Swamp milkweed hosts milkweed leaf beetles. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

“Look what’s in my garden!” That email last week from friend Pete accompanied an image of a beautiful milkweed leaf beetle.

I immediately went out to my garden, where I have two pots of swamp milkweed partially immersed in a little pool tucked in front of the veggie garden, all of which is enclosed by a curiously constructed deer-, rabbit-, groundhog- and raccoon-proof fence.

And, sure enough, there were two beautiful milkweed leaf beetles, as best I could determine with my meager references, Labidomera clivicollis.

Fortunately, Pete already had led me to the likely identification of the beetle that made my investigation much easier. I am in awe of entomologists, who focus on distinguishing characteristics of the thousands and thousands of insect critters all around us. I view insect taxonomy as more complicated than plant taxonomy, but that may be because plants remain stationary. Taking closer looks at the jumping, flying, running insects is something else!

However, this orange-and-black beetle is very accommodating. It doesn’t seem to mind being handled, content to walk around on hand and fingers until placed back on its milkweed. The color and patterns of the beetle are really variable. No two are exactly alike. One of my two is bright orange and the other is yellow.

Their habit is described as feeding and mating on milkweeds. They eat both leaves and flowers, but not enough to cause any real harm. Sometimes you may notice that a leaf is partially broken. The beetles are clever in slitting a leaf vein or two to partially drain the leaf of its toxic milky sap, making the outer part of the leaf a bit tastier for ingestion. Eggs are laid on leaf undersides and larvae drop to the ground to continue their cycle. Larvae are described as sometimes staying around a while to chew on the leaves. The beetle population seems to remain low enough to be respectful of its host milkweed.

Though the beetle will visit the common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, it prefers the swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata. With vivid pink flowers, swamp milkweed occurs naturally, as its name implies, in swamps, along pond edges and in boggy areas throughout the mountains and Piedmont and less commonly in the coastal plain. Its broader distribution is from New England all the way down and around to Texas.

Swamp milkweed makes a nice long-lived garden plant. Just don’t let it linger without moisture too long during droughts. If you pinch off the spent flowers, it will re-bloom several times during the growing season. In addition to the colorful beetles, it attracts butterflies and many desirable pollinators. Niche Gardens keeps it as one of their standard butterfly-attracting perennials and it is still available at the N.C. Botanical Garden.

Whether a milkweed or some other plant attracting your attention with flowers, you’ll most likely find accompanying critters, in many cases, as beautiful and engaging as the flowers.

Baby seed pods of common milkweed are the result of successful pollination of the earlier flower clusters. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore
Flora Columnist

It’s National Pollinator Week and we pause to honor pollinators. We should do it every week; that’s how important they are.

In addition to this Saturday’s Pollinator Celebration from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the grounds of Chatham Marketplace in Pittsboro, plan a visit to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, anytime, to learn more about the importance of insects as pollinators.

Your museum visit begins on the outside. The half-block-long north side of the museum along Jones Street is a wild garden, a dramatic contrast to the lawn and shrub monoculture of the North Carolina legislature across the street.

The museum’s wild garden is, by design, an assemblage of native plants representative of the state’s botanical diversity from seacoast to mountains. Though many of the plants from far reaches of the state will not survive on the museum’s harsh north bank, some, surprisingly, do, like the native mountain bush honeysuckle, Diervilla sessilifolia, which occurs naturally only at very high elevations. I wonder that there may be some similarities between the harshness of the museum’s urban site and the extremes of high-mountain conditions.

That wild garden attracts a great diversity of wild critters. Several species of birds nest there and feast on the variety of seeds, fruits and insects associated with the native plants. Praying mantises hunt atop the flower heads of Joe-Pye weed, Eupatorium fistulosum. Common buckeye butterflies linger on the flower heads of rattlesnake master, Eryngium yuccifolium. Leaves of common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, provide sustenance for monarch butterfly larvae.

Museum curators frequently visit the wild garden to selectively harvest flowers, fruit and leaves to feed the living critters displayed inside. Most importantly, foliage, flowers and fruit and seed of the wildflowers, grasses and native trees and shrubs provide necessary food and cover for countless pollinating insects.

Folks walking by frequently pause to take closer looks at the color and movement in the wild garden. They express appreciation for such a different garden in the urban setting. But not all are so appreciative. On her way to work in the Legislative Building, a pleasant lady inquired, “Why does the museum have all those weeds?” I responded, “When those weeds are blooming, we call them wildflowers.”

