Snippet of a Rainbow

I am usually too busy looking down to take the time to notice the astronomical and meteorological happenings in the sky. My eye looks for the motion of a bird or the subtle differences in the shape and color of leaves, while neglecting the distant beauty that has captured the attention and imagination of earthbound humans for millennia. 

A late afternoon walk, with the gibbous moon looming over the wetlands, and the sun hanging bright over the soccer park. Squinting up to locate the fiery orb among the wisps of clouds, I realize that the bright light in my line of sight isn't actually the sun but rather a gorgeous, glowing, rainbow-colored sun dog. The much brighter sun hangs off to the right, too dazzling to glimpse (I look beyond to find the other member of the paired sun dogs but fail to locate it).

Just a snippet of a rainbow, hanging in the sky. As I and the sun move, the sun dog's appearance changes from that faint rainbow to a fierce flame that transitions from orange on the sun side to hot white opposite. 

The phenomenon happens when sunlight refracts off crystals of ice in the sky, creating prisms of light. Also known as mock sun or parhelion, sun dogs usually occur when the sun is near the horizon, and can last up to 30 minutes. 

After the few quick glances that I can bear, my attention fades back to the ground and I begin scanning the dry grasses and leaves again. Returning to the familiar and comfortable life along the trail, but with a reminder to be sure to look to the sky, beyond the soaring birds, every once in a while. 

Around the Mound

There is a mound, a rather large mound of dirt, a few feet off the trail north of the soccer park. Many times have I passed this mound and mused at its size (several feet across, maybe a couple of feet tall?), wondered what manner of creature would construct such a mound, but never have I dared approach the mound to examine it. Until now. 

It did not take a very close inspection to see the mound was alive with activity: hundreds of ants hauling, pushing, carrying twigs, leaves, bits of plant material or dirt. They were handsome ants, with shiny black abdomens* and russet heads, with the antennae rakishly cocked. Their activity was mesmerizing; so many ants, doing so many things!

From photos, iNaturalist helpfully suggested they belonged to the genus Formica ("Wood, Mound, and Field Ants"--that certainly made sense), with further suggestions narrowing the species to the Allegheny Mound Ant, Formica exsectoides.

These ants will construct mounds above ground, with tunnels throughout and extended below the ground's surface. Each colony can have several queens taking care of the reproductive aspects of the colony, with workers doing the construction, maintenance, and care. The large mounds above ground are thought to take advantage of the warmth of the sun to keep their nurseries--the eggs and the larvae--warm and also allow an early start in the spring as the mound may stay warmer than its surroundings.  

The worker ants will forage outside the nest, hitting up extrafloral nectaries such as those on Partridge Pea, as well as honeydew from aphids. They will also hunt other arthropods, and in defense of their mound they can bite ferociously while also producing painful formic acid as an added deterrent. 

The mound colonies can persist for years, and additional mounds can be established nearby as colonies split off. 

Who knew there was a little ant city going about its business right next to the trail?

Sources/Additional Resources:

• Tiny camera explores ant colony
• AntWiki: Formica exsectoides
• BugGuie: Species Formica exsectoides - Allegheny Mound Ant
• Wild About Ants: Allegheny Mound Ants, Formica exsectoides

*I discovered that ant anatomy is a bit more complex than the basic insect anatomy I'd learned about: this hindmost part of an ant is technically called the "gaster", which, along with the narrow "petiole" that connects it to the forward parts of the body, comprise the "metasoma". The abdomen consists of segments, the first of which in ants is actually fused to the thorax; the petiole is the second abdominal segment, and the gaster includes the remaining abdominal segments. 

A Clean Water Act for the 21st Century?

Our Iowa River, with stormwater outlets

Earlier this month marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the federal Clean Water Act, the very successful piece of legislation that regulated "point source" water pollution; that is pollution that is discharged from specific locations like factories, municipal wastewater facilities, and other industrial sources. 

It does not, however, cover "non-point sources" such as stormwater runoff (including agricultural runoff), which has led to the persistent poor quality of Iowa's rivers and streams, with impacts downstream as far away as the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Think of everything applied to farm fields, lawns, streets and highway--manure and fertilizer, pesticides, salt and other chemicals--all flowing into our river and points beyond. Seems like quite an oversight when talking about "Clean Water," doesn't it?

