This week I’m excited to feature a tree story from Melissa Kyle at the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center.
My Kidneywood Brings All the Bees to the Yard
The Texas Kidneywood (Eysenhardtia texana) is the trifecta of native shrubs. Not only is it a favored snack of ruminants and seed-eating birds and a traditional healer of the ailing human digestive tract, but, in the Houston Arboretum courtyard, it is also notably the most popular pollinator bush in the bunch.
On any given hot and sunny afternoon (and we’ve been given many of them this year) an uncountable number and variety of visitors — among them bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, and even native green and invasive brown anole lizards — can be spotted competing for space in the citrusy sweet smelling blossoms. Stop by outside the administration building windows to see how many different species you can spot.
Even the butterflies like to visit. (Melissa Kyle / Houston Arboretum & Nature Center)
Three cheers for the Texas Kidneywood!
Do you have a flora & fauna story you’d like to share?
