Out-of-order Interlude

[pameladean]

I went outside this afternoon to feed the tomato plants. It's dim and cool and a little windy. After feeding the tomatoes I lingered, appreciating the dame's rocket and the exploding Henry Kelsey rose bush and the White Rose of York demurely competing with it while looking absentminded, and the great white pink-tinged peonies and the lively Shasta daisies and the unexpected new row of flowers on the bleeding-heart and -- what was that on the wall of the house?

It was a dragonfly. Not a meadowhawk nor a darner. It had a swelling at the base of its tail and a fancy body and tail pattern of yellow-green and black or dark-brown. Nothing unusual about the wings.

I raced upstairs and told Raphael, who came down with the camera and took a bunch of photos, getting closer and closer until the fairly obliging subject, which had been shivering its wings from time to time anyway, got annoyed and took off.

Raphael says it's a new species for us, Gomphus vastus, also called the cobra clubtail. "They're river guys," said Raphael, so maybe this one came from Minnehaha Creek.

I love our back yard, even when it produces mosquitoes, even when it is unmown and full of motherwort and buckthorn and Japanese knotweed and the mystery weed with long orange taproots and little laurel-looking purple flowers.

Pamela

Comments

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

... the exploding Henry Kelsey rose bush and the White Rose of York demurely competing with it while looking absentminded ...

Nothing to say. Just appreciating.

[dhole.livejournal.com]

Raphael says it's a new species for us, Gomphus vastus, also called the cobra clubtail. "They're river guys," said Raphael, so maybe this one came from Minnehaha Creek.

So, when I read this, my eyes managed to hit "new species for us, Gomphus" pretty much before reading the rest of the post. And immediately I started thinking something along the lines of "hmm, a Gomphidius. A little early in the year for those, interesting."

It took a few seconds before I realized that A) you said "Gomphus", rather than "Gomphidius", and B) you were talking about a dragonfly, which is not, in fact, a mushroom.

(There is also a family of mushrooms called Gomphus, but it's smaller that Gomphidius and I'm less familiar with it, having only discovered that fact when checking how to spell Gomphidius.)

[mudandflame.livejournal.com]

I would have assumed Gomphidius was a genus of clubtail dragonfly -- by custom they almost all have some variant of "gomphus" in their names. There's an African genus Gomphidia, it turns out.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The White Queen usually looked absent-minded, didn't she? And untidy, very untidy. Is your White Rose of York also untidy?

That's very exciting about your Gomphus. I myself added a new species to my backyard viewing. So far, it's only been sparrows, pigeons, rats, squirrels, and the occasionally confused robin or annoyed mockingbird. Yesterday a red admiral dropped by and stayed for quite some time, although I can't imagine he found that much joy from the pansies and feverfew.

[pameladean]

The White Rose of York, left to itself, is fairly untidy. It's a shrub rose with canes long enough that it can be used as a climber, and it does not appear to have any small notions about how much territory it would like. Also the flowers do not last long (although they are completely enchanting and smell delicious), so it's already dropping petals with abandon.

Even here with far more greenery, I am excited to see a Red Admiral. Mine seem to prefer composites when they can get them, but they will try almost anything.

Pamela