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A land flowing with milk and honey

Beauty in expected places: Tiny keeping watch this morning from her aerie atop the woodpile.

. . . Baby reading scent messages left by the previous night's visitors among the ivy leaves on the house next door.

It's not a true Purslane (of the family Portulacaceae), but two of its common names are Milk Purslane and Prostrate Purslane. Because it is a member of the Spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, we prefer two of its other common names, Milk Spurge and  Prostrate Spurge. (x 16)

. . . and in unexpected places. The delicate colors and unusual morphology of the flowers (see below) of the weedy native Milk Purslane or Prostrate Purslane -- AKA Milk Spurge or Prostrate Spurge (Chamaesyce maculata; also called Euphorbia maculata, Euphorbia supina, and Euphorbia prostrata) -- are too small to make out with the naked eye. That's where your digital camera's macro settings come in. We found the specimen pictured here growing in the crack between sidewalk and curb down the street. Actual size of the white part of the flowers is 1/16" across. Note pubescence (hairiness) of stem (below), one of the identifying characteristics that distinguishes Prostrate Spurge from other mat-forming weeds of similar size and habit.

The real flower -- the business end of the inflorescence where fertilization and seed production occur -- is that pale lime-colored pouch on the left in the inset.

From Nearctica's online Wildflowers of Eastern North America:

Plant matted, trailing along the ground. Flowers complicated with both male and female flowers. Male flowers 3 to 5, reduced to almost nothing but a single stamen each. Female flower a round, three-part structure hanging from a flowerlike structure with white "petals." Stem thick, usually reddish . . . a weedy species found along roadsides and in dry fields.

We found this specimen growing in the container of one of our tomato plants.

Fascinating facts from the website Weed Management in Nursery Crops:

Prostrate Spurge is in the same family as the common Christmas Poinsettia, and [like] Poinsettia it has a milky sap that exudes when stems are broken. This makes it easy to differentiate spurge from similar looking weeds like Common Purslane and Prostrate Knotweed.

Exactly. We had been having that very problem, as look-alikes Common Purslane [unrelated to Milk Purslane] and Prostrate Knotweed are part of the same edge-of-the-sidewalk plant community that thrives in the dry, impoverished soil of waste places like the margin of Marginal Street. Unable to identify our plant using the key in Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, we turned to Google, plugging in "prostrate weed." Can you say piece of cake? Breaking one of the stems, we were delighted to observe natural white latex oozing out. Once our ID was confirmed, we went back to look up Euphorbia supina in Newcomb's index and found they had keyed it under "Wildflowers with opposite or whorled leaves, leaves entire, plants with milky juice." A reminder to pay close attention to the plant itself for clues to identification. In light of the images above, we were amused with Newcomb's dismissal of Prostrate Spurge's aesthetic appeal:

Unattractive plants with . . . insignificant whitish, green or reddish flowers scattered in the upper axils.

Eye of the macro lens holder?

Update: Pajamas Media links with  "The prostrate spurge mystery."

Update II:  Lots more beauty in expected places at Carnival of the Cats #178, a "collection of Web-Based Feline Wonderfullness" hosted by Maddie and Ivy of Strange Ranger.

The proof is in the puddy

Thanks to Tuck's recommendation that we read the camera manual -- having previously read only as much as was necessary to get started when the Pentax Optio 450 first came into our life a few years back -- in our quest to capture detailed close-ups of tiny things like insects and spiders and the innards of flowers, we discovered along the way something called the "portrait shooting mode":

Enables to take portraits with spatial effect, by emphasizing the person.

The proof is in the puddy (Babe, above, out on his tether sniffing the breeze this afternoon).

Getting off on scent marking the privet, he neary toppled over backwards in ecstasy. Note right ear squished down by branch responding to the ardor of his caress.

A portrait of determination. Straining to reach something just beyond his reach (see blue tether stretched taut, lower left), the Babe started gagging just after we caught this "Microcosm of America at its best" moment.

