Pussy Willow is insect pollinated

[bunn]

I never knew that before!  But a few days ago I found a pussy willow tree basking in the morning sunlight, and it was all over bees, hoverflies, wasps, and even a rather raggedy peacock butterfly left over from last year was feeding enthusiastically (I wonder where it went when it snowed?)   I had always assumed that plants with catkins were wind-pollinated, but in this case, clearly not.

Sadly I did not have my camera with me, so here's a brimstone butterfly feeding on a violet instead.

Comments

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that larches had flowers, but they have excitingly bright pink ones!

(Possibly they are not flowers at all, but they look just like flowers and act just like flowers, so...)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

My automatic reaction to that was 'Noooooooo' but having googled for them, they look familiar so I guess I knew that but... somehow had not registered it under 'larch flowers!'