Pollinator Week

Pollinator Week 2025

"Pollinator Week is an annual celebration that raises awareness about the importance of pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, to our ecosystems and food supply. In 2025, it will take place from June 16 to June 22, with various activities to promote pollinator health and conservation." - says an AI generated response to a query.

While about five years ago I wrote an essay on this topic, this year I am just going to share some photographs.

All writing and images ©Cliff Hutson unless expressly noted. Do not use without permission.

World Bee Day

World Bee Day 2024: We all depend on bees

World Bee Day (May 20 of each year) was designated by the United Nations to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.

It has long been noted that bees play a vital role in the environment by pollinating plants, supporting agriculture, promoting biodiversity, and also ensuring the survival of many plant species.  Our lives would be much poorer without them.

We should all be mindful of them for their sake and ours.

All writing and images ©Cliff Hutson unless expressly noted. Do not use without permission.

Bird of Paradise

and A Bee

Bird of Paradise: photo by Cliff Hutson

Strelitzia reginae has been adopted as the official flower of the City of Los Angeles.  However, the plant, like so many of the people that live out here, is not native to Southern California. 

Bird of Paradise is from South Africa, but it is hard to imagine our landscape without it. I guess that the same goes for the honey bee. Its predecessors came from Europe, after a long, strange trip to California. The first of them did not appear in Los Angeles County until 1854 or 1855 (depending on your source). 

I think that it would be safe to say that most people are happy that both of these entities are well established and live amongst us.

Life in the Time of Corona: Self-care

 Self-care

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, 

but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” 

– Maya Angelou

Bee & Camellia: photo by Cliff Hutson

• Stay safe
• Be mindful
• Watch the bees

National Pollinator Week 2020

The birds and the invertebrates

Ant: photo by Cliff Hutson

June 22-28, 2020 is National Pollinator Week.   It is an annual celebration of the many animals that move pollen to help plants make fruit or seeds.

While it is probably safe to say that most people readily identify honey bees as pollinators, many other creatures are also crucial to the lifecycle of plants.  It should not be a surprise that butterflies  and moths are among the usual suspects.  (Ants should probably be excluded, but I like my opening photograph so I am including it anyway.)

Butterfly Bush: photo by Cliff Hutson

Another thing that I find amusing is that much of the literature maintains that flower shape dictates the pollinators for a plant. Which is to say that flat flowers attract butterflies, cup shaped flowers bees, and tubular flowers humming birds. However, as I used to joke with my students, the animals do not read those papers. 

To wit, I can present bees  that are thinking outside of the box or perhaps they just have a rebellious nature.

Bee on California Sunflower; photo by Cliff Hutson

Bee & Camellia: photo by Cliff Hutson

Nevada Mining Bee: photo by Cliff Hutson

While Ladybugs are noted for eating aphids and other plant destroying pests, it seems that help in pollination as well.

Ladybug: photo by Cliff Hutson

Finally, this butterfly seems to be going by the book.

Painted Lady Butterfly: photo by Cliff Hutson

Pollinators are essential to our environment. The ecological service they provide is necessary for the reproduction of over 85% of the world’s flowering plants, including more than two-thirds of the world’s crop species.  

Here are some ways that we can help them to carry on:

• Grow a variety of bee-friendly flowers that bloom from spring through fall.
• Protect and provide bee nests and caterpillar host plants.
• Avoid using pesticides, especially insecticides.

California Native Plant Week #8

Wildflower Meadows

Meadow with Lupins: photo by Cliff Hutson

Technically, a meadow is simply an open habitat vegetated by grasses and other non-woody plants. However, few things evoke magical memories like spring wildflowers.

Common Meadowfoam: photo by Cliff Hutson

Collinsia: photo by Cliff Hutson

Tidy Tips and Lupins:  photo by Cliff Hutson

Clarkia amoena: photo by Cliff Hutson

Clarkia Fan: photo by Cliff Hutson

California Native Plant Week #7

Ninebark

Ninebark: photo by Cliff Hutson

Pacific ninebark or western ninebark (Physocarpus capitatus) is a shrub that is native to California and confined to western North America—from southern Alaska east to Montana and Utah, and south to southern California—in the redwood forest, chaparral, yellow pine forest, red fir forest and wetland-riparian communities. The plant gets its common name from its bark, which may peel showing several layers

It is a deciduous bush up to 8 feet tall, with round 3-to-5-inch clusters of white flowers having five petals and numerous red-tipped stamens, flowering May through July. The blossoms have been noted as being attractive to a large number of native bees. Also, small animals and birds find shelter in its branches. The leaves are lobed, about 1.2–5.5 inches long and broad, alternate, generally serrate, and remind me of small grape or currant leaves, though some say they are maple-like. They turn intense red to orange in the fall. The fruit is an inflated glossy red pod, which turns dry and brown and then splits open to release seeds.