As the dinner hour approached, the cats grew restive, attempting to displace -- in the Dr. Sanity sense -- their impatience with diversionary tactics. A great social yawn on the part of Baby Cakes elicited the usual look of disgust from a disapproving Tiny.

Update: Our imail correspondent comments:

I must say, though, if you cut out the commentary, Baby's supposed "social yawn" could easily be used as "I want to kill my sister."

Dr. Sanity would approve.

Update II:  More portraits of all creatures great and small, with and without backbones, at Modulator's Friday Ark #148, plus all cats all the time at Carnival of the Cats #173 now playing at one of the Father of All Cat Bloggers, Laurence Simon's other blogs, 100 Word Stories Podcast.

Silk Stalkings*

While Chelsea slept, one of the resident Daddy Longlegs Spiders (left) captured an exquisite lacewing (Note part of wing, lower left -- more below) and was preparing its catch for breakfast by packaging it up in a silk wrapper when we came upon the scene. A perfect opportunity for our ongoing macro-photographic experimentation with existing equipment. The purchase of a fancier camera and macro lenses is still in the research and development stage. The hand-held, flash image above, taken in our Pentax Optio 450's macro mode, compensates for what it lacks in photorealistic detail with a kinetic choreographic energy reminiscent of Martha Graham's "Lamentation" (right).

Daddy Longlegs [Daddies Longlegs? Daddy Longlegses?] "have a special method of hunting," writes Bryan Goethals of the Werkgroep Inheemse Spinnen. Unlike orb-web spiders, whose sticky silken structures enmesh passing prey, or funnel-web spiders -- blogged here --  who wait inside their funnels to pounce upon unwitting wanderers who stumble into the sheet webs spreading from their door, Daddy Longlegs perform a maneuver akin to gameskeepers' hobbling a large mammal by casting a heavy, entangling net over the animal's body. Goethals explains:

Their untidy web is used more as a place to stay than for catching prey . . . Normally the spider throws tough stiff web material over the victim and disables its mobility. After the prey is motionless, the spider engulfs its prey by spinning the web all around it. The spider makes a hole in the ball of the web and bites with its small jaws in the weaker parts of the prey. Then it spews digesting juices in the wound. Most of the time the prey is not consumed completely and larger preys are often left behind unfinished.

We tried taking a few shots using the Velbon DF 40 tripod, but none were as sharp and detailed as this one taken free hand. 'Course we couldn't get as close as we wanted, what with the spider's having relocated to a narrow, remote corner not designed to accommodate a standard tripod. Gotta practice a lot more with the tripod in more open situations, preferably with good available light. The super macro mode -- as opposed to the macro mode used here -- records only the sunny hours (no flash), and today is overcast with intermittent rain in these parts. Note victim's eye just to left of spider's purple/brown abdomen near top and slender pink body lying diagonally behind transparent wing middle right.  What a way to go. The dance hold of Fred "Daddy Long Legs" Astaire himself comes to mind (above right in Silk Stockings).

Daddy Longlegs Spiders also have a special way of warding off intruders:

Also known as Vibrating or Cellar Spiders, members of the Pholcidae family live in houses and buildings. They make their untidy webs in the corner of a wall or a ceiling. They are also often found in the basement or cellar . . . When they are disturbed or when they are under a threat of attack, they start vibrating in their web violently to scare off and discourage their enemy.

By late morning when we went back to check, the night stalker had moved its silken bundle across the room to a more secluded wall near the sink. We tried to get a closer look using one of those bar-magnifier rulers. When it inadvertently touched the web, the spider went into a spinning frenzy worthy of a Clinton spokesperson, even as what was left of the silk-encased lacewing hung motionless attached to the wall close by.

Shall we dance?

Update: Pajamas Media links.

Update II: Eric of Classical Values links, with some intriguing, illustrated spider-inspired insights of his own:

This reminds me of a post I wrote after seeing a funnel weaver spider in my backyard which I thought was "so feminine and graceful in appearance that it reminded me of Salvador Dali's painting of the half human spider Arachne."

