Published by Daniel Mosquin on April 20, 2015
Thistles often get a bad rap. In some states of the USA (e.g., Arkansas and Iowa), all species of Cirsium are listed as noxious weeds, regardless of their origin (native or not). Before becoming a student, I ran a small vegetable farm in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. There, I witnessed firsthand how just […]
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on June 13, 2014
This past weekend, WildResearch held a Butterfly Monitoring Workshop at the UBC Botanical Garden. The workshop began with an indoor classroom session where participants learned to identify, catch, handle, and monitor butterflies. They also learned the protocols for contributing data to the BC Butterfly Atlas, a citizen science project. I sat in, and gave a […]
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on August 13, 2009
I took today’s Botany Photos of the Day one morning a few weeks ago in our Physic Garden, an area that usually hums with the frenzied activity of elated honeybees. On this particular summer morning, when the sun took a rare break behind a blanket of cream-coloured cloud, things were somewhat more silent, serene, and, […]
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on October 13, 2005
Zinnia haageana ‘Old Mexico’ is an All-America Selections Winner from forty-three years ago–a cultivar that has stood the test of time. Considering its performance in trials done by The Gardens at the University of Georgia, that decades-long popularity is no wonder. It has performed similarly well this year at UBC.
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on August 24, 2005
The discovery of this caterpillar on a Nothofagus antarctica (southern beech) tree in the alpine garden yesterday provoked some excitement among the staff (and a comment that it has good taste in trees). Eight centimetres long and as thick as my forefinger, this caterpillar is the larval stage for the polyphemus moth. Leaves of deciduous […]
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Published by Daniel Mosquin on August 10, 2005
Pine cone willow gall is caused by a gall midge, Rhabdophaga strobiloides. This dipteran (related to flies and mosquitoes) deposits an egg in the developing terminal leaf buds of the willow in early spring. The larva releases a chemical which interferes with the typical leaf and branch development of the willow, instead causing the formation […]
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