#starthistle

July 2025

In a wasteland among the stones, the yellow star-thistle (lat. Centaurea solstitialis) sees off July🌼

Just some bees in my garden and in the fields and on a neighbourhood walk. :)

Featured bees include bumblebees (native), green sweatbees (native), honeybees (invasive), carpenter bees (native), and some I'm not sure about.

Featured flower hosts include bull thistles (invasive weed), rose of sharon (invasive), New England aster (native), cup plant (native), starthistle (not native), Nuttall's sunflower (native), purple coneflower (native), anise hyssop (native), white wood aster (native), swamp milkweed (native), sow thistle (invasive weed), creeping charlie (invasive), creeping thistle (invasive weed), wild rose (native maybe), wild bergamot (native), bride's feathers (native), bigleaf lupin (native maybe or invasive), and upright prairie coneflower "Mexican hat" (native species, but a cultivar).

All my photos, unedited. Don't mind the weirdness of the third last photo. It's my phone's "portrait" which I found out belatedly can have, uh, interesting results.

Plant of the Day

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Centaurea calcitrapa (star thistle, caltrap, mouse thorn) is a biennial or short lived perennial native to southern Europe, it produces prolific seeds and can be invasive of floodplains, dry forests, and grasslands. The plant thrives in a well-drained soil and can grow in areas of low nutrients and very alkaline conditions.

T4 Movie special of THE HOBBIT. HERE.

Lycene helps in most cases, but some cases are more resistant to it than others. There are other things that may help better. Unfortunately, you might have to just keep trying different things until something works.