[FRIAM] Sunchoke rhizomes

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Despite my credentials as a naturalist, I am not fond of big bugs.  I don't know if you have ever seen the hornworm "butterfly" but they are about as large and noisy as black helicopters and near as mean looking.  

If your horn worm is carrying little white packages on its back, leave it be,  Those are the eggs of parasites, which may explain why your datura plant came through. 

N 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2020 11:50 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Sunchoke rhizomes


> That reminded me of this fantastic scene from a fantastic tv show:
>
>   https://youtu.be/EbkKaiqXmPU

That is closer to what happened when I tried tasting the seeds of the "Moonflower" plants that grow sporadically here <grin>.

This year, my in-courtyard shady garden sprouted dozens which (my general policy on all native volunteer plants is "every sperm is
sacred") it turned out our chickens do like to nibble (not munch) on. When Mary saw this she removed them all, which I accepted, though best I could tell their ingestion was very limited and the leaves are much less "toxic" than the seeds.  

Last year, a particularly flourishing one on the side of the house showed up significantly denuded one day and upon inspection I discovered a small family of hornworms crawling their stems.   I was fascinated since I only know the worms as "tomato worms".   After the branches were entirely stripped, the worms disappeared... I never see them en-cocoon but understand/believe them to be the larval form of the sphynx-moth or hummingbird-moth which are happy pollinators to have around, even if they can be hell on my tomatoes.   Surprisingly the Datura's branches sprouted fresh leaves and finished out the growing season with dainty little leaves.   I saw another Datura with a hornworm a dozen yards away, but this time it failed to strip it.  I haven't seen the phenomena at all this year though...  

>
>
> On 8/6/20 10:26 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> I have tried chewing the
>> mature-but-fresh seeds and didn't find them at all interesting... 
>> just fibrous.


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