A few nice animal plant images I found:
Dying Sumac Flowers
Image by bill barber
From my set entitled ‘Sumac”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607186471302/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac
Sumac (also spelled sumach) is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. The dried berries of some species are ground to produce a tangy purple spice often used in juice.
Sumacs grow in subtropical and warm temperate regions throughout the world, especially in North America.
Sumacs are shrubs and small trees that can reach a height of 1-10 meters. The leaves are spirally arranged; they are usually pinnately compound, though some species have trifoliate or simple leaves. The flowers are in dense panicles or spikes 5-30 cm long, each flower very small, greenish, creamy white or red, with five petals. The fruits form dense clusters of reddish drupes called sumac bobs.
Sumacs propagate both by seed (spread by birds and other animals through their droppings), and by new sprouts from rhizomes, forming large clonal colonies.
The drupes of the genus Rhus are ground into a deep-red or purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat; in the Turkish cuisine e.g. added to salad-servings of kebabs and lahmacun. In North America, the smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), and the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), are sometimes used to make a beverage, termed "sumac-ade" or "Indian lemonade" or "rhus juice". This drink is made by soaking the drupes in cool water, rubbing them to extract the essence, straining the liquid through a cotton cloth and sweetening it. Native Americans also used the leaves and berries of the smooth and staghorn sumacs combined with tobacco in traditional smoking mixtures.
Species including the fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), the littleleaf sumac (R. microphylla), the skunkbush sumac (R. trilobata), the smooth sumac and the staghorn sumac are grown for ornament, either as the wild types or as cultivars.
The leaves of certain sumacs yield tannin (mostly pyrogallol), a substance used in vegetable tanning. Leather tanned with sumac is flexible, light in weight, and light in color, even bordering on being white.
Dried sumac wood is fluorescent under long-wave UV light. Mowing of sumac is not a good control measure as the wood is springy resulting in jagged, sharp pointed stumps when mowed. The plant will quickly recover with new growth after mowing. See Nebraska Extension Service publication G97-1319 for suggestions as to control.
At times Rhus has held over 250 species. Recent molecular phylogeny research suggests breaking Rhus sensu lata into Actinocheita, Baronia, Cotinus, Malosma, Searsia, Toxicodendron, and Rhus sensu stricta. If this is done, about 35 species would remain in Rhus. However, the data is not yet clear enough to settle the proper placement of all species into these genera.
Sumac Flower
Image by bill barber
From my set entitled ‘Sumac”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607186471302/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac
Sumac (also spelled sumach) is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. The dried berries of some species are ground to produce a tangy purple spice often used in juice.
Sumacs grow in subtropical and warm temperate regions throughout the world, especially in North America.
Sumacs are shrubs and small trees that can reach a height of 1-10 meters. The leaves are spirally arranged; they are usually pinnately compound, though some species have trifoliate or simple leaves. The flowers are in dense panicles or spikes 5-30 cm long, each flower very small, greenish, creamy white or red, with five petals. The fruits form dense clusters of reddish drupes called sumac bobs.
Sumacs propagate both by seed (spread by birds and other animals through their droppings), and by new sprouts from rhizomes, forming large clonal colonies.
The drupes of the genus Rhus are ground into a deep-red or purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat; in the Turkish cuisine e.g. added to salad-servings of kebabs and lahmacun. In North America, the smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), and the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina), are sometimes used to make a beverage, termed "sumac-ade" or "Indian lemonade" or "rhus juice". This drink is made by soaking the drupes in cool water, rubbing them to extract the essence, straining the liquid through a cotton cloth and sweetening it. Native Americans also used the leaves and berries of the smooth and staghorn sumacs combined with tobacco in traditional smoking mixtures.
Species including the fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), the littleleaf sumac (R. microphylla), the skunkbush sumac (R. trilobata), the smooth sumac and the staghorn sumac are grown for ornament, either as the wild types or as cultivars.
The leaves of certain sumacs yield tannin (mostly pyrogallol), a substance used in vegetable tanning. Leather tanned with sumac is flexible, light in weight, and light in color, even bordering on being white.
Dried sumac wood is fluorescent under long-wave UV light. Mowing of sumac is not a good control measure as the wood is springy resulting in jagged, sharp pointed stumps when mowed. The plant will quickly recover with new growth after mowing. See Nebraska Extension Service publication G97-1319 for suggestions as to control.
At times Rhus has held over 250 species. Recent molecular phylogeny research suggests breaking Rhus sensu lata into Actinocheita, Baronia, Cotinus, Malosma, Searsia, Toxicodendron, and Rhus sensu stricta. If this is done, about 35 species would remain in Rhus. However, the data is not yet clear enough to settle the proper placement of all species into these genera.
The girl with coppery eyes / La chica de los ojos cobrizos
Image by . SantiMB .
Aniés, Huesca (Spain).
View Large On White
Well, I don't know if girl... or boy.
