What to See This Week

Some large and distinctive mushrooms can be seen beneath coniferous trees in some areas around The Arboretum. Fly agaric is a quintessential mushroom, more often portrayed with a red cap. The subspecies that grows in our area range from orange to yellow, but they still have the familiar spots on the cap and ring around the stem. Fly agaric is mycorrhizal and relies on a symbiotic relationship with certain tree species in order to grow.

Other species of mushrooms have even more specific requirements for where they grow! Pictured here is a walnut mycena. As the name suggests, walnut mycena grows only on hickory nut and walnut shells or husks. Even when it appears to be growing directly from the ground, these tiny, yellow-tinted mushrooms usually are growing from a buried piece of walnut shell.

Even under the shade of the canopy, this caterpillar was nearly glowing neon. Pictured here is a laurel sphinx caterpillar enjoying the leaves from one of its host plants, an ash tree. The hornworms on tomato plants aren’t the only hornworms out there! In fact, there are at least a few dozen species of hornworms in Ohio, all specialized to their own host plants. The adults, known as sphinx moths or hawk moths, are also some of the most effective moth pollinators.

The Pollinator Garden is crawling with caterpillars! Just on a small patch of milkweed, nearly a dozen 5th instar (final stage) caterpillars could be seen crawling around. This time of year the caterpillars you see are likely the ones that will be making the trip to Mexico once they undergo metamorphosis. 

This hairstreak butterfly was seen nectaring from a white snakeroot plant. Hairstreak butterflies typically have tiny little hair-like tails on the tips of their back wings but this one looks to have taken some damage. The fact it is still alive means the hair-like tail on the wings did exactly what they evolved to do! The tails almost have the appearance of antennae on the back of the butterfly, encouraging birds to go for that area as opposed to the real head, as a small bite to the wing is usually survivable.

Crab spiders are incredible ambush predators. They are among the half of spiders that don’t actually build webs. Instead of building a web to catch their prey, they situate themselves on flowers and wait patiently for an insect to visit. Aside from just sitting very still, some species of crab spider can also shift their color from white to yellow to better match the flower they are sitting on.

Jewelweed seed pods have begun to ripen, which means they have begun to build up in pressure. If you brush up against one, don’t be surprised if the pod bursts open, the outer walls of the pod curl up and the seeds are sent up to a few feet away. This mechanism gives jewelweed its other commonly used name: touch-me-not.

Bur oak acorns are beginning to mature on the trees. Out of all native oak species in North America, bur oaks have the largest acorns. Aside from just their large size, they are also distinctive thanks to their beautifully fringed acorn cap.