{"id":904,"date":"2013-08-11T09:29:41","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T13:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2014-04-07T01:12:52","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:12:52","slug":"arboretum-cup-plants-caterpillars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/arboretum-cup-plants-caterpillars\/","title":{"rendered":"Arboretum: Cup Plants and Caterpillars"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this white-dotted prominent caterpillar (Nadata gibbosa<\/i>) crawling across Meadow Road yesterday. A green caterpillar with an opaque, lighter green face, it is covered with white dots. This one had two brown patches on it, perhaps some sort of infection?<\/p>\n

\"white-dotted
white-dotted prominent caterpillar<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\nAccording to the Peterson Field Guide to Moths<\/i>, white-dotted prominents feed primarily on oaks. A number of white oaks are growing near where I found it.<\/p>\n

In addition to the white dots, these caterpillars also have orange\/red dots on the lower end of each segment.<\/p>\n

\"white-dotted
white-dotted prominent caterpillar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A flock of American goldfinches was all over the cup plants (Silphium perfoliatum<\/i>) near the meadow. Male goldfinches are easily recognizable with their yellow and black wings, black foreheads, and orange bills. Females don’t stand out as much.<\/p>\n

\"male
male American goldfinch<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"female
female American goldfinch<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Cup plants are a known favorite<\/a> of goldfinches.<\/p>\n

\"American
American goldfinch eating seeds of cup plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also caught a chipmunk scurrying down a cup plant. I’m not sure if it was also after the plant’s seeds.<\/p>\n

\"Eastern
Eastern chipmunk running down cup plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This late in the summer, there aren’t a lot of plants in flower. Fragrant pink summersweet (Clethra alnifolia<\/i> ‘Rosea’) and the scholar tree (Styphnolobium japonicum<\/i>) were notable exceptions. The scholar tree can be shy with its blooms some years, but it’s blooming profusely now.<\/p>\n

\"Pink
Pink summersweet flowers (accession 239-47-MASS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Scholar
Scholar tree in full bloom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found this white-dotted prominent caterpillar (Nadata gibbosa) crawling across Meadow Road yesterday. A green caterpillar with an opaque, lighter green face, it is covered with white dots. This one had two brown patches on it, perhaps some sort of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[126,7,224,58,190,381,382,231,86,179,101,493,266,32,43,6,334,383,5,380],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}