Clearwing Humming Bird Moth

I couldn't believe my luck having this Clearwing Humming Bird Moth perch on yarrow, right next to me. They never sit still, as you can see it's wings vibrating. There are four species of hummingbird moths in North America. This is a Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis). Unlike most moths, Hummingbird moths fly during the day. They fly and move just like hummingbirds. Like them, they can remain suspended in the air in front of a flower while they unfurl their long tongues and insert them in flowers to sip their nectar. They even emit an audible hum like hummingbirds. Like most moths they have a very long tongue which they carry rolled under their chins and that they use to reach the nectar of long-necked flowers. Hummingbird moths are members of the sphinx moth family (Sphingidae), which have heavy bodies and long front wings. The wings of hummingbird moths are clear, with a black or brown border, and are nearly invisible when they fly. Males have a flared tail like that of a hovering hummingbird.
This photo won Photo of the Day for January 13, 2017 on Capture My Vermont and was featured on January 10th, 2017, on Treehugger.com

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Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Genetic Roulette

Genetic Roulette, free viewing, watch it before it expires at midnight on January 1.
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Fall In Montpelier

Fall Hydrangeas

 Fall Reflections

Fall At The Cemetary

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Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Velvet Leaf Plant

Abutilon theophrasti

Other common names for Velvet Leaf include: Buttonweed, Indian Mallow, Butterprint, China Jute, Abutilon Hemp, Manchurian Jute, American Jute, Tientsin Jute, Piemaker, and in Chinese Ching-ma. It’s debatable whether the plant is native to India or China.

Velvet Leaf is a commercial failure but a successful foreign invader. A flop as a fiber plant and cursed for its infiltration of food crops, it was first cultivated in China some 3,000 years ago. From there it made its way nearly everywhere on earth. First the Mediterranean area, then Europe. It was introduced into North America before 1750 to make rope but never became popular for that. Velvet Leaf never became the great promised fiber plant in North America because of the lack of machinery to economically process it. Instead it became an agricultural pest. That is has edible parts went by the wayside.

  Where the plant is native its seeds are a common outdoor snack of children. The unripe seeds are edible raw. Young seeds taste similar to sunflower seeds. Ripe seeds, however, must be leached until not bitter, then dried they are ground into flour. Usually the flour was used to make noodles. The seeds contain between 15 and 30% oil.

  Usually Abutilon theophrasti is found near farming activities: gardens, crop fields, nurseries, orchards, groves and the like. It’s significant problem where corn, cotton or soybeans are grown sometimes displacing 35% or more of the crop causing losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. As a fiber source in Asia it has been used for rope, bags, coarse cloth, fishing nets, paper stock even caulking boats.

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.artfire.com

Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!

© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Missing Summer

Family Outing On The Bike Path

My photographs are available for purchase through EliseCreations.artfire.com
Thanks for your visits, favs and comments. As always, appreciated very much!
© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

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