thistle | The Prairie Ecologist

It’s till pretty drab and brown outside, so today’s photos are again selected from last summer’s shots. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is glad to look at some color.

We missed out on most of the polar vortex here in Aurora; we only dropped as low as -5 degrees one night, and we’re back up close to 50 degrees today. The misplaced jokes I’ve heard (“heh heh, global warming, am I right?”) reminded me that I’d written a post several years ago about how global warming does, in fact, influence longer and colder temperatures at times during the winter. I looked up the post and was dismayed to see it was almost SIX YEARS OLD. And we’re still arguing (and joking) instead of acting.

Moving on, though, here is some color from last August. I photographed bees and a few other insects on tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum) several different times during that month. (Which reminds me of another previous post, this one on native thistles and their importance to pollinators). Here are some highlights from those August thistle photos.

A crab spider waits for the next pollinator to stop by…

A skipper butterfly on tall thistle at our family prairie.

I think this might be a fruit fly (Tephrellia?) that lays eggs in thistle flowers. Anyone know for sure?

Dotted gayfeather (*Liatris punctata*) seeds at our family prairie last weekend.

This is the season of flying fluffy seeds. Asters, thistles, blazing stars, milkweeds, and other late season flowers are sending their seeds into the air, a few of which might actually land in a place where they can germinate. Each of those seeds is attached to a filamentous structure, variously called a pappus or coma, depending upon the species of plant. Those fluffy structures catch the wind and allow the seed to travel many miles, in some cases – though most land within a few meters of their origin.

Seeds that can float on the air are a nice adaptation for plants, but they are also attractive photographic subjects. Over the last week, I’ve photographed the seeds of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata) and tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum) in some local prairies. Here are a few of those photos for your Friday enjoyment.