Green infrastructure systems like the Sycamore Greenway help mitigate this runoff by collecting water from surrounding neighborhoods and letting it infiltrate into the ground--the water seeps in and pollutants are filtered out before the water reaches larger streams and rivers. A small-scale example can be seen with bioretention cells or rain gardens, like the one at the Johnson County Administration building. Individuals can construct small-scale rain gardens to help capture runoff from residential properties.

At a much larger scale, agricultural buffer strips planted along waterways perform a similar function, capturing and slowing runoff into our streams as they filter out pollutants. Because there is no Clean Water Act for non-point pollution much of these mitigation tactics are voluntary, with mixed results (to put it mildly). 

Is it time for such a thing? Over a decade ago Iowans voted overwhelmingly for the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund to establish permanent funding for water and soil quality improvements as well as outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat yet it remains unfunded. Iowans know how important water is, and we want it to be protected. 

Legislators, however, fail to understand how water connects us all. There is no such thing as private property when it comes to water: what you put on your land will inevitably flow to someone else's land (if you stockpile manure, for example, and it washes into a stream after a heavy rain...that manure isn't just your problem but a problem for everyone downstream of you). The success of Clean Water Act in controlling point-source pollution shows what can be done when the will is there.

Our waterways haven't been receiving much attention this election season. Who will advocate for them if not us? Ask candidates what they will do to protect our waterways. Hold them accountable. Let's get a Clean Water Act for the 21st century. 

New Neighbors in the South District

If you've been driving or walking around the South District west of the Greenway, down Langenberg and Russell, you've probably noticed some new neighbors being moved in. Dozens of them! 

The city has been planting trees in the right-of-way (the space between the sidewalk and the curb) along those two streets and surrounding neighborhoods, with nearly 100 trees in a variety of species that will create a rich, diverse canopy to shade the community for decades to come. 

The project is aligned with the Parks Department's goal of increasing our tree canopy coverage in order to develop and enhance our parks and open spaces, with one measurable objective being increasing the number of trees planted in the city right-of-way. Last year over 1000 trees were estimated to have been planted in right-of-ways, and this year another 750 are estimated to be planted. 

In addition to the trees being planted in the South District, the city will plant other right-of-way trees on the west side of town along Kennedy Parkway, and to the north along Prairie du Chien. It is a significant investment in the quality of life for Iowa City residents, but the dividends are equally significant.

The city Climate Action & Outreach service is also again offering the Root for Trees program, which gives residents a 50% discount on trees to be planted on properties in the city, so if you are not one of the lucky homes receiving a right-of-way tree, you can purchase a tree yourself at a deep discount.

Trees provide services to neighborhoods by shading our houses from the hot sun in the summer, and screening us from strong winds with the branches. Their strong roots stabilize the soil and prevent runoff, and they provide habitat and sanctuary for the birds and other wildlife that enhance our lives in so many ways. 

**Be sure to water young trees their first couple of years as they get established! The city will care for the trees they have planted, but it can be difficult to keep up with so many trees when nature doesn't always cooperate with regular, refreshing rains. I suspect the city wouldn't be offended if you offered a newly-planted sapling in your area a little extra drink every once in a while.

 Sources/additional information:

• Iowa City Park Projects | City of Iowa City (icgov.org)
• Iowa City FY2023 Adopted Budget

Marvelous Trees

Trees capture the human imagination in a way other plants rarely can. Their stature, as they stand year-round in our landscapes while forbs die away each winter. Their longevity, living for many more decades, even centuries, than we do. 

Our early myths tell tree spirits like dryads, or of sacred trees with roots stretching below and branches stretching above in a mirror image. We don't generally imagine nymphs inhabiting coneflowers, or a holy fungus connecting the world via filaments. It is the noble tree that is woven through our histories and our mythologies, from George Washington's cherry tree to John Muir's towering sequoias, to our lists of "champion trees" across the country and Iowa's own "Big Tree Program" with a list of our state's most spectacular specimens.

Communities develop relationships with unique trees, like the larch that used to grace the Pentacrest, or the big catalpa on Summit Street (both, sadly, lost in recent years: the larch to a storm in 2019, and the catalpa to the 2020 derecho, along with thousands of its comrades across the state). 

Throughout my life I've developed one-sided friendships with many trees, and recall several fondly.   There was George, just an average honey locust in a park by the railroad tracks, who served as the subject of a "tree diary" assignment in a high school biology class. The tiny tulip tree sapling whose owner, Mr. Stan, kindly allowed me to snip a couple of its very few leaves for that same biology class. 

