Perseid Meteor Shower in progress!

Irregular flowers were more abundant on the fescue prairie, comprising about a third of all insect-pollinated plant species. Further, a greater percentage of visits (~27%) were to the irregular flowers on the fescue prairie. In tall grass prairie, irregularly flowered plants comprise only about a quarter of all species and receive less than 3% of all insect visits. Irregular flowers, particularly those with long floral tubes, are attractive to long-tongued bees and butterflies. Regular flowers with short or no floral tubes are preferred by small bees and flies, which typically (although not always) have shorter tongues. Thus the pollinator community appears to be influencing the composition of the plant community by preferentially fertilizing irregular flowers.

Image: The irregular flowers of this breadroot (Pediomelum esculentum) plant are attractive to bees.

Bees were more abundant pollinators in the fescue prairie than flies. However in the spring their populations are still small as only the queen bees are out foraging. Bee populations reach their peak in late summer when worker bees are busy collecting nectar and pollen. In contrast, pollinator visits were much higher in the tall grass prairie in spring due to large populations of overwintering flies that hatched once it warmed up.

Image: This prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) is visited by flies and small bees.

I spent a good chunk of my summer field trips to the Nature Conservancy’s fescue prairie preserves being bear-anoid. Although I saw several black bears last year, they were all solitary and a fair distance away from me. On my second field day in late June I was examining a plot for pollinators and when I looked up there was a mother bear and two cubs down in the valley below me. Nuts! They apparently hadn’t notice me high up on the hill. I began moving slowly away from them and jingling my bear bell like a deranged Dickie Dee boy. The mother paused, looked at me like I was crazy and ran into the bushes with her young ones behind her. I was relieved, figuring it would be my only bear encounter of the trip. Not so.

Image: A black bear located where I normally like to see them – far away.

The next day I was determined to make plenty of noise to alert the bears to my presence. I rang my bell, tooted on my whistle, and loudly sang nature-inspired show tunes from “Les Misérables”, vaguely hoping I wasn’t inspiring any forest revolutionaries (do you hear the warblers sing, singing the song of hungry birds. It is the music of a genus that likes to eat lots of worms!). Anyway the noise paid off and I didn’t see any bears for the remainder of my field work. But I was still jumpy. At one point I felt something poke my back. I jumped five feet in the air from fright. Was it a bear? No, it was just the walking stick that I had propped up on a fence. Then something zoomed by my face. I screeched like a three year old watching a scary movie. It was only a Great Grey Owl. It also stared at me like I was crazy. Or maybe that’s just the way it always looks. Clearly, I was a little high strung.

Image: A Great Grey Owl scared the #*$%* out of me.

1. The lack of noise, noise, noise, noise!

When you live in the city you get used to the noise, although it still irritates you on some level. What I hate most about the city are gas powered lawn mowers. Constantly. And always just as you sit down on your deck to read a book. When I go to the preserve the almost complete absence of human-caused noise makes me feel like I don’t want to throttle someone anymore.

Somewhat regretfully I am back in noisy Winnipeg, staring at that parking lot again. And ironically this morning my neighbour fired up his gas mower just as I sat on my deck to have my coffee. But in just a few more weeks I’ll be listening to those lovely mourning doves again and smelling the roses, quite literally as they should be in bloom by the time I get there. Till then, that thought will have to sustain me.

Image: The sound of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) leaves in the breeze is sublime.

5. Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia)

Vanilla is considered to be the world’s most popular spice as well as the most popular ice cream flavour. It was the Totonac peoples of eastern Mexico who first began cultivating vanilla; eventually this spice was taken to Europe by Hernán Cortéz in the 1520’s. Initial attempts to cultivate vanilla orchids outside of central and South America were unsuccessful because the plant can only be pollinated by wild, stingless bees. Once hand pollination was discovered, vanilla plantations outside the Americas were created. Although we call the vanilla fruits “beans” they are not related to the legume family at all; vanilla fruits are actually capsules.

Image: A vanilla orchid plant growing in the greenhouse at the Montreal Botanical Garden.