Bien, no sé si chica... o chico.
ENGLISH
Green lacewings are insects in the large family Chrysopidae of the order Neuroptera. There about 85 genera and (differing between sources) 1,300-2,000 species in this widespread group. Members of the genera Chrysopa and Chrysoperla are very common in North America and Europe; they are very similar and many of their species have been moved from one genus to the other times and again, and in the non-scientific literature assignment to Chrysopa and Chrysoperla can rarely be relied upon. Since they are the most familiar neuropterids to many people, they are often simply called "lacewings". But actually most of the diversity of Neuroptera are properly referred to as some sort of "lacewing", so common lacewings is preferable.
Green lacewings are delicate insects with a wingspan of 6 to over 65 mm, though the largest forms are tropical. They are characterized by a wide costal field in their wing venation, in which the cross-veins are. The bodies are usually bright green to greenish-brown, and the compound eyes are conspicuously golden in many species. The wings are usually translucent with a slight iridescence; some have green wing veins or a cloudy brownish wing pattern. The vernacular name "stinkflies", used chiefly for Chrysopa species but also for others (e.g. Cunctochrysa) refers to their ability to release a vile smell from paired prothoracal glands when handled.
While depending on species and environmental conditions, some green lacewings will eat only about 150 prey items in their entire life, in other cases 100 aphids will be eaten in a single week. Thus, in several countries, millions of such voracious Chrysopidae are reared for sale as biological control agents of insect and mite pests in agriculture and gardens. They are distributed as eggs, since as noted above they are highly aggressive and cannibalistic in confined quarters; the eggs hatch in the field. Their performance is variable; thus, there is a lot of interest in further research to improve the use of green lacewings as biological pest control.
Gardeners can attract lacewings, and therefore their larvae, to gardens by using companion plants. They are attracted by angelica, dill, coreopsis, cosmos, sunflowers, and the beneficial weed, dandelion.
More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopidae
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CASTELLANO
Los crisópidos (Chrysopidae) son una familia de insectos del orden Neuroptera; reciben los nombres comunes de crisopas, crisopas verdes, crisopas de alas verdes, ojos dorados, león de áfidos, alas de encaje y moscas hediondas, entre otros.
Los adultos son de cuerpo verde a pardo pálido, su venación alar contrasta en sus dos pares de alas transparentes, y sus ojos son dorados o amarillos cobrizos.
Esta familia es cosmopolita, sus miembros habitan especialmente en zonas de gran vegetación y agrícolas. Sus larvas son depredadores de otros artrópodos de cuerpo blando y son también caníbales, y unos pocos adultos son depredadores, como Chrysopa. La mayoría se alimenta de secreciones proteínicas.
Los adultos con aparato bucal masticador, antenas filiformes multisegmentadas, poseen alas con abundante venación, de forma primitiva, en ocasiones las emplean para emitir sonidos, y casi todas las especies poseen allí un órgano timpánico, carente en la primitiva subfamilia Nothochrysinae, que sirve para evadir a los murciélagos. Las patas son marchadoras. El abdomen es largo y carece de cercos. Especies del género Meleoma, poseen órganos productores de chirridos. Como medio defensivo producen una sustancia lacrimógena anal cuando huyen de un ataque.
El cortejo de los crisópidos es complejo y ritual, producen vibraciones de gran complejidad que únicamente son reconocidas por miembros de la misma especie. Unas pocas especies producen olores durante el cortejo. Tanto los machos como las hembras realizan varias cópulas, las hembras aproximadamente cada 28 días, los machos dos seguidas cada 5 días como promedio. En la cópula realizan diferentes posturas y es relativamente larga. La longevidad está relacionada con el tipo de alimentación durante el período larval, y la capacidad de oviposición y cantidad de huevos con la misma pero durante el periodo adulto.
Por ser en su mayoría depredadores generalistas, algunos crisópidos han sido utilizados para programas de control de plagas; el género que más estudio ha tenido ha sido la cosmopolita Chrysoperla y otras en menor grado, especialmente representantes de la subfamilia Chrysopinae.
Para la producción masiva se utilizan huevos de Sitotroga cerealella, y larvas de Phthorimea operculella, o sea dietas naturales, las dietas artificiales aunque más económicas no han tenido éxito. Los módulos de producción logran producir hasta 2.000.000 de huevos diarios, pueden ser automáticos o semimanuales; lo que eleva más los costes es el evitar el canibalismo, hay que usar sustratos, diseños especiales y liberaciones oportunas.
Ya aplicadas en campo pueden ser para trabajos inoculativos (introducción), incrementativos (elevar la población local) o inundativos. Los adultos pueden sobrevivir y reproducirse rociando melazas enriquecidas para su alimentación.
En manejo de control de plagas han controlado con éxito ácaros, áfidos, larvas de lepidópteros, heminópteros fitófagos, por ello son de gran interés para la Entomología Económica en la agricultura.
Más info: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopidae
