The oothecas of autumn

In the autumn, if you snoop around a goldenrod grove, you’re apt to come across the ootheca of the Praying Mantis. You might want to bring it home and put it in the freezer.

Mantises love goldenrod. When it’s blooming, they perch near the flowers and prey upon the wealth of visiting insects, enjoying their last meals before the cold kills them. “Mantis” means “prophet,” and as they sit motionless with forelegs folded, they seem to be in a religious trance.

Before departing this world, the female will often use the goldenrod’s stiff stalks to attach one or more oothecas, the cases that hold the eggs until they hatch the next spring and provide a new season of mantises.

Why bring egg cases home? Praying Mantises are among our most beneficial insects, consuming many pest species. Serious gardeners buy egg cases, containing up to 300 eggs each, to hatch in their gardens and greenhouses. The mantis is so much admired that Connecticut has declared it the “state insect.”

So for some natural pest control next season as well as some insectival entertainment, put some oothecas in the freezer. Take them out next spring, put them in the garden to hatch, and watch the prophets pray for prey.

The season for sneezin'

As millions of tons of sneeze-provoking pollen is spewed the air this season, innocent bystanders invariably get the blame.

Goldenrod is often cited as the cause of hay fever simply because it's so brilliant at a time when its humble but potent cousin, ragweed, is also blooming. As a result, misguided allergy sufferers destroy countless goldenrods, one of the great seasonal sources of color and scent as well as nectar for bees.

Airborne pollen causes hay fever. Most flowers with airborne pollen – ragweed, plantain, grasses, many trees – are green and unnoticed, hidden among their own leaves. They're green because they don't need to be “different” to catch the eye of passing bees and other flying pollinators – they use air, not insects, to effect pollination. Goldenrod has bee-borne pollen, too heavy to float in the air and up the nose. Its yellow helps attract bees to haul its pollen around.

Thus, despite all the colorful TV and magazine ads for allergy medications, few if any brightly colored flowers will ever tickle your nose or tighten your chest. Wheezers and sneezers should join everyone else and enjoy Mother Nature's late summer explosion of yellow.