Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Whew! In a nick of time.

 As I type, I can hear the weedeaters attacking the very place where I took these photos 15 minutes ago.  So sad.  These are the first daisies I've seen this year, and the one in the above photo has two different species of insect visitor.  I was hoping to see some Painted Lady butterflies land, as they are very plentiful on campus this morning.  However, the daisies were in a shady spot, so the butterflies are out in the open sun visiting dandelions.
 Click on these photos for close-up views of the flowers' details.  I especially love the spiral patterns in the disks of composite flowers.  It stirs memories and impulses in art, mathematics, and biology simultaneously.
 The tiny Blue-eyed Marys are plentiful on the forest floor surrounding the FRC campus as well as around Oakland Camp which I visited early this morning.  I'll soon post an update on this morning's sightings.
 In the sunnier spots on the hillside above campus the Western Dog Violets are blooming.  Out at the camp, they were in deep shade and not yet blooming, but I spotted many new leaves so maybe in another week or two we'll see them blooming out there.  This is the only local species of wild violet that is actually violet in color.  Most of our species are yellow.

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