Flowers in Fall Meadows and Fields

     A community of tall, native plants blooms in damp, bottomland meadows of full sunlight in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, during September and October.  Those plants include an abundance of a tall aster with small, pale-lavender flowers, another tall aster with tiny, white blossoms, New England asters that have striking, deep-purple blooms, bur-marigolds with attractive yellow flowers along streams, boneset that have small, white blossoms and the lofty, bushy-looking spotted jewelweeds with orange flowers leftover from earlier in September.
     The asters with lovely, pale-lavender blossoms are the most abundant of these flowering plants, particularly early in October, and my favorites in moist meadow habitats.  The asters with white blooms are also abundant in certain deserted fields.  Some of those fields have so many white aster blossoms in them in October that they look like snow fell just on those fields.
     A few kinds of plants that grow on slightly higher ground in pastures, and more abundantly in fields, include the tall and abundant goldenrod with many tiny, yellow, plume-like blooms on each of several pointing "fingers", the high, spindly chicory that sport pretty, blue flowers, the tall evening primrose with yellow blossoms and the short knapweeds with pink flowers.  In autumn, these lovely flowers add more variety and beauty to the meadows and fields they grow in.  The beautiful goldenrod is the most abundant and prevalent of these kinds of flowering plants during September and October.
     Some abandoned fields are especially attractive with the dark-purple flowers of New England asters and the yellow of goldenrod blooms, from mid-September to well into October.  Those flowering plants create a beautiful combination of colors in overwhelming abundance in certain fields, making those habitats some of the most beautiful places in autumn in southeastern Pennsylvania.  And those deserted fields in fall are made even more striking by the red, orange and yellow of staghorn sumac, Virginia creeper and poison ivy leaves.  They are glorious!
     A variety of bees and butterflies are around all these flowers to sip nectar, the last sources of that sweet liquid they will get each year.  The small, orange and brown pearl crescent butterflies usually are the most abundant of butterflies on blossoms in autumn, particularly on any of the wild aster blooms.  Pearl crescent larvae eat the leaves and stems of asters, pupate in the soil beneath the asters, then emerge as butterflies.
     There are other pretty and interesting aspects of sunny meadows and fields during September and, especially, in October.  The flowers of ironweed, Joe-pye weed, Queen-Anne's-lace and swamp milkweeds are done blooming and have "gone to seed", making those still-standing plants picturesque.  Mice and small birds eat many of those seeds in autumn and winter.  Rushes, cattails, and cockleburs with their prickly seed pods, are also abundant and picturesque in many moist meadows.  And many intriguing spider webs are strung over or between the plants in the pastures.  They are made the more beautiful and interesting when morning sunshine bounces off the innumerable droplets of dew on each web.  
     Several kinds of plants have lovely flowers in meadows and fields in fall.  The seeds from many of those blooms feed mice and small birds through winter.  And those blossoms are a joy and inspiration for us to see.  Get out to experience the beauty of these flowers, along with that of colored leaves.   
                        
    

