An otherwise leafless tulip-tree sapling in the yard still holds five or six leaves, curled and sewn into moth cocoons: a simple yet elegant biotic hack. (Update) This is most likely the work of the promethea silkmoth, Callosamia promethea.

Many of the dried goldenrod stalks display a more destructive repurposing, the work of a midge known as Rhopalomyla solidaginis which lays its eggs in the terminal bud and restricts all further growth to that point, where its fat larva feeds and may be joined by midges of other species in search of shelter.

A inflorescence may still emerge from the cluster, but much of the time there’s only the hack’s faux flower, a beautiful fuck you to the Canada goldenrod.

Less destructive is the goldenrod ball gall, winter home of a fly larva, Eurosta solidaginis. The adult which emerges in the spring is said to be a poor flyer, and only lives a couple of weeks — long enough to mate and inject its eggs into a young goldenrod stem. It is the larva that then produces the chemical instructions to grow a globular home in the plant’s core.