A Great Video about Pollinators on Mountain Mint

Some wildflowers are much better at attracting pollinators than others. The two champions in my book are clustered mountain mint and boneset. Back in 2008, I started documenting the many kinds of insects and other creatures drawn to the boneset growing in my backyard. Little did I know that an entomologist friend I hadn't seen since Ann Arbor college days, David Cappaert, had been inspired to do the same, 200 miles away, with the mountain mint growing in a Hartford, CT schoolyard. 

Dave had the advantage of 1) being an excellent photographer and 2) actually knowing the creatures' names. He created a remarkable video entitled "Mountain mint, one day in August," in which he documents 52 species he found on one stand of mountain mint. For its first 8 minutes, the video is a parade of colorful creatures with colorful names like bee wolf, wedge shaped beetle, stinkbug, ambush bug, jumping spider, freeloader fly, and orb weaver. 

Then, at 8:20 in the video, Dave begins describing the many interrelationships between the pollinators and their predators and parasites--a wonderfully complex food web, all "fueled by the nectar of the mountain mint." Check it out, and if you don't have any mountain mint growing in your yard, come to the Botanical Art Garden at Herrontown Woods, where in early July it's just starting to bloom. 

 

Note: We also have another kind of mountain mint growing in the Botanical Art Garden: what I've been calling narrow-leaved mountain mint (Pycnanthem tenuifolium), which is the more common species found growing naturally around Princeton, but clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) is the champ when it comes to pollinators. Being a mint, it also spreads quickly underground, so be careful where you plant it.