Box Elder Bugs and Lady Bugs

     Eastern box elder bugs are in a family of insects called true bugs, and lady bug beetles are in another insect family known as beetles.  Though not closely related and having different lifestyles, box elder bugs and lady bugs have one major thing in common: swarms of adults of each species seek shelter in cold weather and frost in October in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere across the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, to survive the coming winter.  Those great gatherings of both kinds of insects are impressive to see on October afternoons when they emerge from their shelters and are active in the warming sunlight.  But they quickly retreat again when the cold of October evenings set in.
     In spring, after their winter dormancy, female box elder bugs emerge from their shelters and suck the sugary sap of the leaves of ash-leafed maple trees, also known as box elders, silver maples and red maples in riparian woods along creeks and rivers.  And because they mated with males of their kind during the previous summer, each female lays many fertile eggs in bark crevices and other sheltered places on maple trees, then die. 
     Red male and female nymphs hatch from those eggs in the same summer and feed on the sap of maple foliage.  They become almost one inch long and dark as they grow, with orange-red undersides and reddish stripes on their upper thoraxes and wings.  This second generation of box elder bugs mates and the males soon die.  But the fertilized females live to form great gatherings in October to spend the winter in dormancy in sheltered places, such as hollow trees and in crevices between rocks at the ground's surface.
     Sometimes thousands of wintering female box elder bugs enter some barns, homes and other buildings.  And, although those insects don't bite, sting or eat anything all winter, most people don't like them in their homes.  They don't like the idea of swarms of bugs in their homes, no matter how harmless those insects are. 
     Unfortunately for wintering box elder bugs, peoples' homes are too warm for cold-blooded insects to winter in.  The warmth greatly increases the insects' metabolism and they burn up their bodies' food reserves before foliage develops on maple trees the next spring.  Wintering female box elder bugs in warm houses run out of energy and die before spring arrives.  It's best to get these bugs out of the house for the peoples' sake and the insects'.
     The cute, quarter-inch lady bug beetles also form great gatherings in October when they seek sheltered places to spend the winter in relative safety.  Their impressive swarms take refuge under dead and fallen leaves and logs, behind loose bark on standing trees, in cracks between rocks on the surface of the soil and other sheltering places. 
     The attractive adults of most kinds of lady bugs are red with black dots on their wing covers.  And they have black and white heads and thoraxes.  Lady bug nymphs are spindle-shaped, dark and red and have small spines that protect them.  Adults and young alike catch and eat aphids and other kinds of small, soft-bodied insects, protecting fruit trees and other plants from those potentially destructive insects.  Lady bugs are sometimes intentionally released among crop plants to rid those crops of harmful insects.
     Look for swarms of box elder bugs and lady bug beetles in sheltering places in October.  Those gatherings are impressive, and another natural happening when average temperatures each succeeding day drop and deciduous foliage reaches its peak of changing colors.         

September's Dancing Butterflies

     Alfalfa fields and red clover fields gone to flower late in September in southeastern Pennsylvania shimmer with thousands of dancing clouded sulphur butterflies.  They visit the lavender blooms of alfalfa and the pink ones of red clover to sip nectar, making those hay fields lively in September.  Like fireflies, cabbage white butterflies, true katydids and other kinds of common insects in this area, clouded sulphurs, also known as common sulphurs, are quite successful.
     Pale-yellow with two-inch wing spans, the abundant clouded sulphurs are pleasing and inspiring to see flying low and fast over the green foliage of hay plants and their innumerable, lovely blooms.  And many more of these fluttering butterflies are in those pretty hay fields late in September than there had been all summer.  The attractive flowers and butterflies together add much beauty to the farmland of southeastern Pennsylvania at that time.
     Clouded sulphurs are common across the United States, in western Canada and much of Alaska.  And there probably are far more of these butterflies today in North America than ever before because of the vast acreages of human-made fields here.  Common sulphur larvae eat alfalfa, red clover, white clover and soybean leaves, all of which are abundant, alien plants in North America.   
     Several broods of common sulphur larvae hatch each year, which is why their numbers build up by late September.  Those caterpillars are green to blend into their surroundings of green plants.  But each larvae has a white stripe along both sides.  The larvae are somewhat sheltered in hay fields, but hay cutting probably kills some caterpillars and pupae.  And some larvae and/or butterflies are eaten by a variety of field birds, dragonflies, preying mantises, spiders, skunks, toads and other predatory creatures.  But if it matures, each caterpillar forms a green chrysalis, again for camouflage, on a plant.  There the larva changes to a butterfly.  But pupae left in the cold of late fall over-winter, and the butterflies emerge early the next spring, ready to nectar on flowers and reproduce themselves.  
     Happily, clouded sulphur butterflies also sip nectar from other kinds of lovely blooms, to a lesser extent.  Those handsome flowers include any of the asters with white, pale-lavender or deep-purple blossoms, depending on the species.  And common sulphurs visit goldenrod in upland fields and bur-marigolds in moist soil, both of which have yellow flowers.  And, along with various kinds of bees, other species of butterflies and other types of insects, clouded sulphurs pollinate the flowers they sip nectar from.       
     Interestingly, clouded sulphurs, like cabbage white butterflies, various swallowtail butterflies and other butterfly species, gather on bare mud and animal poop, and shallow puddles to draw moisture and minerals up their straw-like mouths, elements they can't get from flowers.  Sometimes mixed gangs of colorful, fluttering butterflies are on mud, droppings or shallow water at once.
     The humble, mostly overlooked clouded sulphur butterflies adapted well to the vast acreages of hay field blossoms to sip nectar.  And their caterpillars consume alfalfa and clover plants before pupating and changing to butterflies.  Many species of life have adapted to human-made habitats and activities.  And, I think, many more will.  They are the species with futures on this planet.    

