These bagworms will be in for quite a surprise when they emerge! Not much to chew on here. Luckily, they will be only a few crawls away from an abundant supply of juniper foliage (and their many friends). I took the picture in the parking lot of a Thai restaurant. They must be Thai bagworms with a taste for fire-hot cuisine. The restaurant was terrific and doing a brisk take-out "bagged-to-go" business. Hmmmm.

This brandywine tomato seems to be laughing away in the heirloom vegetable trial bed. What is so funny?

When tracking down a foul odor in the mulch in your flower bed you may just land upon a patch of stinkhorns. These unusual fungi are harmless but are certainly a striking member of the natural world.

No sooner had Chip shared his image of a witches' broom he took and one turned up on the 16 foot balsam fir (Abies balsamea) we just put up in the Kemper Center for the holidays! This is certainly the first one we have seen on a Christmas tree in the Center and maybe even in the Garden. It is cause by a rust fungus, Melamposorella caryophyllacearum. Most rusts have an alternate host and this one is chickweed! We have decided to leave it on the tree for our patrons to see, but when they occur on fir trees in the landscape (not a problem in Missouri) they should be cut out and destroyed. Any chickweed growing in the area should also be removed. You can view it along with the collection of wonderful, animal-theme decorated gourds, which embellish this year's holiday tree in the Kemper Center through January 4.

I captured this big-as-a-VW-Beetle witches' broom on a longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) just before the heavens opened up and I got caught in a downpour! Come back and read about witches' broom in my Halloween blog on October 20th!

Former MBG employee, Sam Bahr submitted this wonderful image of this orb-web spider. Following are some comments on this wonderful garden visitor provided by Chip Tynan:

"Spiders are among the hardest workers in our gardens, quietly going about their business catching many unwanted insect pests. They are present throughout the long growing season, starting life as tiny hatchlings, scarcely discernable to the unpracticed eye. With success and survival comes size and maturity.

One of the most distinctive spiders is the showy Argiope, or Golden Orb Weaver (Argiope aurantia). Females of this common species are quite large by late summer, often exceeding 2 to 3 inches in length with their legs outstretched. Consider this harmless garden spider a beneficial, and welcome guest in your garden."

I don't know how old this lilac is but over the years it has been pruned as a single trunk and a very interesting twist in the bark has developed.

This curiosity was found on a clump of Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) growing in the Kemper Center’s Flower Border. Normally, the flowers hang straight down on the underside but on these stems there are some extra leaf-like appendages that have developed on the flower stalks. We aren’t sure of the cause or how common it is. Mother Nature is always full of interesting surprises and variations. Keep your eyes open! To see the normal flower development click on the plant name above.

Producing flowers right off the trunk of a tree is not common of most temperate trees. It is more common to find this in tropical forest. Yet, in spring we enjoy this fascinating and colorful phenomena in our lovely native redbud. Just another marvel of nature.

This picture was taken last summer in the daylily bed here at the Garden. Notice the gracefully arching curve of the dark green fasciated stem of Hemerocallis ‘Ruffled Original’ in the center of the picture. We find a few of these fascinating fasciations each year in the Garden.