What is in a name?

My lunchtime activity consisted of a quick walk down part of the rail trail near my workplace.  I wanted to try out the photostacking portion of my digital camera's Magic Lantern software.
I was using a monopod, but there was no breeze today, so I got a nice sequence of eight shots of a Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris).

The focus stacking worked out pretty well, as you can see in the above composite shot.

This pretty little relative of the snapdragon is an invasive species in North America.  It's quite successful around here, because it thrives in disturbed land.  And West Virginia is a pretty disturbed land.

The flowers are largely closed off by the underlip of the plant, so it takes a strong insect like a determined bee or a bumblebee to pry its way into it.

Because of its widespread range and its long history as an herbal, the Linaria vulgaris has a long list of aliases:

• brideweed
• bridewort
• butter and eggs
• butter haycocks
• bread and butter 
• bunny haycocks (ok, what are haycocks?)
• bunny mouths 
• calf's snout 
• Continental weed
• dead men's bones 
• devil's flax 
• devil's flower 
• doggies 
• dragon bushes 
• eggs and bacon  
• eggs and butter 
• false flax 
• flaxweed 
• fluellen 
• gallweed 
• gallwort
• impudent lawyer (is that a great name, or what?)
• Jacob's ladder
• lion's mouth 
• monkey flower  
• North American ramsted
• rabbit flower 
• rancid 
• ransted 
• snapdragon 
• wild flax 
• wild snapdragon 
• wild tobacco
• yellow rod
• yellow toadflax

Haycock, I just learned, is the name of a small conical haystack, usually only three or four feet in diameter and six or so feet high.

Now, don't tell me that you didn't learn something today.

If you want to surf the web some more, by all means check out Haycocks N^o.09.

Back in Black (and White & Yellow)

It has been years since I've seen a Monarch Butterfly up close.  This long dry spell was broken a couple of days ago, when I snapped this shot in front of Table 9, which is adjacent to the Rail Trail.

Although slightly out-of-focus, this is an interesting shot with a little photobomber bee coming in from the left, and a red milkweed beetle hiding among the flowers on the right.

By some estimates, the population of these butterflies has decreased by 90% in the past couple of decades.  These once-common butterflies became victims to their unusual lifestyle, which involves a yearly migration to overwinter in Florida and Mexico.  Theories for their swift decline include habitat loss due to herbicide use, loss during migration, predators, and parasites.  Maybe it was a perfect storm including all of the above.

This morning, while waiting for my bagel and coffee order at the River Birch Cafe, I stepped outside to revisit the same patch of milkweeds where I had seen the butterfly.   I didn't see any signs of my friend, but I found something just as good:  a sign that the circle of life was still turning.

This is literally the first Monarch Butterfly caterpillar that I've seen in more than a decade!  From the looks of the size of this munchkin, it won't be long before it's ready to metamorphose.

Here's to hoping that they manage to survive the sixth great extinction!

Life on Clay Street

This poor building.   In recent years, it's housed a Tex-Mex restaurant, an American-style chop house, a Lebanese bistro, and god knows what else.   Today, it's a pricey place called Morgantown Flour and Feed (lets see how long this link lasts).

The notable thing about this is the signage, which pays homage to the utilitarian past of this building.
The original Morgantown Flour & Feed Co. sign above the second floor has gotten a fresh coat of paint.  I can make out only the major part of the remainder, which reads "Gold Medal Flour."

Built between 1904 and 1906, it was originally the Kincaid and Arnett Feed and Flour Building.   If you really want to delve into the early details of this building, you should check out the National Register of Historic Places form (PDF). 

The warehouse and wholesale business area was once known as Durbannah, named for F.M. Durbin, who first developed this area in the 1840s.