Look closely at burdock seedpods (Arctium sp.) and you’ll find them covered in tiny hooks.  The hooks arc away from the ball-shaped bur, ready to latch onto a passing animal.

They also latch onto us!

But that’s not the end of it.  When we try to remove the bur, it bursts open to release wind borne seeds.

Burdock is so annoying that it inspired the invention of Velcro. The man-made hooks are easiest to see after lots of use, shown below.

Learn more about the relationship between burdock and Velcro in this vintage article: Nature’s Velcro.

(photo of burdock burs on a sweater from the Plant Image Library on Flickr; click on the caption to see the original. All other photos by Kate St. John)

In September the globes embedded in goldenrod stems are undergoing a special process.  The bug inside each one is getting ready for winter.

These ball-shaped galls are made by the larvae of the goldenrod gall fly. If you open a gall you’ll find the larva inside. You might accidentally slice the bug in half. (Eeewww!)

Since the goldenrod gall fly uses only a couple of species for hosting its eggs, the gall helps you name the plant.  Goldenrods are notoriously difficult to identify but I’ve heard that in western PA most of the flies lay their eggs on Solidago canadensis. 

An adult female fly is shown below, much larger than real life. She’s slightly bigger than a housefly.

In the spring she uses her sharp ovipositor to insert her eggs into goldenrod stems near the developing buds. When the eggs hatch, each larva chooses a place to rest and eat. Its saliva contains a chemical that induces the plant to grow a gall which becomes the larva’s food and shelter.

The larva molts twice and overwinters inside the gall, surviving even the coldest winters because it has “anti-freeze” in its body.

In September the larva prepares its exit strategy, even though that won’t happen until next spring.  It digs a narrow tunnel to the outside that doesn’t break the surface. Next spring when it becomes an adult, the fly will chew a hole in the outer cover to escape.

Not all of them make it. During the winter downy woodpeckers and chickadees probe the galls to eat the bugs.

Read more about the goldenrod gall fly at the University of Wisconsin Master Gardener Program.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons and Bugwood.org (click on linked captions to see the originals); winter goldenrod gall by Marcy Cunkelman)

In September keep an eye out for blue beads in the woods.  Yellow Clintonia has gone to seed.

Clintonia borealis is native to the boreal forest but also grows in western Pennsylvania, especially in the Laurel Highlands.  I was surprised to find this one a few years ago in Moraine State Park.

If you find green beads, come back later for the beautiful blue.

(photos by Kate St. John)

For months we’ve been seeing chicory’s daisy-like blue flowers blooming by the roads and trails.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is native to Europe where it’s been cultivated as food for people and forage for livestock since at least Roman times.  Settlers brought it to North America for food and it soon became a weed.  In Colorado it’s listed as a noxious weed.

We eat chicory’s leaves, buds and roots but we call it by different names depending on its purpose.  The varieties grown for leaves and buds are called endive, radicchio, Belgian endive, sugarloaf (and others). The variety grown for roots is called chicory.  Just to confuse things, in the U.S. chicory’s close relative curly endive (Cichorium endivia) is sometimes called chicory.

Chicory roots are minced, roasted, ground, and then blended with coffee or brewed as a substitute.  Since chicory has no caffeine, it’s a good coffee substitute if you like the taste. Otherwise people drink it straight when they can’t get coffee, usually during economic crises and wars such as the Great Depression and World War II.  New Orleans still prefers chicory-blend coffee, a tradition since the Civil War.

If you eat chicory from the wild you’ll find it’s bitter compared to cultivated varieties. Remember, don’t forage by busy roads. Those plants absorb pollution from vehicles and residue from pesticide and defoliant sprays.

Read more about chicory, foraging and brewing at these links:

• How to Make Chicory Coffee
• Foraging Tips Dos And Dont’s
  
• Chicory and Endive
• This Is What Chicory Is and Why It’s In Your Coffee

(chicory photo by Kate St. John. coffee cup from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)

When I wrote about cardinal flower in late August Carol Smith remarked, “By now my cardinal flower is finished blooming. Yesterday we saw three hummers at one time sipping nectar from great blue lobelia flowers. Even though they aren’t red, they are apparently a good nectar source and … they bloom a little later. “

Perhaps the hummingbirds saw the flowers’ resemblance.  Great lobelia or great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) is in the same genus as cardinal flower.   The plants are a similar height and the flowers a similar shape.

Great lobelia grows in medium to wet soil so it tolerates drier locations than cardinal flower.  The blue one will grow in a drainage ditch by the trail; the red one always has wet feet. 

I don’t have to bushwhack to get close to great lobelia.  I took this photo while standing above the plant. 

Notice how the flowers spiral around the stem — another example of the Fibonacci sequence that I wrote about this week.

Big and blue this lobelia is great.

(photos of great lobelia by Kate St. John; cardinal flower by Tim Vechter)