Musing Behind My Office Window

My head is throbbing today. This has nothing to do with alcohol. I must have clenched my teeth last night. Splendid.

There is a lovely spring morning unfolding outside my window. The industrious bees were already humming around my dogwood, drifting amongst the flowers in search of choice pollen. It’s an entomophilous dance that has take place ever since flowering plants made their appearance on earth.

The question is not “which came first, egg or chicken?” but rather “which came first, flowering plant or biotic pollinator?” During a time when birds and bats (especially hummingbirds) were nothing more than dust contemplating which niche to fill, we had little to rely upon. It casts pollination syndrome into a whole new and fascinating light: flower traits evolved in response to natural selection imposed by different pollen vectors, which can be abiotic or biotic. That is standard theory. I agree with it. Scent attracts pollinators. Your roses, bleeding hearts, dogwood, daisies and other scented plants each exhibit traits specific to the beastie that they are hoping to attract. Coloration and flower shape/size all play into the plant propagation quest. Plants strive to complete their symbiotic relationship with a pollinator, be it melittophily (bee pollination), psychophily (butterfly pollination) or phalaenophily (moth pollination).

Aut, you made those words up.

I wish I had. Psychophily does not mean “psychotic butterfly”, by the way.

It doesn’t?

No.

Oh. That’s disappointing.

Quite.

A few of the other forms of pollination are myophily and sapromyophily (fly pollination), cantharophily (beetle pollination), chiropeterophily (bat pollination) and ornithophily (bird pollination).

That is your lesson for the day. I did not intend to delve into pollinators. God knows I didn’t even intend to roll out of bed before 10 AM. I haven’t any option, however, as I have an appointment with my psychologist.

Does that have anything to do with the psychotic butterflies?

No, the butterflies are perfectly sane. The psychologist flutters from patient to patient, studying their behavior. Now that you mention it, I believe I’m actually seeing the psychiatrist.

What’s the difference?

The latter involves blowguns and Thorazine, much less flutter.

As I was saying, there is a lovely spring morning unfolding outside my window. The birds are trolling the treetops looking for unattended drinks. The chipmunks have awoken and stretched after their long winter’s nap and are, presumably, contemplating chewing my things in the garage or our neighbors’ electrical cables. The squirrels don’t really come around here, but that might be due to the foxes and other predators that live in the copse down the way. My arch-nemesis, the Damned Black Rabbit, has gone MIA.

I’ll post some garden photographs once I’ve got everything done. Better Half had to move some heavy things yesterday and he’s hardly functioning today. My poor Husband. The garden can wait. (We are a riot to watch! We bought two shrubs and planted one. Just one. The effort kicked our ass. That was three days ago. We might get around to planting the second one by tomorrow.)