Many nurseries recommend the plant not only for its delightful display of flowers and its showiness in fall, but also for the sculptural attractiveness the rest of the year. It grows best in moist environments, but it is drought-tolerant to a degree.

Save the date(s)

Earth Day is April 22, but at least one organization is proposing a week's worth of activities. 

California Native Plant Week #5

Gilia tricolor (Bird's-eye gilia)

Bird's-eye gilia: photo by Cliff Hutson

Gilia tricolor, a dicot, is an annual herb that is native to California, and is endemic (limited) to California.  Blue stamens encircle the yellow throat of the flower, which is set off by a dark purple ring. All this color provides a vibrant signal to the bees that pollinate this plant.

Citizen Science Month: April 2020

Life in the time of Corona has placed many, if not most, of us under quarantine, lockdown, or "safer at home". Keeping occupied is said to be good for our mental health. One way to that is to participate in citizen science programs. Check out this site  or Science Friday to see if that might be a fit for you.

Reading Log: January 2019

The books that I finished reading in January 2019:

January 2019 Books: photo by Cliff Hutson

“The Old Man,” Thomas Perry

“Our Native Bees.” Paige Embry

“Gone with the Gin,” Tim Federle

“The Edge of Memory,” Patrick Nunn

Palo Verde

What's in a name?

Palo Verde: photo by Cliff Hutson

One of the things that intrigues me about leading tours at RSABG is the feed back I receive from guests. One plant that leads to many discussions is a tree we call Palo Verde. Everyone agrees that “verde” is Spanish for “green”. However, “palo” is variously translated as “stick”, “pole”, or “wood”. The “green” in its name comes from the color of the trunk and limbs which contain chlorophyll. This feature allows the tree to photosynthesize when it drops its leaves due to drought conditions, and again in winter.

Native to California, various specious of Palo Verde also occur throughout the Southwest and part of Mexico. They are found predominantly in desert washes, and occasionally in creosote desert scrub habitat, accessing seeps in desert hills up to 3,600 feet .

The most common species are: Little-leaved or Yellow Palo Verde (Parkinsonia aculeata) has a yellow-green trunk, tiny leaves, and a spine at the end of each branch. Their seeds are large with a seed pod that constricts around them; and Blue Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida)  which has a blue-green trunk, larger leaves, small spines along the branch at the leaf nodes, and no spine at the end of the branch. Blue Palo Verde seed pods are larger than little-leaved seed pods, and the pod does not constrict around the seeds.

Palo Verde Blossoms: photo by Cliff Hutson

The yellow pea-like flowers bloom in spring and frequently occur intermittently through out the year. Both the literature and my personal observation indicate that the plant seems to attract the most bees and the most species of bees than any other tree. This factor, the sheer beauty of its filigreed leaves, and its low water requirement have made Palo Verde a popular landscape tree In our area.

Bee on Palo Verde: photo by Cliff Hutson

Sunflowers

Coast Sunflower (Encelia californica): photo by Cliff Hutson

The drought in California over the past five some odd years, and the resulting restrictions on watering, have been rough on home gardens, public plantings, and native plants. However, one plant that has been holding its own, at the botanic garden where I work, is one of the sunflowers.

Helianthus annuus 

Helianthus annuus, the common sunflower, is an annual herb that is native to California and is also found elsewhere in North America .  Sunflowers belong to the what is probably the largest family of flowering plants  - the Asteraceae (or Compositae). The name sunflower may derive from the impression that the blooming plant appears to slowly turn its flower towards the sun as the it moves across the sky, or from the shape of the flower which resembles a child’s drawing of the sun.

Sunflowers do display heliotropism in the bud stage. The motion is created by special cells in a flexible segment of the stem just below the bud. However, mature sunflowers become fixed in an easterly direction, with only their leaves continuing to track the sun. This motion, from east to west, is believed to increase photosynthesis.

The term Compositae, i.e., composite, comes from the fact that the “flower”’ is actually composed of many flowers. The flowers on the outer margin are ray flowers. The flowers at the center of the head are the disc flowers, which will mature into seeds. Many sunflowers are beautiful ornamental flowers in an annual bed or a mixed border. They attract bees and are also a good choice for butterfly gardens; monarch butterflies are especially attracted to sunflowers.

