Cup Plants and The Aphids That Love Them

There’s a Springer episode for you to roll with….

Yes, Frank the bug/plant/awesomeness expert has filled me in more as to the possibilities of this wonderful bug and plant combination. The little picture above leads to a big picture when clicked. That big picture is one that Frank took several years back of a cup plant with aphids on it. And a lady bug eating the crap out of one of the aphids. Yummy.

Right. The final results are in and the plant that we are dealing with is officially a cup plant. A full description of the plant can be read here. According to a few other sites that I’ve browsed through, the flower itself may not bloom until July. Once that happens, we’ll take some more pictures and have uber yellow picture proof that it ain’t a sunflower.

Oh yeah. And the aphids. Carmine aphids. According to this site, they’re:

usually seen feeding in large colonies on Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant): this aphid appears to have a very high reproductive rate, but a short life cycle, and there is no serious damage.

Sounds like my kind of aphid right there. And as a confirmation, the plants that we’re looking at don’t show too many signs of horrible damage, so it would sort of make sense.

Umm… allright then enough half-drunk slightly non-linear talk about plants and the bugs that love them for tonight. We’ll be down by the riverwalk again on Sunday, so I’ll see if I can get some pictures with sunlight in them this time for some good closeups with aphids.