 Our seeds today look like those of several other plants.
Maybe I should give some hints. These are pretty small, the flowers are 1/2 inch in diameter or less. They are native to the Southwest. The plants are low growing.
Do you know what plant these came from? If you’d like to, please leave a comment with your idea.
Edit:Â The answer is now posted.
The mystery seeds from last week were from a shoestring acacia, Acacia stenophylla.
Originally from Australia, these trees have been planted in the Southwest as landscape trees.
They grow rather quickly.
The trees get their name from the fact they have long, slender leaves that resemble shoestrings.
(Photograph by Don A.W. Carlson, Wikimedia)
Their flowers are pale yellow, round puffs, common to most acacias.
Although not too common, this tree is definitely becoming more popular recently. People like it because it keeps its leaves throughout the year and doesn’t produce a lot of litter. It is also very drought tolerant.
Do you have shoestring acacias where you live?
So, what was the mystery insect last week?
It is a wasp of the genus Megarhyssa. This particular specimen is a male wasp.
In case you are wondering, that is not a stinger pointing out of its body, but the wasp’s extra-long abdomen. The female wasps have an extremely long, slender ovipositor or egg-laying tube that they use to drill into wood to lay their eggs into the larvae of wood-boring insects. The wasp larvae then eat the wood-boring insect larvae.
In this video, you can see the female wasp pulling her ovipositor out of the wood after laying eggs.
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This is one of those insects that can alarming to look at, but are not harmful at all.
Have you ever seen one?
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.
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