Hairstreak and Buckthorn

Crumby is forever on the look see for flora /insect relationships that appear as more than random events or encounters. You may see that the most common insects are generalists, using what’s available and relying heavily on the most common floral elements. Which may explain why some plants do way better than others.

But here we see something else again. This is one of many banded hairstreaks (Satyrium calanus) sighted on a CB Carolina buckthorn (Rhamnus caroliniana) yesterday afternoon. The fact is, there was a banded hairstreak on nearly every flower cluster. Plus, there were only a couple of flies and the inevitable honey bee besides all the banded hairstreaks. No other butterflies were present. Although, Crumby has previously observed the ubiquitous gray hairstreak on Carolina buckthorn. But not yesterday. The banded hairstreaks dang near had a monopoly.

Many may wonder how the thornless members of the genus Rhamnus acquired the moniker, buckthorn. Well, nobody knows. But naturally, Crumby has a theory.

Is everybody ready for Crumby’s theory? Ready or not.

Once upon a time there was a poor mountaineer named Jed. Jed could barely keep his family fed. Thus Jed spent all his waking moments hunting and gathering, always a step or two up on the next famine.

Jed was always fixing to try some buckthorn berries. But the dang deer always beat him to them. That’s right. The dern deer would eat the flowers so there could be no berries. Or the deer would eat the berries. Or the deer would eat the whole shrub or small tree down to the bare twigs. Then that crazy deer would thrash the defenseless shrub or small tree practically to death with its antlers. Jed would shoot a deer doing his shrubs that way if Jed happened to be a sober witness and could draw a bead.

Course, once the shrub was denuded and its twigs all antler whacked, one might assume those twigs were thorns, whittled by the antlers of a buck.

Many wonder, are the berries edible? Some say they are, edible and delicious. Some say they taste bad. Some say, those dern berries tasted good enough to give me diarrhea. The fact is, I got a bad case of projectile diarrhea.

Uh! Is there any kind of diarrhea besides projectile diarrhea?

At the CB we keep the buckthorns fenced off. It’s the only way to be sure.