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Recently you might have noticed a bushy, thorny plant growing along shorelines and roadsides with one- to one-and-a-half-inch, pink five-petaled blossoms. It’s most likely a wild rose, possibly the Virginia rose, and the blossoms give promise of a nutritious treat to follow. When the blossoms fade the fruits that follow, called rose hips, will be a good source of vitamin C and other nutrients.

Today, the fresh or dried fruits are used mostly in a tea. In fact, some health food and co-op stores actually sell the dried rose hips for that purpose. Native Americans used rose hips as a food and the U.S. government recommended growing them for food in victory gardens during WWII. The parts left over after boiling the hips for tea can still be used as a vegetable but that function seems to have been largely forgotten today.

Another promising flower blooming last week was the blackberry. The distinct white flowers make the berry patches easier to spot than they are later, so marking their location in your mind now can lead you to the tasty treats later in the summer.

Pollinating beetle

Some of those blossoms held a more immediate treat for me. A while ago I mentioned the role of bees in pollinating flowers. Well, they aren’t the only insects that play at least a minor role in the pollination process.

Of course, we all know that butterflies frequent flowers, but I’ve also seen a number of other kinds of insects carrying pollen around, including a few moths, wasps, various flies, male mosquitoes and beetles.

A number of beetle species can be found on blossoms, feeding on the pollen, the nectar, or the blossom itself. A few are hunting other insects that feed on the plant. As a former beetle collector in my youth, I find their presence a special bonus to seeing wildflowers, even though today I collect their images rather than the beetles themselves.

If you look closely at them, you will notice that even though some might actually be eating the pollen, some of the grains manage to stick to tiny hairs or the beetle’s body itself. From that point, the beetles perform the same function that bees do when they visit other blossoms of the same kind.

It’s good to be green

Though spring flowers and spring peepers announce the approach of spring in April, during June the flowers numbers have multiplied dramatically and other kinds of frogs continue the nocturnal chorus.

One of the most common frogs seen and heard during the summer is ironically the one most easily misidentified by people around here. I often hear the green frog (Rana clamitans) referred to as a bullfrog.

Indeed, it looks much like a miniature bullfrog, but is only half the size when full grown, about two and a half to three and a half inches. Green frogs have ridges going halfway down the back on each side, which bullfrogs lack. Its mating call is a grunting “gunk” which sounds rather like a loose banjo string, quite different from the deep resonating “aruuuuum” sound of the bullfrog.

Green frogs sometimes call during the daytime, but the breeding call of the male is more often heard at night through June and July. They are found mostly in the water along the shore. The spotted leopard frog and the climbing tree frogs will often range far inland.

Turtle targets

If you have traveled anywhere near a waterway lately, you have no doubt noticed another herp on the move — the road-crossing turtles. A few are, like the proverbial chicken crossing the road, just trying to get to the other side. But most are females looking for a suitable place to lay their eggs. For some of these turtles, it is one of the few occasions that they ever leave the water and it can be a very dangerous time for them.

For some reason, they are very vulnerable to getting hit by automobiles. I can see how this might happen accidentally on occasion, and I’ve come close myself a few times, but I am simply amazed at the amount of carnage that occurs around here every year. I saw three very large snapping turtles killed in one day in the couple miles between Goose Island and the city of La Crosse, one of them on the shoulder.

I mean, it’s not like they suddenly dart out in front of you — they’re turtles for heaven’s sake! It’s more like running over a football helmet lying in the middle of the road. How could you not see it?

Craig Peltry, a reptile expert at the Milwaukee County Zoo, told me last week that he is trying to locate a Michigan study he has heard about. In it a student set out fake turtles on a road and along the shoulder to record motorists’ reactions. He found that a disturbing number of them went out of their way to run over the “turtles.” Hmmm.

But however it happens, there they lay — three squashed, boulder-sized mother snapping turtles. And each of those kills represents the loss of all those baby turtles that might have hatched later as well.

Painted turtles, map turtles and other species have also been on the move; so slow down and let the mothers-to-be have a break. I have seen some people even get out to help the critters across the road, but that could be a hazard to the Good Samaritan as well. If we’re all just a little more careful and considerate, it should work out for everyone.

Whaditiz

It is the orange hawkweed or Devil’s paintbrush (Hieracium aurantiacum), an invasive but pretty weed from Europe.

Contact Jim Solberg at (608) 782-2560 or nitefrogger@charter.net.

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