Megachile integra, f, left, Suffolk, VA
Megachile integra, f, left, Suffolk, VA
Megachile integra is one of a small clade of Megachile and Trachusa that need small viney things in the pea family (fuzzy beans and milk peas) to feed their babies. These are nice purple flowering plants, but tend toward unkemptedness and clambering over other plants so they are almost never included in plantings for pollinators, yet, yet, yet, they should and I would imagine that they could be incorporated into edges and ditches and other locations where I have seen them in the wild. This specimen captured by Ellison Orcutt with the fabulous team at the Virginia Natural Hertage group and found in Suffolk County (or is it a town?) in Virginia. Pictures by Kelly Graninger.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde. Original public domain image from Flickr