Favoritos de peeppeepnuthatch

Roughly 7 generations growing in this spot, all self seeded since I brought three seeds here from the foothills of the Olympic Mountains 15 years ago. Thousands of plants here now. The ground is now covered with pappus hairs from this year’s seeds. As all of these plants are self-seeded it fits the iNaturalist definition of "wild", but I also thought people should know this is not part of a population that has persisted here since before European contact.

(Update 3/24 these thistles are no longer so dense here, but are still numerous.)

This species was on a list I found 21 years ago of those native species that hadn’t been recorded in Seattle in decades when I started studying how to identify them all, and just what habitats they naturally grew in, and looking for where I could find wild seed of the species on that list from sites physically and ecologically close to Seattle, to try planting in the most promising spots here.

I started with the goal of helping the recovery of butterfly species that had become rare in, or had disappeared from, Seattle, and knew thistles to be important as both butterfly nectar, and host (caterpillar food) plants, and had learned that all 4 of Seattle's native thistle species were on that list of our lost species. So I am pleased to see a bit of improved butterfly habitat in this spot where this native thistle species is thriving again!

I’ve since spent 15 years weeding this site and controlling the Artichoke Plume Moths https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/319034-Platyptilia-carduidactylus, the best I can, as the mother plants sent their offspring to occupy the growing patch of land vacated by my weeding around them. I also have a significant problem with non-viable seed, more later in the season, than with the initial crop, which I believe is due to predation of the receptacles, where the seeds develop, by the introduced Rhinocyllus conicus - the Nodding Thistle Receptacle Weevil https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/229899-Rhinocyllus-conicus .

This is the Outramps CREW 100,000 obs and we celebrated it with Tilla who is the Head of the Threatened Plants Programme and the CREW Programme. It represents our involvement with plant monitoring from 1992 to 2021. It has been a joyous ride. So thank you all for so many years of fun, laughs and learning. Keep going!

I like to get started early (in the Winter) pulling weeds out of my yard. One of the annual weeds that is earliest to germinate is Common Hedge Parsely (HP), a.k.a. Sockbane (illustrated here). Unfortunately, the seedlings are extremely similar to those of the native and desirable Chervil. Every winter, I go through the same routine of looking carefully to remind myself of how to tell apart the seedlings of these two Apiaceae plants. So for you gardeners out there who want to get an early start removing Hedge Parsley while retaining Chervil, here's how I recognize the difference:
-- The seedlings of the two species have a very slightly different "look". This seems to be a combination of two fine details of the new leaves: The number of ultimate divisions of each leaf segment of Chervil are fewer, often just 3, and the ultimate segments often have an obtuse angle behind the short point on each. These ultimate, 3-parted segments can look like miniature Sassafras leaves, if you're familiar with that tree. On HP, the ultimate segments of each leaf division are usually more numerous (often 5) and they typically have an acute tip behind the short point on each.
-- In the earliest, tiniest seedlings (one or two leaves), the narrow cotyledons of Chervil are proportionately longer than those of HP (last photo in this set). They are on very long "petioles" and they reach or exceed the size of the first real leaf or two. By contrast, the narrow cotyledons of HP are shorter and on shorter "petioles"; they are quickly exceeded by the petioles of the first few leaves.
These basic differences are illustrated in this array of images.

Edisto Island, day 4: https://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/lincolndurey/2018/11/21

The geo marker on this tree marks the location of Bache monument #6 of the Bache survey baseline used to establish the first accurate surveys of the East Coast. A. D. Bache was a West Point 1825 grad.

Marine Park, Brooklyn. Grassy area near entrance to Marine Park Golf Course. Same site as previously observed, re-visited specifically to check on plants & compare with Lamium purpureum. In last photo Lamium purpureum (left) & Lamium hybridum (right) held together for comparison. L. purpureum is of course abundant at this site & elsewhere.

Voracious spider captured hummingbird in web at sugar feeder. I did not think about location of web, other than it was uncomfortable to avoid when going through garden gate, when I rehung the feeder. A few hours later, she had trapped and beheaded and wrapped the hummingbird.

Does anyone know what this thing is or how it formed?!! Mass of pine needles about 10inches at the widest point. Seems to be a habitat for tiny things like snails and freshwater shrimp and things like that. There were four or five of them. I’m so curious!!!

This guy was just a wee red blob, but I knew it was something interesting from previous observations from up north :-)

The last image has a scale (mm and 1/2 mm divisions), the bell is about 4mm high.

It can curl up its tentacles so they are just little knobs, which it does when swimming. It can then unfurl those tentacles and drift with them extended.