Prairie promiscuity

The adjective promiscuous was originally applied (and still is) to different things that appear or are brought together in no particular order. That’s a good description of plants, or as Dolly Parton put it: “Wildflowers don’t care where they grow.” Here from April 22 on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin you see a mix of Engelmann daisies (Engelmannia peristenia), bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis), prairie bishop’s weed (Bifora americana), and a few pink evening primroses (Oenothera speciosa).

While prairie bishop’s weed flowers are tiny, at most a quarter of an inch across (6mm), I found plenty of insects attending to them, including a shiny blow fly (family Calliphoridae)

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and a paper wasp.

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UPDATE on December 5, 2017. John S. Ascher at bugguide.net has identified the blow fly as being in the genus Lucilia.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman