We are working on several avenues to bring more native plants and pollinators to our museum grounds and Nature Trail to both support our native ecosystem and educate our visitors.
In that spirit, we’d like to introduce Euphorbia cyathophora, also called Wild Poinsettia or Fire-on-the-Mountain. This unique looking plant makes excellent accent plants though it can be a bit aggressive in its growing so it does need some care if you add it to your garden.
This plant is related to the Yuca (not to be confused with Yucca). Yuca is the plant that gives us delicious tapioca! However like it’s direct cousin the Poinsettia we all know from Christmas decorations, these plants produce a toxic milky sap when cut or broken that causes irritation.
One of the pollinators that we’ve seen most frequently at these flowers is the Eumenes fraternus or Fraternal Potter Wasp. The name comes from the Latin word fraternus, meaning friendly.
These little wasps make single pot nests and are quite docile to be around. The female pictured here was skittish and ready to run away every time our staff got close to try and get a picture to share with all of you!
She was working hard every day to gather nectar to eat for herself. As she ate, her antenna and tiny microscopic hairs on her body and antenna call setae picked up little particles of pollen from our wild poinsettia! When she would travel to the next plant, some of that pollen would fall off while she’d pick up even more pollen from the new flowers.
If you look closely at the second picture, you can see the pollen on her antenna and her face! So next time you see these tiny wasps, thank them for pollinating such a lovely plant!
But our lovely wasp friend wasn’t the only elegant insect visiting our wild poinsettia. Meet the Ocyptamus fuscipennis, sometimes known as the Dusky-winged hover fly.
Most don’t think of flies as being beneficial pollinators, but hover flies are really effective at what they do! They often resemble wasps like yellowjackets and bees with bright yellow and dark black stripes, but not the one that hovered around our garden this time!
This tiny fly is well under an inch long and looked more like a teeny tiny dragonfly than any kind of wasp! It would hang in in the air with wings beating so fast they were a blur. They almost looked suspended in place.
They are also quite nervous little insects and it takes a lot of patience to get photos. They are, after all, prey insects so you’ve got to give them time to not think you’re trying to eat them!
As if these flies weren’t cool enough, their larva eat aphids! Pollinators and pest control all in one! We hope this gives you a new appreciation for our fly friends!
All Photos by Amber Roth 2024