Here is a 1:1 shot of a seed head from Wild bergamot -
Monarda fistulosa - a perennial forb from the Lamiaceae (mint) family that is native to most of North America east of the Rockies. The seed head measures about 5/8 of an inch. 30 or so frames were taken using the Helicon FB tube, and they were combined using Zerene stacker. The width was cropped a little since there was a lot of negative space there. I am including some photos of the plant in various stages of bloom from last July.
Wild Bergmaot I on Flickr
The
Monarda genus is endemic to North America, that is to say it is only found in North America, and there are no Old World or southern hemisphere species. There are about 15 or so
Monarda species, and four of those are native here in Michigan. Two of those are extremely rare here, Bee balm -
Monarda didyma - and White bergamot -
Monarda clinopodia. Bee balm is only known to occur on the banks of the Clinton river in southeast Michigan, and White bergamot is only known to occur in Warren Woods in southwest Michigan. Bee balm is popular in gardens, and occasionally escapes. Wild bergamot is common, though I don't see the enormous sweeping stands of it that I remember from years ago. The fourth species that is native here is Horse mint,
Monarda punctata. It is fairly common.
Here are the range maps for
Monarda species at the Biota of North America project website:
http://bonap.net/NAPA/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/MonardaWild bergamot II on Flickr
The genus name,
Monarda, honors the 16th century Spanish physician and botanist, Nicolas Bautista Monardes.
Fistulosa, the Latin species name, means "pipe-shaped" or "tube-shaped" referring to the florets. The common name, Bergamot, comes from the fact that when the leaves are crushed the aroma is reminiscent of the
Bergamot orange, an Old World citrus species.
Wild bergamot is a larval host plant for the Hermit sphinx moth -
Lintneria eremitus - as well as some species from the Coleophora genus of moths including
Coleophora monardae,
C. heinrichella, and
C. monardella.
While butterflies and moths can use a wide range of plants for nectar, including alien plants - plants from distant eco-systems that did not co-evolve with local Lepidoptera species - the needs of the larvae are critical and specialized. Plants have developed a wide range of chemical defenses against predation, making most plant tissue toxic or at least unpalatable to one degree or another to most animals. Lepidoptera species (butterflies, moths, skippers), in turn have developed strategies for handling various toxins in plant tissue, resulting in a complex pattern of dependent relationships. The best known example of that is probably the dependency of the Monarch and Queen butterflies on
Asclepias, or Milkweed plant species. Nesting songbirds are dependent upon Lepdioptera larvae for successful breeding, and song bird migration times and routes and breeding site selections are coordinated with the availability of Lepdioptera larvae.
Wild bergamot III on Flickr
The
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation lists Wild bergamot as having special value to Bumble bees and other native bees. I do see a lot of Bumble bees on the blossoms here. Long tongues are useful for extracting nectar from these tubular florets.
Wild bergamot IV on Flickr
This plant is a really popular nectar species for butterflies, and I have 182 native flowering species going here, so the butterflies have a lot of choices! Only Joe Pye weed is more popular mid-season. We see a lot of frittilaries on the Wild bergamot, and we do have a lot of Common blue violet which is a host species for fritillaries.
Plants Profile for Monarda fistulosa at the USDA websiteWild bergamot at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower CenterWild bergamot at the University of Michigan Michigan Flora websiteMike
Here is a 1:1 shot of a seed head from Wild bergam... (