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| Their perfume glows, too; I could smell them before I rounded the corner and saw them. |
And Sunday's:
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| Golden jewel beetle, Buprestis aurulenta, dreaming of trees. |
These beetles lay their eggs near injured portions of a variety of conifers, including our Douglas fir, red cedar and pines. The larvae hatch, then bore into the wood, live there for several years - up to 40 years! - burrowing through the tree, until they bore an exit hole and emerge as adults.
This species is the most damaging in its genus. Larvae have been known to take 30 years to complete their development in structural timbers. The emergence holes sometimes penetrate roofing materials which results in leakages. The Orpheum Theater in Vancouver was water damaged after "bargin priced" roofing timbers, cut from trees salvaged from the Taylor River fire on Vancouver Island, produced a large number of adult beetles which bored straight through the tar roof. (Forestry, UBC)
In the shade of the underside of the tablecloth, the colours are strong, but the glitter is gone.
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| Green or bluish back, with red or copper wing edges. The underside is a bronze colour. This one was about an inch long. |
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