Indigenous, but not native? What does that even mean?

What does that even mean?

Mostly it's a way of working around the fact that many of the "native wildflowers" we commonly see around us are not native.

That's right folks:

Queen Anne's Lace?  Native to temperate Europe and southwest Asia.

Bull Thistle?  Native to Europe, southwest Asia, and northern Africa.

Common Teasel?  Native to Europe.










St. John's Wort?  Most species are Old World natives.

Common Chicory?  Native to Europe.



 Larkspur?  Native to Europe.

They have, however, been here a pretty long time.  Most of the above species have been common in the North American landscape for the last several hundred years.

We call them indigenous because they often are an essential part of the landscape (native pollinators love many of the species listed here!) and because they have been here long enough to have evolved along with many of the native species.  We cannot call them native because, well, they aren't.

I truly wish I could include some of these species in my wildflower mixes, but then many golf courses (and other programs) would be reluctant to use them because they contain non-native species.  Planting non-natives would disqualify them from being recognized by several organizations, including the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program.

Which brings me to problem I've always had with this particular classification system:

Where is the line drawn between native and non-native?  Many species traveled from Asia to the Americas and vice versa over the Bering Land Bridge a looooooong time ago (with the bridge being submerged ~ 11,000 years ago).  We consider many of those species (such the current equids and camelids of Eurasia) to be native in their "new" range, but not in their original range.

Seriously, if someone has the answer to this, I'd be thrilled to hear it.  Is it the land bridge being submerged?  Colonization of the Americas by Old Worlders (Vikings? Cristobal Colon in 1492? Purported Egyptians?  Japanese?  Siberians?)?  Is there an arbitrary date?

Most of the information I've found has been weirdly unprofessional.  Lots of odd conspiracy theories.  I'm just a gal looking for answers.  Send me your links if you have them!

Inside the hive!

Ever wanted to see the inside of a bumblebee hive?  Curious about queen bees?  Like gross stuff?

We have all of those things in today's post!

Thanks to the hard work of my dear labmate, who has been more-or-less successfully (depending on how you feel about bee stings) rearing colonies of bumblebees as a part of his research, I now have a bunch of amazingly gross/awesome pictures to share with you all.

His bumblebee colonies were originally purchased from a company in Michigan and shipped to us in the "artificial hives" they have since lived in all summer.  The artificial hives are made of plastic which contains some cotton batting, and the whole thing is encased in a cardboard box.  The bees construct their own waxy hives inside this contraption.

Weird space craters or bumblebee hive?

This is what the whole contraption looks like as it's dissected to evaluate the colony.

Cool!  Those open craters are actually pupal casings.  We think that after the bees are removed from their pupal casings, those spaces become honey storage.  The shiny liquid-y stuff?  Definitely honey, though not the same as the commercially harvested stuff made by honey bees.

You can also see some powdery, earwax looking stuff piled in one of the larger craters.  I think that's pollen, but it might just be wax.

The larger, lighter yellow casings near the bottom of the picture might be ROYAL casings.  There are some serious queens up in those things.

Close up!

That little bitty white oval is an egg, soon to be a larvae once it is placed in a casing.

To give you an idea about the lifecycle of these fellas:

Size reference:

FYI:  I have GIGANTIC HANDS, so this isn't really the best reference.  

Finally, a slightly bedraggled queen, one of many in this hive:

Bumblebees are awesome, hives are disgusting, and the whole thing has been fascinating for me.

Cats are bees too

This is my life right now.

Frustration with grant juggling, dying wildflowers, and writing methodologies that I barely understand abounds.

Crunchy

It is seriously hot outside.  The combination of super-mega-volcano hotness, the lack of significant precipitation, and the crazy strong windstorms called derechos have really given the OP plots a hard time.  

An update on the example used in the last post:

Bergamot* two weeks ago:

Bergamot last week:

Bergamot yesterday:

It's rough out there.

Some of my Black-eyed Susans are looking similarly crunchy.

Before heatwave:

After heatwave:

It's just not a great time to be a wildflower.

*Vick, Albert F.W., Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center