The older cedars in Missouri today (many over 300 years old) are found mostly along our Ozark river bluffs. Fires kept cedars restricted to areas where fires couldn’t reach them, such as steep, broken, rocky areas of bluffs and cliffs along Ozark rivers. Cedars are easily killed by fire until they reach a height where the growing tip is not burned. Prior to European settlement, wildfires were common on the Missouri landscape. We don’t have any nonnative, invasive cedars in the state.Įastern red cedar is much more abundant in Missouri today than it was in the past. You were probably thinking of eastern red cedar as nonnative due to its invasive nature, but it is native here. Eastern red cedar is found throughout Missouri and has become very common and weedy. Ashe’s juniper is mostly restricted to a few counties of southwest Missouri along the White River drainage system. Q: Are the cedar trees that we have in our state native to the United States? I have always believed that they were not.Ī: We have two native cedars in Missouri.
One of the strangest encounters is to kill a host insect and see the parasitic horsehair worm come weaving its way out of the body of its dead host. Horsehair worms do not injure humans or plants but do help control populations of their host species. When full grown, they exit the host near water to start the cycle over. When the eggs hatch, the larval forms can enter a variety of hosts as parasites, including beetles, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, centipedes, and millipedes. As adults they do not feed, but spend their time in running or standing water or on damp soil where they mate and lay eggs. The worms can weave their bodies like a snake and tie themselves into knots. They are related to nematodes and they do resemble living hairs, lacking a head or mouth. It sounds like a horsehair worm, sometimes called a hairworm or Gordian worm. It is very thin and nearly twice as long as a night crawler. Q: I found this strange worm in my parents’ driveway after a night of rain.
See if you can guess this month's natural wonder. Our photographers have been busy exploring the intricacies of the Missouri outdoors.
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