She lingered to explain to me how, growing up on a farm, her daddy always called those wild plants “weeds,” and the children had to help keep them away from the house to make room for the nicer cultivated plants.

When she noticed a butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, she acknowledged that it made a pretty garden plant. Then she reflected on how her granddaddy took her walking in the woods and fields, talking about all sorts of wild plants. Some are good to eat, some make useful herbal medicines and some are just downright pretty. As she continued on her way, she acknowledged, “Well, all things considered, maybe we should all learn to appreciate those weeds.”

After she left, I spied a mockingbird relishing the berries of pokeweed, Phytollaca americana, some unidentified warbler flitting about catching insects and butterfly larvae chewing milkweed leaves.

Then I appreciated that, largely unnoticed, the whole wild garden was alive with a host of insects visiting plants, unknowingly engaged in that vital function we call pollination. Thankfully, this action occurs every week.

By Ken Moore
Next week, Sep 24-30, is “Take a Child Outside Week,” and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has planned some specific activities to promote awareness (www.naturalsciences.org).

A visit to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh begins with awareness on the outside. Along the half-block-long north side of the museum facing Jones Street, there is a wild garden in dramatic contrast to the strictly regimented lawn and shrub monoculture of the North Carolina Legislature across the street.

The museum’s wild garden is by design a loose assemblage of plants representative of the botanical diversity of the state, from the seacoast to the mountains. Many of the plants from far reaches of the state will not survive on the museum’s harsh north bank. Surprisingly, some do, like the native mountain bush honeysuckle, Diervilla sessilfolia, which occurs naturally in only a few places at very high elevations. Not expected to survive along Jones Street, the mountain bush honeysuckle is thriving. I wonder that there may be some similarities between the harshness of the urban site and the high mountain elevations.

That 4,000-square-foot street-side wild garden attracts a great diversity of wild critters. Several species of birds nest there and feast on the variety of seeds, fruits and insects associated with the native plants. Praying mantises hunt atop the massive heads of Joe-Pye weed, Eupatorium fistulosum. Common Buckeye butterflies linger on the flower heads of rattlesnake master, Eryngium yuccifolium.

The foliage of the common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, provides sustenance for monarch butterfly larva. The foliage of wildflowers and grasses provides suitable sites for the ferocious-looking black-and-yellow garden spider, also called the writing spider because of the heavy silken zigzag script-like pattern in the center of the web. Museum curators frequently visit the wild garden to selectively harvest plant materials to feed some of the critters displayed inside.

An artificial pool near the museum entrance contains a permanent sculpture installation of Rachel Carson exploring a marsh with two young people. Native cattails, Typha latifolia, waterlilies, Nymphaea odorata, and pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata, provide authenticity to the scene. On a recent Sunday while awaiting the opening of the museum, two young brothers from Garner joined Rachel Carson in exploring that little street-side pond. The discovery of tadpoles was immediate, but it took the keen “closer look” of the two boys to discover the skeleton case of a dragonfly nymph left clinging to a pickerelweed stem by the recently emerged airborne adult dragonfly. They proudly shared their discovery with the appreciative adults. Were the boys to return now, they would likely discover that one of those tadpoles has emerged as a tiny grey tree frog living among the tall stems of the pickerelweed. On your next visit to the museum, linger awhile along the edge of the wild garden to search for more nature in action.

Every week should be “Take a Child Outside Week.” If you don’t routinely do it, then begin it now. And don’t forget to take your inner child out with you. Whether in a local nature reserve or passing one of many hidden wild patches in and around town, keen eyes will lead you to beauty and drama. And don’t be surprised if you become inclined to begin a small wild garden of your own.

By Ken Moore

Perhaps it’s really the nature of art! Art and nature were inseparable during the recent two-week Session 3 at Penland School of Crafts in Western North Carolina. Fifteen different studios — including glass blowing, metal sculpture, ceramics, photography, weaving and sketching — demonstrated that images and experiences of nature were dominant sources of inspiration expressed in the works of instructors and students.

Robert Johnson’s “Nature Journaling: Art for Nature Freaks” was clearly all about nature. I was fortunate to be Robert’s botanist assistant. We enjoyed day-long field trips, including viewing rare Gray’s lilies atop Roan Mountain’s grassy balds and close-up encounters with tiny sundews and bladderworts in a hidden mountain sphagnum bog. We brought examples of common species back to the studio to help us with continued detailed drawing.

