What’s going on out on the land?
Sapwood Timberworm Beetle : A mystery solved.. finally!
It has been years that I have been finding dead logs in the woods with cryptic lines etched into the outer bark, followed by a final exclamatory dot. Who, or what, was making these marks in the wood? I have wondered at this mystery for years. A tracking mystery which truly put “the quest back in question, and the search back into research!”
Poplar Vagabond Gall Aphid
I have been keeping a Question Book for years. It’s the greatest textbook I have ever owned. Each loving volume has been authored in partnership between the land and my own geysering, never-settling, curiosity. There have been many questions answered through research in my own library, the local university library, and online. For as many questions which have been answered, there are pages of unanswered mysteries. This is not for lack of searching, but perhaps the research has not come out yet, or I just don’t know where to look. Luckily today will be an indepth answer as to what the hell I have seen growing on the Poplar trees.
Tracking through the Poplars
I was out at the University of Guelph Arboretum tracking, looking high and low along the edges of small area bordered by White Pines, Eastern White Cedars, and within a small Poplar grove. Around the periphery of the grove, there were human and domestic dog trails boxing in the Poplars with only a little traffic weaving between them.
I skirted along the edges, ducking under the Pines looking for signs of whomever might be living in the space, or at least passing through looking for food.