June update - Everything

Since arriving in Colorado, my life has been incredibly busy and interesting, which is why I have not updated my blog until now.  This post is a quite poor in terms of topic organization, I apologize.

Researches

One of my many research projects is to examine if Mertensia plants with different floral orientation are influenced by rain differently, and one measure of this effect is the number of nutlets (seeds) each plant produce.  To test this, I constructed and placed a rain shelter over a plot with several Mertensia plants, manipulated floral orientation (upward or pendant) of haphazardly chosen plants, supplemented pollen to these plants, and waited until the end of the flowering season to collect the nutlets.

White-lined Sphinx Moth visiting Delphinium

While I was working yesterday, I saw this beautiful White-lined Sphinx Moth (Hyles lineata) visiting Delphinium nuttallianum flowers.  I quickly dropped everything and started taking pictures of it.  The moth was quite co-operative and let me got closer and closer until it was less than a metre away.  What a treat!  I have been compiling blog posts of my fauna and flora photos until the end of the field season, but I just can't wait to share these ones first.  Hope you will enjoy these images as much I did photographing this beautiful creature.

Field course day 4 - Carden Plains & Clearwing hummingbird moth!

On the fourth day of the field course, we were at Carden Plains showing the students the unique alvar habitats and the flora associated with it.

Wood Lily (Lilium philadelphicum) in the Liliaceae family is the provincial flower of Saskatchewan.

Shaw Nature Reserve

In the morning we learned about the botanical and floral diversity in pollination biology. For example, the different mating and breeding systems for plants, as well as the history of categorizing flower types to better associate the pollinators and the appropriate pollinator syndrome.

Photographed a Syrphid during a break.


Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis)

In the afternoon, we headed to a different part of Missouri Botanical Garden outside the city. It is called Shaw Nature Reserve.