The ever busy Bumblebee

The bumblebees pictured here characteristically have the dark shiny hump on their backs. There was a citizen article that described a parasite of the Bumblebee which seemed to have a similar appearance. Every bumblebee seen here have that same characteristic hump.

False Dragonhead or Obedient Plant

Found this lovely flower growing along our driveway[Physostegia virginiana]. It turns out to be False Dragonhead or Obedient plant. It is growing among other tall plants including grasses and golden rod.

An Trillium Fruit

During my butternut survey I found a couple of trilliums as pictured here with a red fruit. At first by the leaves one would guess possibly a Jack-in-the-Pulpit but its fruit is a cluster of red berries. After considerable research-- there is lots about the flower but not much about the fruit -- I have determined that it is definitely the fruit of a trillium. According to the internet literature the fruit body actually contains many seeds. In nature the fruit over time would drop to the ground and ants would then excavate into the fruit and take the seeds back to their nests; hence carry out one of the trilliums means of propagation in nature.

Natural Butternut Tree near our Residence

I have prepared a new blog to track the lovely natural butternut tree nearby. Click on the title.

Update and wrap up of Canker Resistant Butternut Report

Completed observing and logging the position and condition of the remaining unreported butternut trees.

Status of each tree can be found at separate blogs as follows.

Tree #1 is planted in field area i and can be found at: http://crb1i.blogspot.com/
Tree #2 is at http://crb2i.blogspot.com/
Tree #7 is found and reported at http://crb7c.blogspot.com/

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