{"id":474,"date":"2006-03-31T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-01T00:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/fire\/2006\/03\/31\/dove-pincushions-and-bees\/"},"modified":"2006-05-08T09:13:45","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T16:13:45","slug":"dove-pincushions-and-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2006\/03\/31\/dove-pincushions-and-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"Dove Pincushions and Bees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cultivated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paghat.com\/scabiouspinkmist.html\">Dove Pincushions (Scabiosa columbaria)<\/a> are now blooming in gardens around Tucson.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/March\/scabiosa-native-bee-1.jpg\" alt=\"Bee (Superfamily Apoidea) on a Dove Pincushion (Scabiosa columbaria) flower\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These long-blooming perennials have lilac-colored flowers that attract butterflies and a wide variety bees, like this unidentified cream and black striped <a href=\"http:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/8267\">bee (Superfamily Apoidea)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/March\/scabiosa-native-bee-2.jpg\" alt=\"Bee (Superfamily Apoidea) on a Dove Pincushion (Scabiosa columbaria) flower\" width=\"480\" height=\"355\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Many garden flowers seem to attract only non-native <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2005\/11\/22\/africanized-honeybees\/\">Honeybees (Apis mellifera)<\/a>, but this native bee seemed quite pleased to have found a bed of blooming Dove Pincushions.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the flowers were covered with numerous Honeybees as well, and competition for these flowers was so great that bees were landing on barely open flower buds like this one.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/March\/scabiosa-bud.jpg\" alt=\"Honeybee (Apis mellifera) on a Dove Pincushion (Scabiosa columbaria) flower bud\" width=\"420\" height=\"420\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dove Pincushions are also commonly known as Pincushion Flowers or Pigeon Scabious (a very repulsive-sounding name). A dwarf, blue-flowered form can also be found in plant nurseries for sale under the far more appealing name of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.perennialplant.org\/ppy\/00ppy.html\">Butterfly Blue<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>Dove Pincushions are strictly garden flowers here in Tucson, but these introduced plants have become <a href=\"http:\/\/plants.usda.gov\/java\/profile?symbol=SCCO6\">naturalized in the northeastern US<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cultivated Dove Pincushions (Scabiosa columbaria) are now blooming in gardens around Tucson. These long-blooming perennials have lilac-colored flowers that attract butterflies and a wide variety bees, like this unidentified cream and black striped bee (Superfamily Apoidea). Many garden flowers seem to attract only non-native Honeybees (Apis mellifera), but this native bee seemed quite pleased to&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2006\/03\/31\/dove-pincushions-and-bees\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More &rarr; <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-garden-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}