As we commented in response, "Art imitates life imitates art. What gloriously tangled webtales we weave . . ."

*Blogpost title is a play on the title of the musical "Silk Stockings," music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

I have many curious things to show you*

A funnel web among the Lilies-of-the-Valley this afternoon invites speculation. Anybody in there?

We were out in the yard searching for insects and arachnids as suitable subjects for trying to master the macro/super macro modes of our Pentax Optio 450 -- those are the settings designed to facilitate detailed close-ups of tiny creatures like Daddy Longlegs (see below) -- when our camera's eye stumbled upon a cluster of silken funnel webs (above) among the Lilies-of-the-Valley along the fence in the side yard. Naturalist and photographer extraordinaire Bev of Burning Silo, who spins a mesmerizing word-and-picture tale of spider love, explains:

Funnel Web Spiders (Family Agelenidae) are recognized by the type of webs that they build -- a sheet of silk with a funnel or tube-shaped retreat where the spider hides while waiting for prey to wander near.

Grass Spiders like the ones that carpet Goomp's lawn early morning with their dew-drop-glistening webs are members of the family. Bev's post about the funnel web itself is a work of art.

This leggy critter (x 3), a true Daddy Longlegs Spider (Pholcus phalangioides), was hanging around under the sink in the bathroom this morning catching flies, sucking out their innards and discarding the exoskeletons onto the floor below.

With our current camera and level of expertise, we were able to capture only so much detail (above) of a Daddy Longlegs by setting the mode to super macro, which doesn't permit a flash. See Wikipedia images below for the level of detail we're shooting for. Will it require more sophisticated photographic equipment? Probably an SLR camera with changeable lenses. How steep would the learning curve be? We've heard good -- if intimidating -- things about the Olympus Evolt E-500 from Aydin Örstan of Snail Tales. Are we ready to embrace such things as the Zuiko Digital Macro lens? We've got a tripod and know how to use it, and we know our way around aperture sizes and exposures. In fact, we were heavily into all that stuff in our pre-digital, slide-filming days. Can this old dog relearn old tricks? Hmmm.

God is in the details. This image of a Daddy Longlegs at Wikipedia made us long for the ability -- not to mention the photographic equipment -- to capture such godliness on "film" in our own backyard.

We had thought our own photograph of that Daddy Longlegs above was pretty good until we checked out the one at Wikipedia. When we clicked on it to enlarge, our chelicerae dropped:

Here's lookin' at you, kid. To think that all those bristles and eyespots are doing their thing right under our nose as we brush our teeth in the morning. We even had one of these critters in the shower with us the other day.

"There are so many cameras on the market that would probably do, but I’d definitely recommend getting one that has some macro capability if you’re interested in photographing insects and spiders," writes Bev of Burning Silo in response to a reader's query. We were about to ask her ourselves, when a google search brought up some helpful answers already posted:

A lot of digital cameras can’t shoot a photo closer than 8 to 12 inches. You should really look for one that has a “macro mode” setting. I’ve seen some nice photos taken with a couple of the Canon models . . . Another camera that should be good for macro work and that is small and easy to carry with you is the Nikon 510. Again, I don’t like to recommend any particular model as there are so many cameras and new ones coming on the market all of the time. What I usually recommend is to go to a good camera shop and have someone help you look at models. Take along something small to try shooting macro photos -- a small rubber toy frog or similar object is a good choice. Try out a few cameras and see which ones work best. Be sure to have the salesman show you how to put the camera into “macro mode” as it can be tricky on some models.

Here's about as detailed as we can get with a stationery subject and natural lighting in super macro mode. No cigar.

Bromfield Camera, here we come. These miniature miniatures -- mouse (13/16" from nose to tip of tale) of unknown provenance, piglet (5/16") personally imported from Venice in our salad days -- would be the perfect "small rubber toy frog or similar object" recommended by Bev to take along for shooting test macro photos when we go camera shopping.

*Blogpost title taken from Mary Howitt's translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Spider and the Fly."