I love this clunky green beast, with its clockwork waddle and slight marzipan scent.
A few years ago I got a terrible swingeing letter from a gardener complaining at my lack of concern over the damage caused by Palomena prasina, the common green shieldbug. I love this clunky green beast, with its clockwork waddle and marzipan scent.
I had quite happily (and rather pompously I’m sorry to say) stated that these lovely insects were never a problem in the garden, because, although they are sap suckers, they prefer wild flowers to cultivated plants. Boy did I get that wrong. I was given a whole list of the beans, courgettes, pumpkins and other crops that they had destroyed in her garden. Oops.
I have to be slightly more circumspect with my comments these days. But when, during that lovely warm sunny burst on Monday afternoon, I found another green shieldbug crawling over the ivy, I felt I could be brazen again.
This is Piezoderus lituratus. It’s slightly narrower and more elegant than Palomena, and has a delicate yellow stripe down each side of its shiny body. Those emerging from hibernation now are mostly green, but the summer form has vague reddish brown patches across its back. It too has a slight smell of mouldy almonds, especially if picked up; these are the bitter-tasting cyanide compounds used by shieldbugs to deter predators.
Its English name is the gorse shieldbug, and far from attacking garden plants, it focuses its attention on gorse. As far as I know there is no gorse anywhere in gardens hereabouts, but there's a small broom at the front of our house. It will also feed on other woody Fabaceae.
If there are any laburnum growers out there who have suffered severe depredations from this insect, please be gentle with me.
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