OCTOBER'S MEADOW FLOWERS

     Several kinds of flowering plants bloom beautifully through October in many of southeastern Pennsylvania's moist, grassy meadows no longer grazed by livestock.  Those pretty blossoms enhance the pastures, and provide food and cover for certain kinds of wildlife.  Asters with tiny, white flowers, asters sporting small, pale-lavender blooms, tall goldenrod plants that have tiny, yellow blossoms, red clovers with pink flowers and tall, spindly chicories that have sky-blue ones, in that order of abundance, dominate those meadows with their lovely colors during October. 

     The innumerable white blossoms of white asters dominate some pastures to the point that, from a distance, they look like snow fell only on those meadows.  Conditions must be just right in those meadows for white asters to be so overwhelmingly abundant.

     Asters with pale-lavender blossoms dominate certain other pastures.  I think those asters have the prettiest of all local meadow flowers during October.

     Both these kinds of asters are host plants to pearl crescent butterfly caterpillars that ingest aster leaves.  Later those larvae pupate in soil and emerge as orange and brown mottled, adult butterflies with two-inch wing spans.  Those handsome butterflies sip aster flower nectar, lay eggs in aster plans and die.  Some meadows shimmer with many pearl crescent butterflies fluttering from one aster blossom to another to sip their nectar.   

     Numerous, tall goldenrod plants produce many tiny, golden blooms that attract a variety of insects that consume their nectar.  The attractive goldenrod flowers are cheery in themselves and help brighten many a meadow in Autumn.  

     Lush, deep-green red clover plants have had pretty, pink blossoms since May.  And those plants are still blooming beautifully in October.  Many kinds of insects, including migrating monarch butterflies,  still visit red clover flowers to sip their sugary nectar.  The beauty of the monarchs adds to that of the clover, the meadow and the surrounding, local farmland.  

     Some other insects visiting meadow blooms are honey, carpenter and bumble bees, digger wasps, skipper butterflies, and many each of cabbage white and yellow, clearwing butterflies.  Those insects add a lot more interest to pastures in October.   

     Chicory blossoms add lovely, sky-blue to the other colors of fall meadow flowers.  Chicory's blooms are also one of my favorite meadow flowers during summer and autumn.

     Many southeastern Pennsylvania pastures in October are beautiful and alive with a variety of flowers and insects.  The insects depend on the blossoms for sustenance and the blooms need the insects to get pollinated to produce seeds.  

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