Athanasia acerosa and friends

So my mystery plant is no longer a mystery.
Years ago I found a scraggly one gallon shrub with interesting leaves etc at Daylily Hill Nursery in Escondido (hidden . . . get it?).   The nursery worker really did not know what it was, nor did I, nor could I find anything like it on the internet and even my plant geek nephew couldn't place it.  But I planted it anyway, and imagined it to be akin to the beautiful and bountiful rabbitbrush seen in New Mexico on a summer trip.

The thing has grown well in my parkway, land of little irrigation and not too much rain these past few years.  It's now about 4 feet all around and covered in yellow flowers, and it even has offspring of the cloned persuasion accompanying it further on down the strip.  One time Mr. Cardui and I saw one, a big one about 8 feet tall, also covered in flowers as we drove down a nearby business district avenue.  The thing is, this is a plant that makes itself noticed while in bloom and then, after the flowers fade it goes unnoticed.

Well, I took another trip to Escondido, same nursery under a new name and what do you know?  They had a full block of the mystery plant for sale.   So say a proper hello at last to "Athanasia acerosa" also known as Coulter bush.  Hales from South Africa.  Not a lot of info about it out there, but here's what I've learned:

A bit hard to get started from cuttings, but worth a try.  Not sure what the ultimate size is.  It grows long stems from the base which flower on the ends.  I've had good luck cutting these back halfway or even all the way to the base.  Next year new stems sprout.  Young plants are really leggy, but can be cut back in the same way to get them more bushy and full.  Doesn't need much water. The flowers are sweetly fragrant and they attract a lot of small buggies.

I saw various plant bugs (seriously, miridae),

spittle bugs (Clastoptera lineatocollis), aphids (unidentified very small black ones) and evidence of their wasp parasites (over half were mummified), a ladybird beetle (Asian),

a molting sharpshooter-style leafhopper (likely Homolodisca vitripennis) and where there's prey there's the apex predator of its little golden flowery world:  a mantis nymph (Stagmomantis).

So, one tiny null zone of information has been filled in, a whole tiny world of unanswered or even yet to be imagined questions.

2013 Winter Solstice Bug Hunt and Count

Whew!  It's a lot of working trying to find buggies in the scorching winter weather we're having here in SoCal.  Didn't quite get to the count on the 21st . . . sorry traditionalists (which btw includes myself)!  Yesterday and today have been in the 80s with a dry Santa Ana wind blowing.  Typically I get some out of the ordinary bug sightings in any season with a strong wind.  I guess when you weigh that little you get blown around a bit. Not this time, really, as the count is full of the usual suspects:

SPIDERS:
Lots of funnel web spider webs in evidence, and I saw three of the spiders, Hololena curta, outside their funnels.

Found 2 very small orb weaver spiders.
Possibly metepeira.
Under some bark chunks were 2 Under Log Spiders, appeared to be male and female just hanging out;
and a very tiny tan spider attacking a smallish beetle larva.  The tiny spider ran around the larva, then jumped on it apparently biting judging from the reaction of the larva.
Near some small decorative desiccated mushrooms:  1 very tiny jumping spider not seen in this lovely mushroom photo.

1 whirligig mite, Anystis baccarum, found running around in circles.  Have you seen how fast they are?
So a lot of arachnids without much identification.

ORTHOPTERA:
1 greybird grasshopper, Schistocerca nitens, adult male.

2 bush katydids, Scudderia furcata, 3rd instar nymphs, this one hanging out on the senna artemisioides which is just coming into bloom.  Flowers of all types are these guys' favorite foods.

TERMITES:

Or at least evidence of them in the woodpile.  Yikes.

BUGGIES:

1 black scale insect on a thick fennel stalk.  See the semi-circular marks on the stem near the insect?
Looks like the movement of the insect made these marks in Slo mo.
Aphis nerii, oleander aphids, by the 100s on two colonized plants.

1 Green leafhopper.
1 myrid plant bug of the all-black persuasion.

NEUROPTERA:
2 Green lacewings, Chrysopa sp.

