Natural Art

Yesterday's bike ride from Little Falls to Opekisa Lock & Dam (and back again) had lots of photo opportunities... and lots of unknowns.

I hunted through probably a hundred Google images to come up with an ID for this bug:

It's an Ailanthus webworm (Atteva aurea).  The Wikipedia entry for this indicates that it's an import from the South.  The pattern on the bug reminds me of an art pattern that I cannot recall. Chalk it up to CRS (can't remember sh*t) syndrome. Maybe it will come to me later.


And I still have not been able to identify this flowering shrub, which it was feeding on.  The plant is about three-feet high, and it seems to prefer growing in wet soil close to the river.



Update: I have a name for the flowering shrub.  It's a Japanese knotweed (polygonum cuspidatum).  It's a real stinker, too, listed as one of the world's 100 worst invasive species.