Wild Outdoor Wednesday

Look for galls on goldenrod stems and other plants. Take a close look; cut them open to see what’s inside. Record what you see in color and word.

Remember to take your sketchbook or journal with unlined pages, something to draw and write with, and something to add color ~ watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, or markers.

Wordless Wednesday

The Goldenrod Gang

 As fall begins, a whole lot of things seem to happen at once:
monarch butterflies migrate south;
apples ripen and fall to the ground;
leave turn glorious shades of russet and red and rose.

 Leaves aren't the only thing changing color. Perhaps you've noticed that the roadsides and fields are changing hue as well. As summer colors fade, roadsides and fields burst with the brilliant yellows of goldenrod.

There are more than a hundred kinds of goldenrod in the US alone. If you take a close look at their flowers, you'll see that they are relatives of the sunflower family. Spend time with goldenrod and you'll find that they support an interesting community of insects: the "Goldenrod Gang".

One of the beetles that visits goldenrod is the "locust borer" - a bright yellow-and-black longhorn beetle. It's a native beetle that gets its name from its habit of boring into black locust (you can learn more about it here). 

Another beetle I find on the flowers is the ladybird beetle, aka "ladybug". There are many kinds of ladybugs, but we seem to have more of the non-native multi-dotted Asian Lady Beetles around our house.

Look down on the stem, and you might find some grasshoppers hiding under the leaves. And then - back on the flowers - there are some wasps: dainty black wasps barely larger than an ant, and larger paper wasps sipping nectar and collecting pollen. And of course, bees: honey bees, bumblebees, and bees I don't even know the names of.

Grab your nature journal and head out to a goldenrod patch
What do you see?
What sorts of beetles are hanging out on your goldenrod flowers?
How long do they stay there - and what are they doing?
What kinds of wasps and bees visit your plants?
Is there a difference between what insects visit in the morning and which visit in the afternoon?
What happens when one insect meets another? Do they ignore each other?

Check out other cool science posts and STEM resources over at STEM Friday.

Wordless Wednesday

Goldenrod Galls

Past the hickory tree, where we haven’t mowed since last year, grows a patch of goldenrod. Each fall it lives up to its name, producing bright golden flowers that keep the bumblebees and honeybees busy on warm days.

Look closely, though, and you notice weird things on my plants. Some of them have swellings on the stem – as though they swallowed a golf ball. A few have bunches of leaves that resemble flowers, tucked near the tops of stems. These are galls – deformities caused by insects.

Gall flies, moths and midges are responsible for the deformities in goldenrod. The adult insect lays its eggs on the plants. When the larvae hatch, they chew their way into the stem, irritating the goldenrod. In response, the goldenrod develops a swelling (ball gall) or the tight flower-like cluster that keeps the stem from growing.

When the weather grows cold, the larvae enter a state of suspended animation (diapause) and remain that way until spring, when they resume chewing a tunnel to the gall where they’ll pupate.

Over winter, though, a lot can happen to a gall. Downy woodpeckers and chickadees, hungry for protein-rich snacks, may poke a hole into the gall and chow down on the sleeping larvae.