Greenbrier and leafminer

Pictures of the thorny vine called greenbrier, Smilax bona-nox, have appeared a bunch of times in these pages, but only once with a hint of the kind of curious path visible here so extensively. Contorted trails like these are the handiwork—though no hands are involved—of insect larvae called leaf miners (or leafminers), about which you can mine more information in a Wikipedia article.

Today’s photograph comes from a wooded and therefore shaded area in the Upper Bull Creek Greenbelt on December 18th. That turned out to be my last photo session for 2013, but a productive one; you’ll see further fruits of it in the posts that follow.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman