Earlier in the year, I noticed holes in the leaves of S. dulcamara but I never saw what created them. The holes reminded me of ones made by Black-margined Loosestrife Beetles (Galerucella calmariensis) on Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). Today I found a G. calmariensis on a hole ridden S. dulcamara leaf.

The butterfly is in the middle, under a leaf, mostly obscured by the shade, where it is laying an egg!

Two years ago, after someone dug up the nettle patch in my growing butterfly meadow, where I often see Satyr Commas, I planted a nettle root, which grew into this nettle patch. I was very happy to see this one landing on the nettles, laying an egg on the underside of a leaf, taking a flight, land on the nettles again, and lay another egg on the underside of another leaf. It repeated this about seven times. I look forward to seeing the caterpillars!

The caterpillars will stay on the underside of the leaf, and make a tent by pulling the sides of the leaf down, and together with silk, leaving the front half of the leaf open, and will feed from the tip of the leaf to the petiole, leaving a petiole with no blade when they are done, then go to a new leaf, and do the same. In the 4th photo someone has pulled open the tent, the caterpillar was hiding under, to expose the caterpillar.

My journal post of how the egg laying on these Stinging Nettles was my first observed success in 27 years of working to get butterflies to lay eggs on plants growing where I started them growing!

A native annual with a predilection for disturbance-prone settings, little barley was especially abundant during a summer following a dry fall and winter and when most other plant species were not flowering.

For additional photos and species diagnosis, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/albums/72157686067367140

The inflorescence of six row barley includes three rows of seed bearing florets on each side (corresponding the three spikelets per node and spikelets alternating along opposite sides of the rachis). Six row barley has the thicker and darker inflorescences and is growing along the margins of a field of two row barley. This barley represents populations that have escaped from the adjacent crop fields of the Museum of the Rockies and established along South 7th Street, Bozeman, Montana.

For additional photos and species diagnosis, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/sets/72157688722438965/

Hare barley is not really known from Montana but here it is growing in farm west of Broadview, Montana, in Yellowstone County.

Hare barley is an introduced annual bunchgrass often growing roadside, trailside, and in similarly disturbed settings. A distinctive Hordeum species because of the three spikelets per node, the lateral two of which produce a well-developed staminate floret. The glumes of the central fertile spikelet are distinctively lined with ciliate hairs. In addition, the clasping auricles are well developed in this species compared to other annual non-crop Hordeum species.

The spike is fairly large, often about 2 cm in diameter. At each inflorescence node, the lateral spikelets are as large as the central one, analogous to the condition in six-row barley. This site lies in Eureka, Humboldt County, California.

We see these about once a year, usually on our screen door. They remain for a couple of days, then are gone. This one showed up on 4/9 and is still in its spot on the north side of the house today, 4/11. Might it be any other species of plume moth?