Swida anyone? Andrena platyparia is part of small closely related group of four Eastern North Americans (all with the first name of Andrena) that like to feed their babies pollen from the shrubby dogwoods. The fact that they specialize in pollen from shrubby dogwoods (this is the so called Swida group of dogwoods) and not the Dogwood that everyone fawns over (Cornus florida or the flowering dogwood (which, while not so great for bees does have the most amazingly sensual wood, it polishes to such slinky smoothness when sanded down with ultra fine grits that I use them as railings in my house and posts just so that I can touch them as I go by (this may seem slightly odd, but it is not, you just don't have access to dogwood wood, or you would do this too))). So, back to the main point, plantaxonomists have argued for year that the Swida group deserves its own genus and, as you can see, bees like A. platyparia vote the same way. If you plant some Swidas in your yard you are pretty much guaranteed to get one of the 4 Swiditarian Andrena in your yard too. Photo by Cole Cheng.
