Podlings

Day 300: The milkweed pods are coming right along! I have two areas each supporting half a dozen plants, seed for which came from two different sources. The second area is a year or two younger, and I am fairly sure that group is only going to produce one pod this year. However, the older group may have as many as two dozen. I haven't really taken a count. Once a blossom has been pollinated, the pedicel (the stem of an individual flower in an inflorescence) begins to thicken and curl. Then the ovary starts to swell into a pod which will eventually dehisc (remember your botany vocabulary from a few days ago!) to release dozens of seeds, each attached to a silky pappus. The pappus (a parachute-like structure) aids in wind dispersal of the seeds...and trust me, when you open an envelope of them inside your kitchen without knowing what's inside, "wind dispersal" can apply to the gentle breeze conjured by the slightest physical motion on the part of the unsuspecting recipient. I will be confining these in net bags before they dehisc so that they don't populate the neighbourhood. I am truly excited to have grown my own milkweed pods at last!

Milkweed in Flower

Day 271: The milkweed is blooming! The plants bore only a few flowers last year, and while I had hoped that an appropriate pollinator would stop by, no pods ever developed. There will be more opportunity this year, though, because there are many more flowers on plants in two patches. Surely some innocent bug will get a leg trapped long enough to pick up some pollinia. That's how milkweed works. Pollen transfer occurs in sticky packets, not dry grains. A bug's leg gets caught inside a slit in the stigma, wiggles around as the insect tries to free itself, and the sticky pollen packets (which generally occur in pairs) get tangled in the hairs on its leg. The insect then visits another milkweed flower, makes a similar mis-step, gets trapped again, and in its efforts to free itself, the pollinia comes off inside the stigma of the second plant. And it has to be a different plant. Milkweed is not self-fertile. Sidebar: I have seen a video of a botanist attempting to cross-pollinate a rare milkweed. Gives me ideas, that, and I'm sure by now, you know that I enjoy botanical match-making. Anybody thinking there might be an experiment on the horizon? Worth a try, but I might not be able to tell who was the responsible party, me or a bug. Not exactly a controlled experiment, but if I get milkweed pods, I'd be happy. Tweezers...where'd I put the dissecting tweezers?

Milkweed Explorer

Day 254: Last year, my milkweed finally bloomed, but never made pods to set seed. Milkweed isn't pollinated like other plants where loose pollen is transported from one plant to another. Its pollen particles are waxy, and adhere to one another to form masses called pollinia. These can only be accessed through a narrow slit in the side of the stigma. When an insect accidentally gets a leg inside the slit, sometimes a pollinium or two (they occur in pairs) gets caught and extracted. Now comes the tricky part. The insect must now get its leg caught in a slit again, but on another plant, and then if the Pollination Gods are smiling, some of the pollen from the pollinia/pollinium will be left behind. Fortunately for milkweed species, insects aren't too bright, so the chances of getting a foot caught in the same kind of "bear trap" twice are relatively high. Milkweed is pollinated largely by insects, but here there seems to be an arachnid ready to offer a helping hand...I mean, "foot."

Chlorochroa Ligata, Conchuela Bug

Day 342: If I was relying entirely on my field guides, I might have misidentified this critter. However, I have BugGuide's assurance that it is a Conchuela Bug, Chlorochroa ligata, aka a whoppingly large member of the stinkbug clan. By midafternoon, the Woolly Bear of my Sept. 16 post had given over possession of this milkweed leaf to Conchuela. Was it the odor which drove the Woolly Bear away? Phermones work both ways. And surprisingly, Conchuela is still on the leaf this morning, three days later. I don't see any signs that it's been chewing, though. I'll admit I didn't check to see if it was dead or alive. If it's still out there tonight, I'll investigate more closely. Conchuelas are often found on blackberry vines at this time of year and are one of our more common stinkbugs.

Bearing Good News

Day 339: Woolly Bears (the caterpillar of the Isabella Tiger Moth) used to be very common here, so much so that I might have to stop every ten feet or so to carry one to safety if I was out walking along the road. I won't blame cars entirely, but these endearing little creatures have become increasingly hard to find over the last two decades or so, and now I seldom see them even when I'm looking for them. Today, I was delightfully surprised to see one investigating my milkweed plants. The milkweed bloomed but did not set seed. I had been hoping for pods, but if the plants serve instead as a snack for Woolly Bears, that's even better. It did my heart good to see this little fellow. I hope he enjoys his meal and gives a good review to all his friends.

Milkweed At Last!

