Daisy Party, Part 1

Aren't we all just a little bit happier at the sight of daisies, the most cheerful of flowers?

Oxeye Daisies, Leucanthemum vulgare  

They don't ask for much. Our nicely distributed spring rains have brought on a bounty of June bloom. Even the stony overlook is becoming colonized with flowers.

Daisies arrived here with the European colonists, and like their sponsors, have migrated energetically throughout the continent.

Fruit Fly, Tephritidae

They have any enlisted number of pollinating partners. Honey bees and bumblebees are not among them. It may be a matter of taste, or of specialized matching of mouthparts‒evolutionary chickens and eggs.

Tube-tailed Thrips, Phlaeothripidae

Some pollinators are scarcely visible, adding to the observable mysteries of the this prolific seed producer.

Thrips covered with pollen
(enlargement of photo above)

The individual florets in the composite daisy are less than a millimeter across. Their structures lend themselves to foraging by tiny insects. Evolutionary co-developments proceed at every scale.

A pollen-covered mite

Each flower sets a working banquet for eight-legged arachnid mites closely related to spiders.

Long-legged velvet mites, Erythraeoidea

The inflorescence forms a unique entirety that defines the composite family: a large number of tiny-petaled male and female disc flowers (yellow) rimmed by a corolla of ray flowers each bearing one large white petal.

Common Greenbottle Fly, Lucilia sericata

That array catches the attention of many members of the order of flies, as well as people.

Syrphid fly, Eristalis tenax

The next posting will portray more of the creatures drawn to daisies.