Our mystery seeds this week also come from a desert plant.
If you look closely at the photographs, you may see something to help you identify the seeds.
Any idea what sort of plant produced these? Please leave a comment if you have an idea.
Edit:Â The answer is now posted.
As Tommy and Karen guessed last week, our mystery seeds from last week were from a milkweed. In particular, they are from the rush or leafless milkweed, Asclepias subulata.
Milkweeds come in a number of sizes and shapes. You may be familiar with the broad-leaved milkweed that grows in fields and on roadsides throughout North America:Â Asclepias syriaca, the common milkweed.
Common Milkweed
The rush or leafless milkweed that grows here in the Southwest lacks the large leaves.
Much of the year it looks like a clump of grey-green sticks, as shown in the left foreground of this photograph.
The flower structure, pods and seeds of the rush milkweed are similar to its relatives.
The rush milkweeds’ flowers are yellow, however, rather than pink.
As with all milkweeds, the flowers consist of a crown or corona, with five nectar cups. Many different insects visit the plant for the nectar in these cups, including:
butterflies, like this queen, and…
wasps and bees like this tarantula hawk. (The wasps pollinate milkweeds).
We grow rush milkweeds as part of a butterfly/insect garden. The plants are food for the larvae of queen and monarch butterflies.
queen butterfly caterpillar
monarch butterfly caterpillar
The caterpillars are never so numerous as to harm the plants and the adult butterflies are beautiful.
The bottom line is that milkweeds are easy-to-care-for plants that add dimension to any landscape.
Do you grow any milkweeds? What kind?
Try Monarchs in the Desert for more information about milkweeds and monarchs.
The sunflowers are quite lovely this week and are attracting a number of insects.
One of the insects that was hanging out on a sunflower leaf was a tiny chalcid wasp.
The first thing I noticed was the hind leg. The femur, which would be the thigh region on a human, is greatly enlarged and reddish brown.
Here’s a better view. Notice the brilliant light blue around the eyes. This is a very pretty little wasp.
Chalcids are parasitic wasps. Their larvae feed on or in another insect that is larger than they are. Chalcids often feed on caterpillars or fly larvae, although some use bees or beetles as hosts. I’m not sure what species this is or what it eats. The enlarged femora (plural form of femur) are thought to be used to hold or manipulate the hosts while females lay their eggs.
Although they are called wasps, they are so tiny they are not harmful to humans in any way. If the caterpillar or fly they feed on is a pest, then they are considered to be beneficial insects. Some chalcids are available commercially for biological control efforts.
Although this wasp is pretty small, one of it’s relatives is considered to be the smallest insect in the world. The male of Dicopomorpha echmepterygis is smaller that a one-celled parmecium!
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.
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