Recently and locally, there is the one remaining sweet gum tree west of the Old Capitol parking ramp, its skinny frame once flanked by others before they had to make way for a new building. I try to say hello whenever I drive past. (My affection for specific trees is related to how easy they are to identify; the star-shaped leaves and spiky seedballs of sweet gum making it one of the easier species for me).

And my two favorites, the pair of bald cypresses along the trail on Highway 6, near Hills Bank and the river. Taxodium distichum is one of my favorite trees, a gymnosperm with soft, flattened needles and a fibrous-looking bark. In the winter they drop their leaves--an unusual trait for a conifer, with most being known broadly as "evergreens" due to their winter greenery. Their native range doesn't reach Iowa, instead extending through states around the lower Mississippi, around the Gulf coast and southern coastal states.

There aren't any bald cypress trees along the Greenway, and they aren't terribly common in town: the city's tree inventory shows only 38 on city land (for comparison, there are over 1000 honey locusts, nearly 3000 oaks and more than twice that many maples). There are very few conifers at all along the Greenway, besides some scattered weedy red cedars and the line of white pines near the Sycamore Apartments. 

I would often stop to caress the feathery leaves and touch the bark of my bald cypress friends, marveling at the clever "cones"--textured spheres that change from green to brown as they age--and admire their fine spreading branches and forms, the westerly tree a bit wider but both very elegant as their lowest branches nearly sweep the ground.  

Last week on a drive past my pals I looked over and gasped. Their beautiful spreading branches had been lopped several feet up from the ground, revealing trim, naked trunks. It was a small shock, like seeing a friend whose long hair you've admired walk up with a jaunty bob, or a modest dresser swapping long pants for hot pants. 

"It's...nice. You're gorgeous however you style your branches, and I bet this is so much easier to manage" while silently contemplating how much better you thought they looked before. It's one of the hazards of befriending trees you don't own: no one consults you before performing routine maintenance on them. 

But they're fine. They're healthy, and being cared for, and I'm happy that I still get to visit with them, even if their branches not as easy to reach for a gentle greeting. I hope to visit with them for decades to come.

How do I love thee, grasshopper? Let me count the ways.

I adore grasshoppers, and I love this time of year when practically every step in the grass sends dozens, if not hundreds, of grasshoppers launching themselves into the air like oil popping from a skillet, and landing with the rippling sound of soft ticks in the brush. The comical dance as they cling to a blade of grass and shift around it to quickly orient themselves and hide with just their feet and legs visible, sticking out from behind the leafy shield.

I love how baby grasshoppers are just tiny, big-headed versions of the adults, with itty bitty wing buds (no awkward wormy larval stage for these incomplete metamorphosizers!). Their complex chewing mouthparts with paired, segmented palpi like movable whiskers under their chin; the modest short antennae; the stout, shield-like pronotum behind the head; the cleverly articulated segments of their legs with the small cushiony pads comprising their feet (or tarsi); those oversized, inscrutable compound eyes. 

A spiracle on the thorax circled in blue(other spiracles
are found alongside the length of the abdomen).

Their respiration! They breathe directly through holes in their sides called spiracles, and the air is distributed internally via tubes called tracheae--none of this inefficient breathing and eating through the same orifices, or mingling nutrient and gaseous circulation in the same system, like certain mammals. 

"I just stumbled upon this carcass
and couldn't resist the free
protein, I swear!"

I've always been partial to herbivores, and try to overlook the occasional incidents of cannibalism and fondly eye the holey, chewed leaves in my garden as evidence that it is a home and refuge for grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other small neighbors. The piggy-back style mating, with a much-smaller male clinging to the back of the larger female, followed by the female tidily stowing her eggs in the ground, often via a crack in the pavement.

I've found it difficult to reliably attach definite names to my grasshopper friends; though they don't usually require minute examination of their genitalia to determine species like some other insects, there are a wide variety of grasshoppers with varying colors even within the species, and small characteristics that can be seen without microscopic examination--but are not always easily visible from a candid photo snapped in situ. 

Showing off the spur.

Early on in the dichotomous key presented in the Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States, for example, there is a branch asking whether the specimen has a "Distinct conical spine between forelegs" which I'm sure is easily spotted when you have one immobilized in a specimen jar, but is not readily visible from most normal angles of viewing. Imagine my delight when a big Differential Grasshopper posed with its underside clearly visible through a gap in the Wild Quinine to which it clung--including that spur (or "prosternal spine")! I'd read about spur-throated grasshoppers for years but never actually seen the spur until now. 