Day 281: At last! The Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) has a few open flowers! This stem is the only one out of a dozen or so which carries an inflorescence (two, actually), but considering that it has taken three or four years to reach this point, I have hopes that at least some of the others will follow suit next year. As for the types of pollinators it may attract, I'm not expecting Monarchs. They are quite uncommon in western Washington, and I have never seen one. However, I'm sure they're not the only butterfly which finds Asclepias appealing. I can't imagine having to hand-pollinate the flowers, but I'll keep my little paintbrush handy because I want to grow these for the pods. I'll be watching for insect activity, although I haven't seen many butterflies of any species in the yard yet this year.

After The Blizzard

Day 268: Three years ago, an early autumn blizzard swept down out of Canada and left my kitchen deep in its drifts when I inadvertently opened a seemingly innocent envelope. It took quite some time to collect the individual flakes, but in the end, they were transported to the Barren Wasteland where, theoretically, they were supposed to develop into milkweed plants and the charming seed pods typical of the species. Until now, they had not shown any sign of flowering. However, at this point, one of the tallest plants is showing promise. A second batch of seed from another source was planted the following year. Those plants, although as tall as these, do not appear to be going to bloom this year. Maybe next year? Do they need to be established for three years before flowering occurs?

All Foliage, No Flowers

Day 262: The two readers who supplied me with seeds will undoubtedly recognize this plant from the foliage, and perhaps one of them can give me a clue as to why it comes back year after year but never blooms. It is milkweed, and until an inflorescence appears, I will be unable to confirm the exact species (presumably Asclepias syriaca). The plants appear quite healthy otherwise. The tallest is currently about 3', but of the dozen or so stalks, not a one has ever shown any inclination to flower. Nor have they ever exhibited signs of insect damage, presumably due to the absence of flowers which would attract bugs. I did not expect Monarchs, no. They are rarely found in western Washington. However, their flyway crosses eastern Washington where milkweed plants are abundant.

Asclepias Found!

Day 308: It's easy to get lost in a crowd, and that's exactly what happened to the milkweed in the Barren Wasteland. I've planted it several times with seed from various sources, and although some plants appeared in the span of the last two years, I was almost certain that none had come up this year. I kept checking their spot every week or so in the early season, and then forgot about them as the other plants grew taller. I was harvesting seed from the Deptford Pinks yesterday, and as I pushed a mass of Black-eyed Susans aside, there to my wondering eyes did appear a rather substantial concentration of Asclepias, two to three feet tall. That discovery inspired me to check the second spot, where I found several first-year plants 12-18 inches in height. None shows any sign of developing flowers, but at least they've taken root and, in the case of this specimen, have now returned for a third year. Gardening is often a matter of patience as well as hard work, but that said, I think some of those Black-eyed Susans are begging to be relocated so the milkweed can thrive.

Milkweed, Second Year

Day 302: The Barren Wasteland was getting out of hand, so early this spring, I weeded out the undesirables (frequently distributed in so-called area-specific wildflower mixes) to make room for other plants. I do not recall relocating any milkweeds. In fact, I do not remember seeing any milkweeds at all despite having attempted to establish them several times. Yet in addition to the ones I started from seed this year (now all of six inches tall), I seem to have two specimens, each standing at least three feet high. Will I get flowers and pods? If in fact, this is second-year growth and not some particularly vigorous first-year seedlings, they should come into bloom this season. I see no evidence of bud formation, however. Could these be from seed I had planted previously and which has lain dormant for several years? Whatever the answer may be to that question, I am happy to announce the presence of milkweed in the Barren Wasteland.

Dehiscence

Day 220: I wish I could share the experience with you, but for now you will have to satisfy yourself with learning a new word with which to impress your friends: dehiscence. It is the term used to describe the point at which a pod bursts open to release the seeds in its interior.

A friend whose anonymity must be preserved for this exercise knew that I wanted to make another attempt at cultivating a few milkweed plants in the Barren Wasteland in order to obtain their husks for hobby purposes. The first time I tried it, the seeds came to me with instructions to give them a chill-down period of six weeks in my fridge. The experiment was a total failure. These, however, had experienced the chill cycle naturally, promising a better chance of success. Now whether or not the seeds and their fluff were attached to the pod when she packaged them up is a matter of conjecture. I suspect so, based on circumstances which occurred some time later. You see, the Post Office lost the parcel. It disappeared into the bowels of some facility in Chicago and remained there for almost a month before I initiated an official search for it by the tracking number. I had no idea what it contained, although the friend had cautioned me to "open it over a towel." When it finally arrived, I did so, but that did not prevent the coma...the fuzzy white parachutes...from flying all over my kitchen. If the pod had been intact on shipment, it had dehisced in transit and the seeds had detached from the coma, liberating a flurry of silk to any passing breeze such as that generated by my heating system. I cannot imagine that the nameless friend managed to gather them in that state. I had to wet my hands in order to capture them, and even now, 24 hours later, I am still finding milkweed fluff in odd places. Forget glitter. It doesn't hold a candle to milkweed coma when it comes to going everywhere.