, GA, SC, and NC, so it’s fairly localized and also prefers a rather odd environment: granite outcrops. Glenn “discovered” it a coupla years ago growing around granite outcrops along the Oconee River Greenway, and we’ve been trying to propagate it. It’s an annual, and so has the dual characteristics of being fortunately robust and fast-growing, and unfortunately totally dependent on seed production, which is why you shouldn’t be picking its flowers.
Here’s the hymenopteran amid the ray and disk flowers of the sunflower:
I’m guessing it’s a tiphiid wasp, possibly Paratiphia robusta, although Bugguide warns that no key is available and so species identification is difficult. Not that I’d be seriously attempting a key, but I did go through my Peterson Insects guide and can at least rationalize away the possibility of it being a scoliid wasp. Scoliids have the outer wing areas wrinkled, rather than in discrete veins and closed cells, as is clear from the first thumbnail below. The abdominal banding and shape and general hairiness seems about right.
The other characteristics seem right - the adults are flower nectar feeders. The larvae parasitize “white grubs”, according to Peterson. If so, it’s a new wasp for me, and of particular interest in that I’m seeing it in November, a late date pollinator.
Closer to home, there have been some late summer-early autumn flowering plants but even the goldenrods and asters have been sparse and short-lived. In the early summer I planted a number of large pots with a number of species of natives just to see what would happen. We were able to keep these conservatively watered, and have been rewarded with periodic flowerings.
Right now, numerous individuals of a very nice wasp species (I’m guessing) are enjoying the Helianthus porteri, Porter’s Sunflower (aka, Stone Mountain Daisy). This is a species USDA Plants targets for AL, GA, SC, and NC, so it’s fairly localized and also prefers a rather odd environment: granite outcrops. Glenn “discovered” it a coupla years ago growing around granite outcrops along the Oconee River Greenway, and we’ve been trying to propagate it. It’s an annual, and so has the dual characteristics of being fortunately robust and fast-growing, and unfortunately totally dependent on seed production, which is why you shouldn’t be picking its flowers.
Here’s the hymenopteran amid the ray and disk flowers of the sunflower:
I’m guessing it’s a tiphiid wasp, possibly Paratiphia robusta, although Bugguide warns that no key is available and so species identification is difficult. Not that I’d be seriously attempting a key, but I did go through my Peterson Insects guide and can at least rationalize away the possibility of it being a scoliid wasp. Scoliids have the outer wing areas wrinkled, rather than in discrete veins and closed cells, as is clear from the first thumbnail below. The abdominal banding and shape and general hairiness seems about right.
The other characteristics seem right - the adults are flower nectar feeders. The larvae parasitize “white grubs”, according to Peterson. If so, it’s a new wasp for me, and of particular interest in that I’m seeing it in November, a late date pollinator.