Woodland Nature Trip

     For a few hours on the morning of September 21, 2016, I visited various spots in the wooded Welsh Mountains, which are near New Holland, Pennsylvania, to enjoy nature.  The Welsh Mountains are filled with homes, fields and roads, and yet some woods are intact and have much nature in them. 
     I no sooner drove into Welsh Mountain woods when I spotted five stately wild turkey Toms strolling along a soil road between a woodland and a field.  They were picking up seeds, grasshoppers and other tidbits as they walked.  I have seen wild turkeys in those wooded hills before over the years, but never five magnificent Toms in one group.
     I stopped for close to an hour at a community park of a few acres on a hilltop to watch for migrating broad-winged hawks passing over on their way to northern South America for the winter.  While in the park, I noticed about 40 American robins and two northern flickers in the short-grass lawn.  The robins were eating earthworms and other invertebrates they could catch.  The mostly brown flickers were probing into the soil after ants in their underground colonies.  Flickers are woodpeckers, but instead of being black and white like their relatives, they are brown, which camouflages them on the ground as they feed.  And while in this park, I saw a few turkey vultures and two resident red-tailed hawks sail over it.  And I saw three migrant broad-wings and one sharp-shinned hawk soar over and heading southwest.    
     Moving on again, I came to a house and barn in the Welsh Mountains where several black vultures have roosted in the past.  And, sure enough, almost a dozen of them were perched on the house roof, the barn roof and in trees around those buildings.  Those scavenging vultures, like turkey vultures, are clean and a bit regal, whether in trees or soaring high in the sky.
     Permanent resident blue jays and red-bellied woodpeckers seemed to be common in the woods everywhere I went that day.  I could see and hear them almost constantly.  Some jays also were busily flying in and out of a small grove of planted pin oak trees as they harvested acorns and buried them in soil or in crevices in trees.  
     I saw a few kinds of flowering plants blooming commonly along the roads in Welsh Mountain woods, including goldenrods, Jerusalem artichokes and evening primrose with yellow blossoms and spotted jewelweeds that have orange ones.  I saw two different ruby-throated hummingbirds, in two patches of jewelweeds, dipping their beaks into jewelweed flowers to sip nectar and eat whatever little insects were in them as well.  And I saw a few beautiful, orange and black monarch butterflies, either on goldenrod blooms or migrating southwest to Mexico for the winter. 
     Some colored leaves on certain plant species helped beautify the woods that day.  There were some red leaves on black gum, red maple and sumac trees and red ones on Virginia creeper vines.  I saw orange foliage on sassafras trees and poison ivy vines and some yellow leaves on tulip trees, black walnut trees and spicebushes.  All that autumn foliage made the woods bright and cheery.
     And I saw several kinds of birds eating the off-white berries of a poison ivy vine and the small, dark fruits of a Virginia creeper vine.  Those vines grew up neighboring trees so I could see both of them at once and some of the birds were eating both kinds of berries.  A few permanent resident blue jays and a single each of red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker and Carolina chickadee were consuming berries while I was there.  A few summering American robins and gray catbirds and a single northern flicker also ate some of those fruits of the vines.  And one each of migrating rose-breasted grosbeak, eastern phoebe, Swainson's thrush and yellow-rumped warbler were ingesting those fruits, too.
     For a woodland that has been compromised by human activities, there is a lot of nature to be experienced in the Welsh Mountains at times.  And September 21 was a good day to explore the natural world close to home.