The subfamily of Band-winged Grasshoppers, too, have distinctive features in the coloration and patterns of their wings--if you have the luxury of spreading them out and examining them. Try as I might to catch one in flight, the best I've managed is a blur of dark wings with pale edges (save the one memorable Carolina Grasshopper caught mid-spring in his alluring courtship display). 

Now Slant-faced Grasshoppers--there's something I can work with! I think....

Sources/Additional Resources and Reading:

• Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States
• How Does a Grasshopper Breathe? (Explained)
• Grasshoppers of Wyoming and the West
• The Ethical Grasshopper Musings on the fable of the Ants and the Grasshopper
  
  
  
  

August Miscellany

Hello there!

This time of year there is no shortage of things to see along the Greenway--in fact, there is so much to see that I often end up with dozens of photos of interesting sights that don't quite make the cut for their own post, either because the photo is less compelling than others, or I'm unable to confidently ID the subjects in order to describe them appropriately...so I thought I'd collect them in a late-summer medley.

Easily overlooked in lawns and elsewhere, Red Clover leaves have striking variegation.

A tattered butterfly--a Comma or a Question Mark (I think a Comma based on the descriptions of the dots on the forewing from this website).

The teeny tiny white flowers of Hemp Dogbane--just a few millimeters wide--make these long (4"-8"), skinny seed pods!

Prickly Ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) is actually a member of the citrus family and not closely related to ash trees, which belong to the olive family!

White berries of Dogwood.

A little hairy-legged fly (?) visiting Ratibida pinnata flowers.

Smooth, round buds of Prairie Dock flowers.

Unidentified inchworm on Purple Coneflower.

So many August bees, on so many yellow flowers!

Purple Coneflower getting a little crazy, sprouting ray florets all over the place.

Compass Plant leaves curl around its tall stem.

Documenting Nature Along the Greenway

Grapevine Beetle, submitted
and identified via iNaturalist

Do you ever wonder at the variety and diversity of species found along the Greenway (or other natural spaces around the city)? Did you know that iNaturalist has "Places" that show all the observations submitted within a defined geographic area? You can view by Johnson County, Iowa City, or various Places of Interest within the city. 

There are three such places for the Greenway:  Sycamore Trail, which includes the land around the trail from Grant Wood Elementary to the Lehman Avenue extension; Sycamore Wetlands, which is limited to the city-owned wetland cells; and Sycamore Greenway, which includes both the trail and the city-owned wetlands. You can also visit the Places created for Ralston Creek, Scott Park, Ryerson's Woods, and many other natural spaces in and around town. 

These Points of Interest automatically collect any observations within their boundaries, so if you use iNaturalist to identify a plant or insect along the Greenway, your observation is added to the data! Some places, like Ashton Prairie, even have annual BioBlitz events where volunteers document huge numbers of observations together on a single day.

Although it's not technically a "Point of Interest" I recently visited McCollister Boulevard and noted a wide variety of plants and insects on the short stretch between Sycamore and South Gilbert; those observations were duly uploaded to iNaturalist and added to the observations of others in the same area. You can zoom around and browse each point: blue for birds, mammals, herps, and other non-insects, red for insects and arachnids, pink for fungi, and green for plants. 

It's an easy way to both learn about the things you see along the Greenway and elsewhere, and also contribute data documenting the variety of life that any area supports. 

About the Snout

Have you ever gotten your hands on a nature guide--birds, flowers, butterflies--and seen a species you've coveted the sight of? From the first Golden Guide to Birds I excavated in my grandparents' cool basement library as a child, I would page through and pause to admire the amazing variety of avian features on display: the colorful male American Kestrel, the ridiculously long, curving bills of assorted sandpipers, the bold patterns and slicked hairdo of Wood Ducks. 

Most of all, my young imagination was captivated by the brilliant colors of the Painted Bunting (my tastes back then were...not subtle). The bright colors were nothing like the drab brown sparrows, the plain Mourning Doves that hung around the alleys and gravel lots around the neighborhood. Even our Northern Cardinal, brilliant though he is, could not compete with the cartoonish extravagance of the rainbow bird.

Needless to say, one does not encounter Painted Buntings in the upper midwest, and I have yet to see one in person. But I keep it on a mental list with other "dream" species gleaned from paging through nature guides--though I now have a realistic idea of geographic range and tend to limit my dreams accordingly. 

One such critter, encountered in the pages of a butterfly guide, is the American Snout (Libytheana carinenta)--a curious specimen with (as you might guess) a prominent snoutlike structure projecting from its head, and mottled brown wings with ragged edges that make it look like a dried leaf with the "snout" as its petiole. I am charmed by prominent snoots, be they on greyhound dogs, anteaters, tapirs, elephant shrews, echidnas....a butterfly that not only had a snoot but was named for it was right up my alley.