The flora star was none other than the common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. Not only did the several stems displayed on the botanical specimen table persist in good condition, but the fragrance of the flower clusters perfumed the entire studio, making quite an impression with numerous visitors from the other studios. Not surprisingly, many of the students labored happily on botanical details of this milkweed, common throughout the state.

In addition to serving as host plant for the monarch and other butterfly species, the common milkweed has a fascinating heritage of edible, medicinal and utilitarian uses. One of my favorite sources of facts and stories of native plants is Tom Brown’s Field Guide: Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants. The beginning of his description of the “personality” of the milkweed from his early-childhood experiences should encourage you to check out this informative and enjoyable reference: “Gathering dried milkweed stalks in late fall for cordage always turned into a fun-filled adventure. We picked a day that was bright and sunny and filled with mild but gusty wind – a day we were sure that the milkweed skeletons were turning from green to gray. This graying was the best indicator of the finest cordage, especially when it was meant for leaders on our fishing lines. Gathering consisted of cutting the old stems, stripping the old leaves and scattering the parachute-like downy seeds. This seed sowing was usually done with the utmost artistic movements.”

Brown goes on to describe the laborious preparation of the milkweed as a delicious potherb, but I would proceed with great caution before I would ever pursue such an adventure.

A few of the hundreds of milkweeds in Chapel Hill’s Merritt Meadow are still in flower. There are probably a great variety of butterflies hovering about out there. In Carrboro, there are some handsome plants to attract butterflies in the curbside garden of N.C. Crafts Gallery and in the wild garden along the Frances Shetley Bikeway.

It was a second milkweed, the poke milkweed, Asclepias exaltata, with leaves very similar to American pokeweed, that really fired up the students’ artistic creativity. Occurring only in the western mountain counties, poke milkweed has creamy-colored flowers hanging in loose, open clusters, in dramatic contrast with the common milkweed’s tight clusters of pink flowers. Drawings of the poke milkweed took a turn more toward graphic design rather than the botanical accuracy students sought for the common milkweed. Taking a closer look at milkweed flowers can make artists of us all.

By Ken Moore

An early-morning walk through the Chapel Hill Merritt Pasture near the James Taylor Bridge is a real pleasure. The wild part is gaining access to the rolling pasture site. You are well advised to plan your visit during the Sunday morning hours. There is a little parking available along the bikeway at the intersection of Culbreth Road and Highway 15-501. It’s a challenging intersection to negotiate on foot, even with the traffic light, and though Sunday morning is light, please remain constantly alert to the speeding vehicles until you have safely made it to the pasture. Eventually the town will have the planned parking and pedestrian safety measures in place so that access to Merritt Pasture will not be such a wild experience.

And wow, once in the pasture, thanks to town efforts, you will have a real “meadow” experience. Several years ago, Chapel Hill added to staff responsibilities by making a commitment to managing the Merritt open space to provide habitat for butterflies and other wildlife. Observant citizens had described the healthy population of Common Milkweed there and a few folks began monitoring butterfly activity associated with those milkweeds. Except for a general winter mowing of the whole pasture to prevent the occurrence of forest, separate areas have been staked to protect the milkweed populations during spring and fall haying of portions of the field.

Walking through the meadow one recent Sunday morning was a real adventure of discovery. There were a couple of Monarchs fluttering about. There were hundreds and hundreds of milkweed stems ranging from two feet to six feet. Some were still in flower – and what a sweet fragrance there – and some were exhibiting those odd-shaped warty green capsules that in the fall will turn brown and split open to send plumed seeds aloft on fall breezes.

The Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, is a handsome plant worthy of cultivating in the wild or a contained garden for its fragrance and visual appeal, as well as for attracting butterflies. Be aware, however, that, once established, the Common Milkweed will increase, freely moving about on its own by underground lateral stems. This is a plant for a carefree gardener, not one who keeps everything controlled and in line. I have enjoyed seeing them in gardens in the Carrboro Arcadia Co-housing Community and I have delighted in seeing them become established in that wonderful curbside garden outside Carolina Crafts Gallery. They must have become too aggressive there, however, for they were recently weeded out. I hope a few will come back. It was nice having that butterfly habitat in downtown Carrboro.

Butterfly milkweed habitat set aside in Merritt Pasture. Photo by Ken Moore

Other surprises in the Merritt meadow that morning were orange-flowered Butterfly Weed, white-flowered Moth Mullein and the pale summer-green of lots of Broom Sedge, that common native grass that turns fields copper brown for the winter months. There is so much more to observe in that open hilly meadow. Do visit it some Sunday morning.