Health Center Campus

     Continuing to take my dad to the Lancaster, Pennsylvania health campus for treatments, I enjoyed the abundant beauties and colors of the campus's natural landscaping in the strips of soil between parking lots on September 20, 2016.  The brilliant leaf colors of planted trees, the lovely flowers, tall, beige grasses, pretty butterflies and lively small birds in those natural gardens reflect autumn and must be inspiring and up-lifting to staff people and patients alike, making those gardens invaluable.
     The yellow flowers of goldenrods and the tiny, white blossoms of a kind of aster, the small, pale-lavender flowers of another species and the large, deep-purple blooms of New England asters are almost everywhere in the health campus landscaping.  Aster blossoms attract a wide variety of pretty, active butterflies and bees that sip nectar from them.  Some of the butterflies that visit aster flowers are cabbage whites, common sulphers, red admirals, buckeyes, frittilaries, a few kinds of skippers, monarchs and pearl crescents.  In fact, I saw three big, striking, orange and black monarchs on one large, bushy aster plant loaded with deep-purple blooms.  They were filling up on nectar before continuing their migrations south to wooded mountains in central Mexico.  The pretty, little pearl crescent butterflies are common on asters of all kinds because their caterpillars consume aster leaves and stems before pupating into butterflies.
     I also saw several honey bees and bumble bees on aster flowers.  But don't worry about them because they are more interested in sipping nectar from the blooms than bothering people.
     Since these gardens are a bit lower than the black top, they collect the parking lot's rain water runoff, making the soil moist most of the time.  Trees that thrive in damp ground were planted in those parking lot strips of soil, including black gums, red maples and river birches, all of which had some colored leaves on September 20.  The gums and maples get red foliage while the birches have yellow leaves.  Those trees, though still young and small, already add much color and beauty to the health campus parking lots and make them resemble fall.
     A few patches of tall, beige grasses with seed heads, here and there amid the parking lots, are each about a quarter of an acre in size.  Those grasses lend to the look of autumn and provide shelter and food, in the forms of stems and seeds, for wildlife.  Although I didn't see any in the forty minutes I studied this landscaping, cottontail rabbits and field mice could be living at the base of those grasses. However, I did see some individuals each of American goldfinches and house finches, and a pair of song sparrows, feeding on grass seeds while swaying on the grasses' seed heads.  I also saw a few mourning doves walking on the black top and mulch around plants while they ate seeds from grass and other plants.
     And there are a couple stands each of cattails and phragmites in moist soil.  Their seed heads are quite decorative wherever they may be. 
     All landscaping should be more natural with native trees, shrubbery, grasses and flowering plants.  The beauties of nature in those plantings, and the wildlife they attract, will inspire and uplift many a human soul.
                                   

September Yellows

     Several kinds of lovely, yellow wildflowers bloom in September along country roadsides where they are easily seen in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  All these common species of cheery, golden blossoms, plus other kinds, add to the beauties of that pretty, autumn month, and into October.  And all but one species is native to eastern North America.
     The plume-like flower arrangements of goldenrods, each one with many tiny, yellow flowers, are the most common of golden blossoms in September here.  These five-foot-tall plants bloom in many abandoned fields, in association with the deep-purple flowers of New England asters in some fields, along rural roadsides and the edges of certain wet spots in sunny meadows.  The combination of yellow and purple, in abundance, is quite breathtakingly beautiful in sunny, September fields.  Many insects of several kinds, including butterflies, particularly the small pearl crescents, and bees, come to goldenrod and aster flowers to sip nectar, making those lovely blossoms the more intriguing.  Sparrows and finches eat its tiny seeds in winter and plumes of this plant are used in indoor dried arrangements in winter.
     The yellow flowers of five-foot-tall, evening primrose plants each has four showy petals that make those plants stand out along certain country roadsides.  Butterflies and other kinds of insects come to those cheery blossoms on top of slender stalks to sip nectar, adding more interest and beauty to the blooms.    
     Butter and eggs are the only plants in this article that are not native to North America.  Having come from Europe and planted in flower gardens, this species is a member of the snapdragon family, and has snapdragon-shaped flowers to prove it.  Standing about a foot high, butter and eggs form many pretty bouquets of themselves along rural roads.  Their blooms are pale-yellow with an orange dot on each one, which is the colors of butter and eggs.
     Wingstem stands up to six feet high along country roads and in corners of fields, and each plant has a small cluster of yellow flowers on top of its slender stem.  The stems of this vegetation have long strips that project out about a quarter of an inch, like wings, hence its common name.  The yellow petals of this species reflex down from the flowers' centers.  Again, a variety of insects sip nectar from the blossoms of this species.
     Jerusalem artichoke is a type of wild sunflower that is loaded with history.  A blast from the past, it was long ago cultivated by American Indians in eastern North America, along with corn, beans and pumpkins.  Native people cooked and ate the roots of this type of sunflower, as we consume small, white potatoes. 
     Standing up to nine feet high and having several showy flowers per stalk, Jerusalem artichoke is presently quite noticeable and attractive along country roadsides, the edges of corn fields and in hedgerows of trees and shrubbery between fields.  Insects visit its blossoms and mice and small birds ingest its seeds.
     Bur-marigolds and two kinds of sneezeweeds, common and dark-headed, dominate the shores of clear, running brooks in many sunny, Lancaster County cow pastures.  Patches of bur-marigolds, in particular, become so large that they grow over the little waterways they flourish along, completely hiding the musical water from view. 
     Both kinds of sneezeweed flowers have petals that droop from their centers.  And dark-headed sneezeweeds have dark centers, and are the more common of these two lovely species.  Again, a variety of insects land on the flowers of these wild plants to consume their nectar.
     In September, visit local croplands for plants bearing golden flowers.  They certainly do liven and beautify rural roadsides and certain fields during autumn.        