And conveniently, their range extends over much of the eastern U.S., including Iowa, so there was a good chance I might encounter a Snout (they don't overwinter here, but populations from the southern U.S. will migrate north into our area and beyond in the summer*). Less conveniently...they are not as large and flamboyant as our Monarchs and other butterflies that get all the press, and their sneaky camouflage seemed like it would be a challenge to spot.

American Snouts use hackberry trees as hosts for their larvae, those warty-barked champions of many a caterpillar. In addition to American Snouts, hackberry trees are hosts for Mourning Cloaks, Hackberry Emperors, Tawny Emperors, and the curiously named Question Mark. Not just a tree for butterflies, the hackberry's eponymous fruits are eaten by woodpeckers, robins, pheasants, and several other birds.

But back to the American Snout....

Beyond making note of its distinguishing characteristic and its affinity of hackberry trees, I don't have the slightest idea of how to find a particular butterfly. Other butterflies I've encountered have all followed the same process: hang around flowers, maybe see a butterfly, take a picture and identify the butterfly. So my encounter with an American Snout was left in the hands of fate.

As luck would have it...the Sycamore Greenway delivered. As it always delivers. Not always what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it, but on its own time. 

Warty bark of
hackberry tree

I had left my bicycle parked at the Sycamore Apartments and, going to unlock it, a butterfly fluttered off it and alighted again on the seat. Out of habit I froze and peered carefully, and saw a big long snoot! An unmistakable snoot! I didn't have my camera but carefully, slowly, pulled my phone from my purse and snapped a few shots, inching closer with each one. Eventually it spooked and flew off to a neighboring bicycle, but not before I had my documentation. 

It was just a little scrap of a butterfly, with its mottled brown wings. The forewing occasionally slipped forward, revealing a large orange blotch close to its body, with smaller white spots toward the outside edge. The long, pointy snout was everything I'd hoped for.

That snout is not technically a snoot, or nose, but rather a set of labial palpi, a feature all butterflies and moths have in varying shapes and sizes (few as pronounced as those of the American Snout) which actually seem to function similarly to a snoot: the labial palpi sense carbon dioxide, which may help with detecting nectar and its concentration in flowers for foraging. 

Their caterpillars are small and green, with a thin yellow racing stripe down the side and tiny, pinprick yellow spots. There are usually two broods a year, so even if they don't overwinter in our area there may be caterpillars from the second brood wandering about. Perhaps, having lucked into an American Snout butterfly encounter, I can redouble my efforts to locate a caterpillar. You can be sure I will be inspecting the leaves of the hackberry trees along the trail this summer!

...

Serendipitously, the next day as I was visiting the McCollister weeds I happened upon ANOTHER American Snout, which kindly posed for more photos:

Forgive the quality...this was the only shot I
captured as it quickly fluttered its wings.

*According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, American Snouts migrate to that state starting in May, but the Illinois DNR claims they overwinter. Most resources mention that they overwinter in the southern part of their range, but neglect to mention exactly what constitutes "southern part". 

Monoculture Blues

Yellow Sweet Clover at the Birds in Flight sculpture.

There can be a certain satisfaction in orderly monocultures: swaths of neatly-trimmed turfgrass unbroken by flower or weed, or neat rows of corn or soybeans growing in precise lines. Their efficient lines, however, belie the extremely high maintenance required to suppress nature’s natural diversity.

Iowa agriculture at work

Our row crops require huge amounts of inputs to grow and thrive in what remains of our state’s rich soil, nutrients and pesticides that may be applied in excessive amounts and run off into our waterways with disastrous effects downriver. Our neat yards do the same.

 In contrast, nature promotes diversity. A sun-loving plant may grow tall, providing shade in which a smaller shade-tolerant plant may grow. One plant may thrive in this patch, while nearby slightly different conditions–more wind that sucks moisture from a plant’s leaves quickly, or more sandy soil that drains faster, or perhaps a cooler low-lying spot that stays moist even in the hot days of summer–may be more suited to a different plant.

Disease, fire, or drought may rage through an area, but the diversity of life makes it more likely that some of those many different species and individuals may make it through the disaster than if it were, say, a community of identical elm trees lining suburban streets.