“Claremont Sunshine” Sunflower

Claremont Sunshine: photo by Cliff Hutson

RSABG is home to a cultivar of  Helianthus annuus, “Claremont Sunshine”, the plant that is doing pretty well.  Cultivars are bred from exceptional plants of an existing variety because they possess a desired attribute. I read that Bart O’Brien was driving on I-5 and spotted some wild sunflowers that were a very pale yellow, instead of the golden color. So he marked the spot, came back and harvested the seeds, then cultivated them. 

The Fall Planting Festival at Grow Native Nursery will showcase this and thousands of other California native and water efficient plants on October 1, 2016, 10 am - 4:30 pm - Members only, 8 -10 am. 

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden has been selling California native plants since 1978. So, , if you are in Southern California, don’t miss this ideal opportunity to purchase hard-to-find, one-of-a-kind natives and to get your gardening questions answered by friendly, experienced botanic garden professionals and volunteers.

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Sticky Monkeyflower

Orange Bush Monkeyflower

Sticky Monkeyflower: photo by Cliff Hutson

The author Elmore Leonard  gave the advice that a writer should never open with the weather. So, I am not going to talk about the drought in California and how it has played havoc with the list of plants I intended to write about this year. However, one of them has held its own.

Orange Bush Monkeyflower, or Sticky Monkeyflower, Diplacus aurantiacus (aka Mimulus aurantiacus), is a plant that is native to California and is found only slightly beyond our borders. It is common in disturbed areas of coastal sage scrub, and also found in the chaparral and live oak woodland communities. It is fairly abundant in my local foothills, so it is a personal favorite when it comes to wildflowers.

Once placed in the Scrophulariaceae (Figwort family), most references now have it in the Phrymaceae (Lopseed family). It is a perennial shrub which flowers March through June. The blossoms are two to three inches long and can be white, yellow, or red; as well as the namesake orange. The name monkeyflower comes from the flowers which, some say, look, like small faces when viewed from the front.  I have never seen a face. May be it is a lack of imagination on my part, but I am willing to take their word for it. The leaves are one to two inches long, dark green with deeply impressed veins, and are sticky to the touch. The stickiness is due to a phenolic resin which helps the plant retain water in dry environments.

The plant is shrubby and may be sprawling, but can grow to four feet tall. It is attractive to bees and hummingbirds; in Southern California, monkeyflower's most frequent visitors are Anna’s hummingbirds and Allen’s hummingbirds. Also, it is a forage source for the larva of Variable Checkerspot and Common Buckeye butterflies.

Birds, bees, and butterflies help make our world function. I am not a gardener, but I am tempted to plant a few of these monkeyflowers at home to help make up for the huge hit these creatures have taken due to changes in their habitats.

Bird’s Eye Gilia

Tricolor Gilia

Bird's Eye Gilia: photo by Cliff Hutson

Bird’s Eye Gilia, or Tricolor Gilia, (Gilia tricolor) is an annual herb that is native to California, where it is found naturally in the Central Valley and surrounding mountain ranges and foothills, with major populations around the Bay Area. 

A member of the Phlox family (Polemoniaceae), it is described as delicate with a spreading branched stem that grows up to a foot in height. The leaves are alternate and finely dissected. It may bloom from April through August. One would think, given the name, that the, 1/2 inch wide or wider flowers, borne atop the stems, would have three colors. White and lavender are predominate in the petals. One then has a choice of the blue pollen or one of the throat colors of yellow and dark purple for the third. One source cites the “blue stamens encircling the yellow throat of the flower, which is set off by a dark purple ring”.  The flowers seem very attractive to bees. Humans can only imagine what they are seeing at their short-wavelength end of the spectrum of visible light.

The Gilia genus, as previously noted, is named for Filippo Luigi Gilii (1756-1821), naturalist and director of the Vatican observatory.  He, for twenty-one years, made twice daily meteorological readings at the Observatory, and had the meridian line and obelisk placed in front of St. Peter's for readings of the seasons.

This gilia is widely cultivated, being frequently included in wildflower seed mixes. In addition to bees, it attracts butterflies and birds. It is drought-tolerant; suitable for xeriscaping, and does not mind full sun. My research found  herbaria with two specimens that were collected well outside its range.  One was from Silverado Canyon in Orange County. The other from “Claremont; North side of Foothill Blvd. between Darthmouth (sic) and College Ave.” As the latter is just out side the grounds of the botanic garden where I work, I am willing to bet that these specimens were garden escapees.