Flowers in September Ditches

     In my travels in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania early in September of this year, I studied the plants in four roadside ditches, which are tiny wetlands.  Those roadside low spots were the same in that they were dominated by vegetation that flourishes best in wet or, at least, moist ground.  Yet each ditch I visited had a different community of plants, including a nice variety of lovely blooms.  All those wetland plants in roadside low spots provide shelter for a variety of wildlife and the beautiful blossoms supply nectar to a variety of insects.
      Spotted jewelweeds with their one-inch-long, orange, cornocopia-shaped blossoms dominated every roadside ditch I visited.  Jewelweeds grow up to five feet tall and are bushy.  Several of them standing together create thickets of themselves that shelter wildlife.  The less common pale jewelweeds with their pale-yellow blooms are virtually the same as spotted jewelweeds, but seem better able to tolerate shade than their orange-flowered cousins.  A variety of bees and migrating rubythroated hummingbirds sip nectar from jewelweed blooms.
     A kind of smartweed with pink, closed blooms was common in three little, roadside gullies I visited.  The tiny, black seeds in those little flowers, wherever they grow, are eaten by ducks and small birds in winter.
     Joe-pye weeds bloom in August when their many small, dusty-pink flowers are visited by a variety of butterflies to sip nectar.  Joe-pyes stand eight to ten feet tall and so are an impressive plant even when done blooming, including in two roadside ditches I studied.
     Boneset with its many tiny, white blooms was common in two low spots by the side of roads.  This wetland plant offers contrast to the many brightly-colored flowers of its vegetable neighbors.
     Asiatic dayflowers are originally from Asia, as their name implies.  This plant species does best in damp soil and partial shade, as do the other plants listed here.  And its two, bright-blue petals and yellow stamens, per blossom, are striking to see.    
     I saw a few of the lovely and related cardinal flowers with red flowers and great lobelias with blue blooms in a couple of ditches along country roads.  I also noted a few ironweed plants in one ditch and several purple loosestrifes in another.  Ironweed and loosestrife both have beautiful, hot-pink blossoms that are readily visited by a variety of butterflies that sip their nectar. 
     Goldenrods are not wetland plants, but they were abundant in two of the roadside ditches I saw this September.  Goldenrods' multitudes of tiny, cheery flowers are visited by bees and other small insects to get nectar. 
     Three of the country road wet spots I visited had cattails growing in them and the fourth one hosted phragmites.  Cattails and phragmites both have decorative seed heads.  Cattails get up to five feet tall while phragmites can reach ten feet.  Red-winged blackbirds nest on the stalks of these two wetland plants wherever they sprout and grow.  Muskrats use the stems of these plants to make homes in ponds and roadside puddles.
     Several kinds of wetland trees shade roadside ditches, including red maples in three of them I visited.  Black walnut, black gum and crack willow trees were in two low spots along roads and pin oaks were in one.  These trees, wherever they occur, help hold down the soil, shade plants beneath them, and offer food and shelter to a variety of wildlife.  And the red maples and black gums both had some striking, red leaves when I saw them in September.
     Alder bushes were in two roadside ditches and gray-stem dogwoods were in one.  These shrubs, wherever they sprout, also provide food and shelter for wildlife.  The dogwoods, for example, already had many dull-blue berries on them, fruits that will be eaten by rodents and small birds through the coming winter.
     When I visited these roadside wetlands in September, I noticed a few common kinds of small birds, including northern cardinals, song sparrows and gray catbirds in all of them.  These birds like thickets with ample water, invertebrates and berries. 
     And these little wetlands also had many bees of various kinds, and several cabbage white, silver-spotted skipper and least skipper butterflies in them.  All those common insects visited the colorful blooms of the wetlands to sip nectar.
     The above-mentioned flowers together make unique, human-made plant communities that add beauty to the landscape and the already lovely September.  They are there for our looking, free.