So you would think that nature, left to her own devices, would default to diversity, right? Well, not necessarily. For one thing, we humans have so manipulated the world around us that, having changed the character of what had been rich habitats harboring diverse species, it is now no longer suited to the species that evolved here.

Instead, we have made a world where scrappy generalists–like humans ourselves–are able to take over and crowd out those original inhabitants who, while perfectly suited to the world in which they evolved, are now faced with a very different world. A world where topsoil has been scraped and hauled away, leaving just a heavy clay soil. Or where we stripped the prairie of its original inhabitants, planted crops for decades and left the used up, depleted land to whatever was willing to give it a go.

Humans are actively creating a world where only weeds can live and then feigning shock and outrage upon finding so many.”

― Hope Jahren

Into these waste areas–the gravel lots, the mowed edges, the constructed habitats like the Greenway–come those scrappy generalists: the Birdsfoot Trefoil and Crown Vetch, Yellow and White Sweet Clover, Wild Parsnip and Queen Annes Lace. Reed Canarygrass–Reed Canarygrass everywhere! And even some natives get in on the action, with scrubby willow trees expanding into dense thickets and Meadow Anemone spreading from a small clump to an extensive patch over the course of a few years.

Wild Parsnip along the trail

These plants aren’t content to spring up here and there among others. Nope. Where they grow, they grow, unwilling to share the space with those plants maybe a bit less assertive, or a bit slower to get started in the spring. They may not reach the monocultural proportions of carefully cultivated row crops, and some other species may manage to hang on in their midst, but the presence of these super-survivors crowds out many others that might normally thrive there.

Now that we’ve disturbed the ecological balance that arose with hundreds or thousands of species sharing those slightly different niches, what is to be done? Do we intervene and try to slow or reverse the spread of these “bad actors” along the trail, physically or chemically removing the invaders? The City, for example, has recently invested in renovation of natural areas at TTRA and Whispering Meadows to help curb undesirable plants and restore some of the native plantings that were intended. In other natural areas around the city, prescribed burns help keep woody plants in check.

Volunteers lopping woody brush along the Greenway make a small start–but a glance at the areas where work was done shows little progress yet. There are currently no interventions planned for the Reed Canarygrass or other forbs along the trail (that I know of, at least).

Or do we let nature continue to do its thing, and hope that those aggressive monocultures will eventually be reined in by some other force? After all, there is no stasis in nature. The species that are ascendent in one era are faced with constantly changing conditions; perhaps a newly introduced pest will target some of these nonnatives, or the nutrient runoff fueling some of the excessive growth from surrounding agricultural fields will cease.

As we continue to remodel our world in a way that reduces the diversity and complexity that is allowed to thrive, we must commit to protecting and promoting those species and the habitats that support them, in every corner that we allow to escape development.

Crown Vetch creeping along a slope.

Mourning the McCollister Mowing

The past several days as I've driven along McCollister Boulevard between Sycamore and  South Gilbert, I've marveled at the diverse and scenic display of "weeds" adorning the median. So many textures and heights! Several types of clovers, docks, pennycress, grasses, alfalfa, and so many others that I'm not familiar with, filling in the patchy earth with lush life, the taller specimens swaying in the wind while their creeping companions hunkered in low clumps.

I decided to hop on my bicycle to take some pictures of the scrappy survivors on this beautiful blue-sky day...but as I turn on to McCollister I see only stubble. In a few short hours the city has mowed my beautiful median! 

Yes, they are largely (perhaps exclusively) nonnatives, destined to be landscaped away with hardy natives or replaced with turfgrass. Certainly some of my fellow citizens may have thought it unsightly. But even as I mourned the loss of my photo op, I could see that the roadsides were still unmowed, and nearer to the Sycamore roundabout the more narrow median also sported its weedy decor. All was not lost. 

A few specimens stood out: a single magnificent Musk Thistle plant next to the sidewalk. The pale purple Alfalfa flowers. The slope covered in sunshiny Birdsfoot Trefoil. The...Casey's pizza box nestled below. For this stretch of road is also a litterbug's haven: any given day you can find a few dented cans of the ubiquitous Busch Light, sometimes near a half-dozen glass beer bottles and assorted other single-use beverage containers. The plants don't seem to mind.

When you look at the scene as a whole, it can definitely look messy. But if you look more closely and recognize some of the individual plants, you begin to see how they fit together in a spontaneous community left largely to its own devices. You see the bees and butterflies, the blackbirds and sparrows. 

I know many will rightly lament the proliferation of these botanical invaders...but they saw an opening, seized it, and made themselves a home together.