Don't touch my stinking willy!

Hello Hello Hivians and gardeners too!

I debated on where to put this post, but once you see the content then I am sure you will realise it does indeed belong in Hive Garden!

I feel like this is a radio show phone in... Hi long-time reader here but first-time poster... I think first time anyway.

Yesterday Mrs T and I were walking towards town where I was taking her for a birthday meal when we walked past this garden.

I mentioned to Mrs T about this being the garden that I was fascinated with last year because it was where we saw all the ragwort being eaten by some sort of caterpillar.

The yellow-flowered plant is actually ragwort.

When we were living in Orkney we actually stayed on Tankerness Farm which was a beef farm. This meant that they had fields full of grass and cattle (not surprising as it was a beef farm!).

Now ragwort is often classified as a noxious weed and in fact it is toxic to both horses and cattle.

In the UK, where it is native, it is often unwanted because of its toxic effect for cattle and horses, but it is also valued for its nectar production which feeds insect pollinators and its ecological importance is thus considered significant.

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I quite like the yellow colour of the flowers and ragwort actually grows everywhere if it is not controlled. Go to a piece of wasteland in the UK and pound to a penny you will find some ragwort growing there!

Now then, this is where Ragwort gets interesting.

It looks pretty don't you think?

Weeds are a weird one, I know lots of people who say there are no weeds just wild flowers.

So ragwort then is to give it the scientific name is Jacobaea vulgaris

That name could be translated to a vulgar Scotsman if we think of the Jacobites as auld Scots.

One of the nicknames for Jacobaea vulgaris or ragwort is stinking willy hence the title of the post!

Don't touch my stinking willy!

Did you see the gorgeous wee bumble bee on the yellow floret?

A very interesting fact about ragwort is that it is also valued for its nectar production. This of course feeds insect pollinators and helps our food ecosystem amongst other things.

The more I delve into finding out information about ragwort the more dumbfounded I get.

In the United Kingdom, where the plant is native, ragwort provides a home and food source to at least 77 insect species. Thirty of these species of invertebrate use ragwort exclusively as their food source[16] and there are another 22 species where ragwort forms a significant part of their diet.

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I am sure that you have been noticing one of those insect species that have been using it as a home and chowing down their dinner?

That little chappy there... Do you know what it is called?

I know this from last year when I googled the answer🤣

Cinnibar caterpillar moth

I have included a picture from Wikimedia Commons of a Cinnabar moth to show you as a comparison.

So they start out life as yellow and black caterpillars. And yes one of, if not their favourite food to munch is the ragwort plants. Which is cool as it means I will keep seeing these caterpillars in the summer.

The yellow and black stripes are bright to warn predators that they're poisonous. But they build up their poison after munching on the ragwort.

I will be back to show the progress of the munching of the ragwort by the cinnibar moth caterpillars and not my stinking willy!