Beetle on a buffalo gourd flower
Somehow I haven’t shown a picture of a buffalo gourd flower here since 2011, so it’s high time to make up for the oversight. That making up is made easy by the fact that on May 15th off Lost Horizon Dr. I found a group of flowering Cucurbita foetidissima vines. The species name indicates that this plant has quite an unpleasant smell—at least to people. The odor seems to have had the opposite effect on the little pollen-bedecked beetle shown here that had come from the flower’s interior out onto its rim.
© 2020 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
How clever nature is. The good smelling flowers are so attractive to people.
Did you take it indoor, Steve? It’s a lovely composition.
Dina
June 14, 2020 at 4:55 AM
No, this is an outdoor shot. I followed the technique of lining up a sunlit subject with a dark area in the background, in this case a group of shaded trees. The brighter the subject, the darker the camera “sees” the background by comparison. Because I was so close, when I focused on the beetle only the front edge of the flower came into focus.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 6:09 AM
I should add that in some other shots I was able to get low and line this flower up with a patch of bright sky. The orange against blue makes an attractive color combination.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 6:43 AM
I was admiring squash blossoms yesterday while I was at the local picking farm. They were pretty, but they didn’t have any companions like this nice beetle. They’re always fun to find, but finding one on the very edge of the petal’s a bonus. It’s interesting that the flower has the same yellow and green color scheme as the gourds themselves.
shoreacres
June 14, 2020 at 5:19 AM
A photo I took of a nearby buffalo gourd includes six of these beetles, plus two cucumber beetles, on various parts of a flower. While that shows how much these smelly flowers attract insects, artistically speaking this picture is much better, which is why I chose to show it.
Your mention of the gourds sent me searching these pages. I found that the only buffalo gourd I ever showed here was one that reminded me of the lunar surface:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/a-planetary-orb/
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 6:41 AM
Beautiful composition.
rabirius
June 14, 2020 at 6:38 AM
Thanks. It worked well.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 6:46 AM
beetles, the most common insect, are essential pollinators.
MichaelStephenWills
June 14, 2020 at 7:19 AM
That they are, and I’ve got a zillion photographs to prove it.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 7:20 AM
Yesterday I saw a couple of large patches of horsemint on the the north side of New Hope drive in Cedar Park near the Cedar Park Center. So, If you’re over that way, be on the look-out. I didn’t stop as I was on one of my several trips to a Sherwin Williams store to get the correct paint.
Jason Frels
June 14, 2020 at 8:08 AM
Thanks for the tip. It gives me new hope for horsemint pictures this season.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 11:21 AM
In fact, I suspect the odor is designed to attract the beetle. When I enlarged the image it almost looks like the beetle is pushing balls of pollen. Is that what he was doing? This photo is brilliant~just look at the delicate ruffling of the petal edges and that rich color.
melissabluefineart
June 14, 2020 at 8:30 AM
You could be right about the odor evolving to attract insects. From the plant’s point of view, a fringe benefit is that the odor keeps people away.
I zoomed in on the beetle in the much larger original photograph and found it’s not pushing balls of pollen; rather individual pollen grains are stuck to the insect, most noticeably on its antennae.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 11:57 AM
Ah, ok that makes sense.
melissabluefineart
June 15, 2020 at 8:42 AM
Again the dark background highlights amazingly well the bright yellow of the gourd flower. The beetle provides an extra little benefit to your photo, Steve.
Peter Klopp
June 14, 2020 at 8:45 AM
You know me with my bright subjects against dark backgrounds. I took some pictures of these flowers in their own right using that technique but the little beetle adds a nice touch.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 12:00 PM
What a beautiful composition, Steve!
