Before attacking pines, it requires currants and gooseberries to support its earlier stage. It is an invasive from either Europe or Asia, visiting the US around 1900 and liking the naive species of pines it found here. Like the cedar apple rust gall we see in Missouri, white pine blister rust fungus Cronartium ribicola, has a complex life cycle requiring two separate types of host plants. So why is it banned to some degree in 14 Eastern states? When growing in these regions as an exotic species, it is an alternate host of white pine blister rust fungus, a disease which doesn't affect our native short-leaf pine trees in Missouri. "One man's ceiling is another man's floor."Īt first glance this would seem to be a desirable spreading species, colorful, fragrant and supporting pollinators. Now has escaped in some states to the east. Because of its decorative value, it has been cultivated and Golden currant is available from the MDC's George O.
#Bamona zebra swallowtail full#
The fruits which are full of seeds were eaten by settlers and and natives. It is typically found in southern Missouri on exposed high rocky limestone bluffs above the Current and White Rivers. It is also known as clove currant for its strong sweet clove-like odor which is detectable several feet away, hence the species name odoratum. Golden currant's, Ribes odoratum, blossoms may be slightly smaller than forsythia, but they make up for it with colorful red petals encircled by yellow sepals. Just like us, bees and other pollinators have their food preferences and they have never developed a taste for many of our exotic plantings. They were all over the golden currant, slurping up its nectar while totally ignoring the larger blossoms of the forsythia. Last week we noticed bees buzzing around the deck. The shrub is growing beside an established forsythia, a common non-native ornamental. Several years ago, Barb planted a small native golden currant in it. Nature provided us a natural controlled experiment in our Springfield backyard. * Justin Thomas and his wife Dana are experienced field botanists and together form the Institute of Botanical Training which provides field-based botanical services and comprehensive workshops for persons seeking on-the-job plant identification skills. The world would be a less interesting place without them. Lets hear it for the humble, odd looking, often overlooked lace bug. Many will feed birds and a wide variety of insects, especially ladybugs. As usual, the thousands of eggs will produce hundreds of early instars, most of which won't survive. Unless they are on the only buckeye in your yard, they don't cause significant problems in nature. How they find a host tree the next year is unknown. The summer brood will produce the adults that overwinter under nearby bark of other trees as the buckeye bark doesn't provide adequate shelter. There are two broods a year, the spring group being more successful as the leaves are healthier and juicier and there are fewer predators around. Stehr found that the females produced an average of 178 eggs apiece. They will feed on the same leaves through their life cycle, raising their offspring and eventually their grandchildren on the same tree.Ĭopulation occurs soon after emerging and a few days later they begin laying their eggs on the underside of leaves. They overwinter under the bark of oaks and other trees, emerging after a few warm days to swarm on the emerging buckeye buds. It was first reported on yellow buckeyes by William Stehr in 1938, appropriately enough in Ohio. The buckeye lace bug, Corythucha aesculi is a North American native which co-evolved with the native buckeyes. Our buckeye lace bugs measured 3.5 mm in length. They are Hemiptera, defined by their specialized mouth parts used for sucking out plant juices. Lace bugs are tiny insects (2–10 millimetres or 0.08–0.39 inches) in the family Tingidae. Finally in a moment of biological brilliance, I Googled "buckeye lace bug" and immediately found identical pictures of our insect. I began thumbing through page after page of lace bug pictures in - there are over 2,000 species world wide - with no luck. Chris Barnhart who identified them as lace bugs. I showed enlarged macro photographs to Dr.
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