Firefly Forest Blog
Photographs, stories, and information on Tucson, Arizona wildflowers, plants, natural life, and other related (and random) things.
Stink Bug
Stink Bugs (Stinkbugs) or Shield Bugs are members of the Stink Bug Family (Pentatomidae). I found this one on a window inside my house, and it had no problem walking around on the glass.
Staghorn Cholla Fruit
The green or yellowish soil grown foods on Staghorn Cholla (Opuntia versicolor) desert plants frequently tackle a red or purple tinge in the fall and winter. These foods grown from the ground are not yet ready in light of the fact that they are still uneven and secured in conspicuous tubercles. Staghorn Cholla products of the soil develops and swells as it ages, in the long run getting to be smooth and adjusted. Staghorn Cholla products of the soil is not noxious, yet it is not generally consumed as it truly is more like extreme prickly plant stem than sweet tree grown foods. Flying creatures and creatures will typically overlook these apples and oranges for the sweeter and more delicious Prickly Pear soil grown foods. Staghorn Cholla foods grown from the ground is for the most part cowardly, however it has some little glochids (micro-spines) which are far more regrettable than the bigger spines on the grounds that they are exceptionally hard to uproot and wonderfully tormenting to the touch. I utilize sticky tape to get the vast majority of them off, yet a couple of glochids will oblige an exceptionally sensitive tweezer extraction to abstain from severing them under the skin. Glochids might be not kidding inconvenience in the event that they get in the eyes or on the tongue, which gratefully has never befallen me.
The Forest of Antennas
The 8550 foot (2606 m) summit of Mt. Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains close Tucson is secured in a woods of reception apparatuses and correspondence towers. The tallest towers like this one are finished with blazing red flying deterrent lights that I can see from my home in the valley beneath. Tucson can scarcely be seen sprawled out there in this dim perspective from the highest point of Mt. Bigelow. Microwave reception apparatuses have grown up here like goliath mushrooms, and they not just blanket towers... They likewise grow from practically every building. The numerous recieving wires are joined by a blaze perception tower, which shockingly has just grown a couple of spindly reception apparatuses. The perspective from this perception tower would have been unnerving amid the Aspen Fire of 2003 on the grounds that the blazes verged on devouring this towering woodland of radio wires, which would have thumped out numerous Tucson correspondence administrations including a few neighborhood TV channels.
Pineywoods Geranium
As would be normal given their regular name, I found this Pineywoods Geranium or Wild (Geranium caespitosum) developing in the piney woods, particularly the Ponderosa Pine woods in the Santa Catalina Mountains this last October. As should be obvious in the photograph, it started raining that day, which was a complete astound that I was truly caught off guard for. Without precedent for my life, I was really thankful to a delinquent when I discovered an unfilled plastic basic need pack to wrap my Polaroid in. With the Polaroid ensured between shots, I continued shooting regardless of the discontinuous rain and caught this fuchsia hued Pineywoods Geranium bloom and also other fall wildflowers.
Pineywoods Geraniums have a few subspecies, and their blooms are somewhat variable, with 5 round-tipped to indented petals that go in color from white (bizarre) to pale pink to lavender to red, and the petals may be faintly to strikingly streaked in darker colors. The leaves are dim green and have 5 flaps.
Their class name, Geranium, is from the Greek "geranos", which means crane and alludes to their seed units which look like a crane's bill. This plant and others in the variety Geranium are genuine geraniums, dissimilar to the arrangement geranium which is really in the class Pelargonium, albeit both are really parts of the Geranium Family (Geraniaceae).
These local perennials are decently normal in mountain gulleys here in Arizona, and they blossom at whatever time from May to October.
I and the Bird #12: The Canterbirdy Tales is presently up at Search and Serendipity for your perusing delight.
Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes
My canines are ordinarily well and done with their doggy entryway for the duration of the day, yet one day last September the pooches all of a sudden declined to utilize it. My canine Bounder was rather whimpering and pawing at everybody, attempting to get them to tail him to go see something, and my pooch Sammy continued staying his head out of the doggy entryway fold, taking a gander at something and afterward pulling his head over inside. It turns out what the puppies had seen and shrewdly dodged were two mating Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox) writhing around only outside of the doggy entryway. My yard is fenced with fine-work metal screen at the entryways and steel allotments of the wall to keep the snakes out, yet either my puppies or the squirrels had torn a snake-sized opening in the screen and these two vast and clearly sexually develop rattlers had discovered their route in. Continuously enthusiastic to utilize his new snake grabber shaft, my father caught the two affectionate poisonous snakes, who were very incensed at being hindered in so personal a minute, and threw them into a substantial container. My father then took the now dismal snakes out of my yard and let them go in the desert where they had a place.
Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes are very venomous and are one of the more fractious and forceful types of poisonous snake. They are exceptionally basic here in Tucson, and I have had many them expelled from my yard, generally by the flame office, since I've existed here.
I would not be horrendously shocked to be chomped by a rattler some time or another in light of the fact that I have as of now had various close experiences with them. Appreciatively, they typically shake their tails to caution you of their vicinity before striking, so I've generally had the capacity to rapidly escape from their strike extend before being nibbled.
posted by T. Beth | 12/07/2005 | 5 remarks | Links to this post
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 06, 2005
Petunia and Seaside Petunia
Petunias (Petunia × atkinsiana, previously Petunia × hybrida) are probably the most widely recognized and bright enclosure bloom
