![\"closeup-cochineal-scale240\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/closeup-cochineal-scale240.jpg\" "\\"closeup-cochineal-scale240\\"")
Other prickly pears nearby didn’t show any…I’m not sure why.\u00a0 This particular specimen is growing in a shadier part of the dry woods.\u00a0 Here’s another picture, more of a close-up, showing the beautiful red color:<\/p>\nWhen we first got the place, an SCA friend asked if any of the cactus had cochineal bugs on it.\u00a0 At that time, I didn’t find any.\u00a0 But Monday, January 4, I found this prickly pear thickly covered with the scale insects:<\/p>\n
Other prickly pears nearby didn’t show any…I’m not sure why.\u00a0 This particular specimen is growing in a shadier part of the dry woods.\u00a0 Here’s another picture, more of a close-up, showing the beautiful red color:<\/p>\n
![\"cochineal-scale240\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/cochineal-scale240.jpg\" "\\"cochineal-scale240\\"")
<\/p>\n
Nearly all the white coating appeared to be on the east side of this pad.\u00a0\u00a0 Cochineal scale insects, (Dactylopius<\/em> spp–4 listed in the US by Nearctica) like other scale insects, suck juices from the plant and use the white coating to protect themselves from predators and weather.\u00a0\u00a0 Red dye is made from the crushed insects and was once second only to silver in value as an export from Mexico.\u00a0\u00a0 I hope they survive tonight’s\u00a0 low-teens freeze.<\/p>\n On the same day, I saw a number of American Robins in the dry woods, eating juniper berries–we had seen them in the creek woods on January 1, but I wasn’t able to get a picture there.<\/p>\n They’re very well camouflaged against leafless cedar elm–even the white ring around the eye looks like a lichen.<\/p>\n Speaking of lichens, this one had fallen to the ground with some rotten bark off a tree overhead:<\/p>\n Monday I found a cool-season forb in the west grass near the dry woods that I could not at once identify…though I know it’s in the mint family (square stem, opposite leaves, aromatic.)\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a beautiful little plant, now forming low mats of dark green with winy undertones.<\/p>\n The dark green leaves show purply edges from above, but from this angle you can see the purple stems, too.\u00a0\u00a0 And below, you can see the beautiful royal purple of the underside of the leaves.<\/p>\n I can’t describe the aroma–except that I want to try cooking with it, it’s that kind of herbal good smell.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s in an area where there’s a lot of Prairie Brazoria in mid-spring, but I’m not sure this is the same plant.\u00a0\u00a0 If it survives the hard freezes predicted (and it probably will–it must be a native) I’ll try to find out exactly what it is and get some growing nearer the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we first got the place, an SCA friend asked if any of the cactus had cochineal bugs on it.\u00a0 At that time, I didn’t find any.\u00a0 But Monday, January 4, I found this prickly pear thickly covered with the scale insects:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[13,38,32,70],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plantlife","category-wildlife","tag-beauty","tag-insect","tag-native-plants","tag-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"robin-in-winter238\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/robin-in-winter238.jpg\" "\\"robin-in-winter238\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"gold-lichen-ground244\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/gold-lichen-ground244.jpg\" "\\"gold-lichen-ground244\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"small-aromatic-forb248\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/small-aromatic-forb2483.jpg\" "\\"small-aromatic-forb248\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"purple-underleaf-aromatic250\"](\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/purple-underleaf-aromatic250.jpg\" "\\"purple-underleaf-aromatic250\\"")
<\/p>\n