August 26, 2015: Its My Park Day–Harvesting Activities

As Tomas, a steadfast volunteer, works harvesting milkweed seeds he observes many new insects that have been attracted to the milkweed plants. Milkweed plants attract aphids and ladybugs provide natural insect control. Ladybugs dine on aphids. Tomas, also discovered the Milkweed bug. It likes to drain the fluids from the Milkweed seed pods. We were able to identify the bugs using our Field Guide of insects. Notice that the Milkweed bug is orange and black. Similar coloring to the Monarch Butterfly.

Milkweed bug

 

 

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Lady bug
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Milkweed is not the only plant that produces seed pods. The Blue Wild Indigo [Baptisia australis] also has seeds pods that turn from green to almost black. We are collecting these seed pods as well for their seeds.

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