Looks like we have at least ten solid days of clouds and rain ahead of us. What a difference a year makes!

This modest, homely plant made an appearance outside the front door. Glenn suggested, and I think he’s right, that it’s a blacksnakeroot, Sanicula, either S. canadensis or S. trifoliata. One of the Apiaceae, it goes by the common names of blacksnakeroot, sanicula, and “footprints of spring.”

It was harboring quite a puzzling menagerie yesterday. I have only the vaguest idea of what any of these are. More questions than answers, today.

UPDATE: A couple of identifications via Doug, and thanks for those.

Let’s go with the caterpillar first. That’s about as good as I can get right now. It’s about 2 inches long and holds itself very stiffly. Its modus operandi seems to be to hold onto a stem (or rebar) and thrust itself stiffly onto a leaf.

Doug says a member of the Geometridae. Although I haven’t found much in the way of photographs of larvae, looks like it might be a large maple spanworm - Prochoerodes. It is imaged in my little golden guide, and looks pretty much like it. It is a twig mimic.





This has the appearance of a milkweed bug nymph, or perhaps a larval or nymph form transitioning into an adult.

Doug says it’s an immature ladybug. I’ve seen the younger stage nymph, which you’d never dream would turn out to be a ladybug. This looks like an intermediate stage of maturation.





This wasn’t the only spider nestled into the emergent leaves, but it was the only one cooperating. A very tiny spider, it may be immature. It doesn’t seem to match any of the crab spiders.

Doug doesn’t do spiders .