Lavinia Ross
June 14, 2020 at 9:50 AM
Thanks. I was pleased with it. This season I’ve found myself especially drawn to abstractions.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 12:12 PM
You brought a fresh perspective to the Buffalo Gourd plant! The way you photographed the blossom makes it appear as a grand beauty of the plains states. I think I let my battle with the plant get the best of me when we first moved here. The year we moved on this place, I tried to eradicate most of them by digging up the roots. Let me tell you, some of them were larger than a football and they were rooted so firmly in the ground it was impossible to get the entire root! Eventually, I believe it was continual mowing of the pasture that finally stopped their growth. We still see them living prolifically on the orchard property. I am told by Native American friends that the plant root has powerful healing qualities, but it can also be highly toxic, and only used by medicine men.
Littlesundog
June 14, 2020 at 10:44 AM
It is a grand beauty of the plains states—at least that’s how I view it from a photographic point of view. But then I’m partial to so many of our native plants. Your comments about the difficulties of eradication remind me that when I researched buffalo gourds more than a decade ago I learned how big the roots can get and how far down they often go. In Austin I most often see buffalo gourd vines along the edges of highways, though that’s not where this one was.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 2:54 PM
I am plant, nor seen one – obviously. Beautiful composition and a happy beetle.
Michael Scandling
June 14, 2020 at 11:04 AM
And don’t leave out the happy photographer.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 2:55 PM
I would be a very happy photographer.
Michael Scandling
June 14, 2020 at 3:20 PM
I just reread my original comment. I have a tendency to dictate into Siri and then not check it for errors. I am not a plant. I meant to say that I have never seen such a plant nor heard of one.
Michael Scandling
June 14, 2020 at 3:39 PM
That’s how I read your comment. I assumed something had gotten lost in translation, so to speak. I even thought of changing your comment to what I believed you intended.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 5:09 PM
Then that makes two of us.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 5:10 PM
Well, flowers do what they must to attract pollinators, even if they must smell objectionably.
tonytomeo
June 14, 2020 at 11:40 AM
In this case objectionableness is in the nose of the beholder.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 2:56 PM
or the pheromone binding proteins in the antennae of the beholder.
tonytomeo
June 14, 2020 at 3:06 PM
I think you’ve got it.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 5:06 PM
?! I do not got it. I use my nose.
tonytomeo
June 14, 2020 at 5:07 PM
As they used to say: the nose knows.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 5:10 PM
Knows what?
tonytomeo
June 14, 2020 at 5:35 PM
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_nose_knows
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 5:39 PM
?
tonytomeo
June 14, 2020 at 5:41 PM
Gorgeous light, Steve!
circadianreflections
June 14, 2020 at 12:44 PM
Yes, the bright sunlight worked well for me, softened by the fuzziness of the flower.
Steve Schwartzman
June 14, 2020 at 2:58 PM
Ah, you gotta love that fuzziness! 😀
circadianreflections
June 15, 2020 at 7:03 AM
I sure do.
Steve Schwartzman
June 15, 2020 at 7:50 AM
Before I read through your comments, I thought you’d found a bonus bug (it looked to me like an ant) slightly behind its head, but I see that it was working with grains of pollen. Strange that they are so dark–or maybe not, as the pollen is obviously darker than those intensely-yellow petals.
krikitarts
June 15, 2020 at 2:47 AM
It may be that what you took to be dark pollen grains is the black spaces delineated by the arcs of the beetle’s antennae. The pollen grains themselves are tiny and pale. The details are easier to see in the full-size image. I may have to go back an add an enlargement of the beetle.
Steve Schwartzman
June 15, 2020 at 7:50 AM
Probably not as foul smelling as a carrion flower but stinky is as stinky smells. Probably like a wafting perfume scent for that beetle. Nice background for the softly hued blossom.
Steve Gingold
June 16, 2020 at 6:52 PM
I’ve never smelled a carrion flower but I suspect you’re right that it’s a lot worse than buffalo gourd. Some convenient trees in the shade nearby gave me a good background to play the yellow off of.
Steve Schwartzman
June 16, 2020 at 8:49 PM
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