HYMENOPTERA:
Grrrr.  There are still 100s of the neighbor's ants, possibly one of the so-called field ants.  I'll call them Formica parkwayii var: Cameronsantos for now.  Despite our efforts to poison and dissuade their colony, they continue to pour out from under our neighbor's house, march down our driveway an on into the parkway jungle where they travel several houses down and climb trees in search of honeydew and sap.  It wouldn't annoy except they climb onto me when I step out of the car at night, then wait until I'm comfy to bite me.  And they stink mightily of ant.
Only 4 honeybees, Apis mellifera, were out perusing the rosemary, acacia and lavatera flowers when I was looking.

LEPIDOPTERA:

Ding ding ding!  The adult butterflies were the stars of the count this year.
At least 3 separate cloudless sulfur, Phoebis sennae floated past my line of vision.
2 cabbage whites, Pieris rapae.
1 mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa, flew by in the top of the elm tree . . . hopefully laying eggs.
1 monarch, Danaus plexippus, seen flying and 1 that had recently eclosed under the cold-stressed leaf of the night blooming cereus.

FLIES:
Last but never least.

1 syrphid fly, Eupeodes sp. attracted to a basket
1 green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata resting on a leaf.
2 muscid flies of undisclosed persuasion doing what muscid flies do.
.

Slim pickings, like last year.  It's ending up to be our driest year on record here, with no predictable rain in sight.  Oh wait.  The Old Farmers' Almanac sez:

 DECEMBER 2013: temperature 54° (avg.); precipitation 2" (1" above avg. north, 0.5" below south); Dec 1-5: Rain, then sunny, cool; Dec 6-10: Heavy rain north, showers south; cool; Dec 11-15: Rainy periods, cold; Dec 16-21: Rainy periods, some heavy; cool; Dec 22-31: Clouds and drizzle, cool north; sunny, turning warm south.

JANUARY 2014: temperature 53° (1° below avg.); precipitation 8" (5" above avg.); Jan 1-3: Clouds and occasional drizzle, cool; Jan 4-10: Heavy rain, then sunny, chilly; Jan 11-14: Heavy rain, mild; Jan 15-16: Showers; Jan 17-19: Heavy rain, mild; Jan 20-24: Rainy periods, cold;Jan 25-27: Sunny, cool; Jan 28-31: Rainy, cool.

We, the plants, the birds and the buggies and the publishers of the Old Farmers Almanac can only hope.

8th Annual Winter Solstice Bug Count

Ye doggies, I've been doing this for 8 years now?  Time flies when you're geeking out over bugs.
Anyway, it was a clear and cold middle of the day on the solstice and these were my finds:

ARACHNIDS--8 Legs!
1 labyrinth orb weaver, Metepeira [labyrinthea?]

These gals are so cute with their huts made of local-sourced building materials!












1 very small, shiny brown jumping spider.

6 Funnel web spiders mostly hiding in their lairs in the cracks on my porch ceiling, Hololena curta.

1 Anystis baccarum, predatory mite aka whirligig mite.  I interrupt this recitation to clarify that this count does not by any means purport to be an exhaustive nor complete inventory of the buggies on my estate.  Seeing and recording just the one mite running crazily over and under the concrete birdbath in the front garden merely indicates that the species Anystis baccarum is represented, albeit thinly, in the fauna on this particular day.  Probably there are many more of them . . . somewhere.  Or, their eggs.  And that goes for all species listed here . . .
Lots of Aceria granati, pomegranate leaf curl mites.  I haven't yet solved this pest problem on my poor poor pomegranate tree.

HEMIPTERA--Suckers, hoppers and true bugs!

100s mealybugs adult and nymphs on the pittosporum and Juan's aeonium.
Lots of pittosporum psyllids on, what else?, pittosporum.
1000s Aphis nerii, oleander aphid, covering the nearly bare stems of the milkweed plants.  Winged and wingless forms were both plentiful.

10 or so scale insects on the fennel.  Often the ant colony that lives under my neighbor's parkway strip sends troops north along the gutter to this fennel plant to harvest honeydew from the scale ranch they operate here.  This day no ants were at work in the fennel, however.
3 small black-ish leaf hoppers, maybe Scaphytopius sp.

Just One of each of the following true bugs:
small milkweed bug, Lygaeus kalmii; 

LARGE milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus;
and pirate bug,Orius tristicolor.

NEUROPTERA--Lacewings!

1 Lacewing egg and 1 adult green lacewing, Chrysopa sp

ORTHOPTERA--Jumpers!

1 bush katydid nymph, Scudderia furcata

LEPIDOPTERA--Flutterbys!

1 monarch adult, and 15 larvae, Danaus plexippus.

Some of the caterpillars are dark-looking.  Are they infected with OE parasites?  This website describes some findings that suggest caterpillars that are dirty-looking, have indistinct stripes or malformed "antennae" could be signs of infection.  Other sources agree that monarch caterpillars are normally often darker colored in winter so they absorb more heat from the sun.  It would be nice to know.
7 Stigmella rosaefoliella mines on rose leaves . . . Rose leaf miner.  This is a first observation of this in my garden.  The mines, which are remarkably similar in shape to each other, are the result of the feeding of moth larvae.  Here is an image of the moth.

DIPTERA--Flies!
1 Green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata.
3 Flesh flies of some sort, Sarcophaga sp.
10 Syrphid flies, Allograta obliqua.  These guys are so attractive, and it's nice to see them on the job parasitizing aphids.

And, several to many different types of unidentified flies.  One of these looked lot like boatman fly, but wasn't.

HYMENOPTERA--Stingers!

100s of ants.  Still don't know what species these are.  The typical worker is larger than an Argentinian; has reddish thorax and darker head and abdomen.  They stream from and back to the colony entrance under my neighbor's parkway into our yards and trees.  Often they climb onto my foot, and end up biting me.  They smell strongly (to me) of ANT.
3 Apis mellifera, honey bees.  This one is nectaring at the one red buckwheat (eriogonum grande rubescens) flower unseasonably available . . . Why?

Where did all of them go that were swarming the willow wattle just a few days ago?
1 Paper wasp, polistes exclamans.

Quite a few empty nests of same or similar.

BEETLES!
Ladybirds that is.
1 spotless ladybird, Cycloneda sanguinea.

1 Asian ladybird, Harmonia axyridis.

8 undifferentiated ladybird pupae

and one ladybird larva that appeared to be consuming another.

Maybe I'm jaded, but this count seems like slim pickings compared to years past (well, the cannibal ladybirds and rose leaf miners were exciting . . . ).  Did the weather have anything to do with that?
The average high and low temperatures for Dec the past 4 years recorded at our nearest CIMIS station (75--Irvine):
2012 high 62.8  low 44.7
2011 high 65.5  low 40.8
2010 high 64.6  low 44.7
2009 high 67.1  low 45.9
would seem to indicate this solstice about average.

But closer examination of the daily data reveals we had a freeze or near-freeze the two nights preceding my bug count.  We know that freezing temperatures (or in our case, the lack of them) effects pest insect population spread.  Could two nights of just barely frost have a noticeable effect on insect activity in my garden?

Post-ecliptic Bug Roundup

The juxtaposition of the sun and moon has come and gone but my backlog of photos remains.  So, here for your viewing pleasure is my post-ecliptic collection of bug encounters around the estate dating back to mid-March.  One wanders around the yard in instinctive or habitual patterns, the bugs do the same; sometimes the paths cross in the usual or unusual places.

Helix aspersa, a brown garden snail, spent some time exploring the succulent pointy leaves of a potted senecio.

A cloudless sulphur, Phoebis sennae, made its rare appearance on what else, the senna artemisioides.

A torpedo bug, Siphanta acuta, seems incongruously and dangerously attracted to my office door.

An unidentified but likely to be sphinx caterpillar found a cozy spot between the ribs of a column cactus.  This moth, probably noctua sp., cozies up to another cactus.

One of the growing population of Phaenicia sericata (green bottle flies . . . neighbors got a new dog?) has found a perch on top of a much small cactus.

Lots of Funereal duskywings, Erynnis funeralis, have been flying.

This one seen on March 27 was one of the first.  These aphids were among the first wave attacking the nasturtiums back in the last 1/3 of March.

Fuller rose beetles, pantomorus cervinus, are found from time to time hanging sloth-like on plants other than roses.




This one is in the Rabbitbrush.  A tiny forktailed bush katydid nymph, Scudderia furcata, considers its next move among the gomphrena stems.


This was the first assassin bug of the year, Zelus renardii, with its impaled carpet beetle prey seen on April 2.

A month and a half later, here's another one waiting for prey among the lavendar.

Last and possibly least is this spider that somehow became trapped behind a switch plate in my house.  A little later it was not to be found, maybe crawled back into the world behind the wall where I doubt there are any flies.