A Taste of Fall

I thought this scene showed signs that we are moving into fall. Other signs are shorter days of course, and also cooler nights. Things are starting to quiet down and insect activity has dropped over the past few days. Last Saturday it never got out of the 50s and was cloudy all day so that put a damper on things. It was the first noticeably cooler fall-like day and nature all of the sudden, seems to have gotten quieter.  

But quieter does not mean an ending. In fact it is a beginning, because this is when many of our most beautiful roadside flowers start to bloom. It is when fall starts to really make its presence known.

This Joe Pye weed says it all. Its leaves have gone yellow and will fall soon but right now its color is at its peak. It is as if it had to stop photosynthesizing so it could put all its effort into being beautiful.

And the New England asters this year are amazing. They like the soil to be very moist and this year they’ve got that and they’re responding with masses of bloom.

This shows how their bright yellow centers slowly turn red as they age and are pollinated.

They all seem to do it the same way no matter what color the petals happen to be. This dark purple is my favorite.

Bees didn’t care what color anything was as long as they could collect plenty of pollen. This one’s pollen sacs were filled to bursting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many bees as I have this year. This one area I was in when I took these photos must have had many thousands of bees of all kinds flying around.

Bees weren’t the only insects feasting on the asters. There were many clouded Sulphur butterflies here as well. Some were looking a little ragged but this one didn’t look bad. According to what I’ve read there are several broods of this butterfly hatching from spring until fall. Eggs hatch quickly; small green caterpillars will emerge in about a week and feed on leaves. If they need to they can hibernate over winter and will become a butterfly in spring.  

There were quite a few monarch butterflies here as well. I counted about a dozen one day and there must have been at least that many a day or two later. We’ve been short of monarchs all summer until just recently. According to what I read on a website called Monarch Joint-Venture, monarchs that emerge in late summer and early fall are the ones that migrate to central Mexico. They’ll spend the winter clustered in trees until weather and temperature conditions allow them to return to their breeding grounds. These adults can live up to nine months while adults in summer generations live only two to five weeks. What the butterflies in these photos were doing I think, is fueling up for their upcoming journey.

Light in one form feasting on light in another form.

And how beautiful all the varying forms -are.

On (or near) the fourth of July I showed you a shot of a flooded corn field, lamenting the fact that the farmer rarely gets a crop from this particular field anymore. Then, nearly a month later the corn had all died and invasive purple loosestrife had taken over, showing how wet the soil had become. This shot was taken quickly with a cell phone and isn’t very good technically, but I don’t care because it still shows how beautiful this place is.

Once again, my goal in doing this is to show you the beauty of nature so you will want to go out and see it for yourself, and as long as a photo conveys that message I don’t get too excited about f-stops and iso settings and focal lengths. That’s why I rarely talk about them here. To be honest the technical aspects of photography really don’t interest me any more than the passing interest an artist might have in the chemical composition of his paints. A camera is a tool, like a hammer or a saw, and I use it only to show you the astounding beauty of this paradise we live in. Instead of just looking at a photo I’d like you to feel the beauty that made me want to stop and take that photo.

Another recent cell phone shot of the same cornfield from a different direction is a good example of what I’m talking about. It’s a terrible photo but I had to stop and look at how beautiful this scene was. I became so lost in the beauty of it; the photo was really just an afterthought as I was about to get in the car. When I see a scene like this love is what I feel; a love of life that has somehow snuck up on me or seeped into me over the years, I don’t know. It’s all so very beautiful and I often ask myself; how could anyone not fall in love with this?

The beautiful yellow grasses lighting up that space in the previous photo are called yellow foxtail grass. Its seed heads catch the light and magnify it tenfold. The round dark bits seen along the stem are its seeds.

I thought we could play “Do you see what I see?” Do you see that strange shape way up high in that cherry tree, over on the left?

It’s the biggest paper wasp nest that I’ve seen; bigger in diameter than the trunk of the tree that supports it. I’d guess maybe 16 inches in diameter at the top, but it’s hard to tell with it being so high off the ground. I’d hate to find it in the middle of a shrub that I was trimming, that I know for sure.

I saw a mallard on a log and looked at it through the camera, admiring its beautiful feathers. I thought that it was looking away from me and I wondered if I could get closer, so slowly and quietly I snuck up on it, thinking all the while that I was pretty slick to have gotten so close without waking it. Then I looked at the photos I had taken when I got home and saw the bird’s open red eye in all of them. The mallard had been watching me the whole time and had let me get as close as I did, so I wasn’t so slick after all. I should have known.

I was surprised when this beautiful dragonfly flew past me from behind and landed on this clump of grass in front of me. It was huge as dragonflies go and its body was like a string of multi colored jewels, so you would think that something this big and this beautiful would be easy to identify, but I’ve had quite a time of it. Finally, I’ve settled on the lance tipped darner. If you look at the tip of its “tail” (rear appendages or cerci) you’ll see why. But I also settled on the lance tipped darner because it likes to perch on / in grass. Others of its kind like the green striped darner that landed on me recently like to perch on trees. All of them, says any expert you care to listen to, are very hard to identify. It is said to be certain you really have to have one “in hand” but I don’t care about names enough to be catching them. What must being caught do to a dragonfly, even if it is released afterwards?

I stood for about a half hour watching this lance tipped darner fly from plant stem to plant stem. Finally as I watched, it landed higher than we see it here and slowly slid itself down the stem until its tip reached the water. Then it shuddered. That’s the only way to describe it; it shuddered several times and each time it made ripples on the surface of the water. These dragonflies slit a plant stem with their scissor like rear appendages (see previous photo) and then lay an egg in the slit. The eggs hatch and the young naiads or nymphs live underwater, finally emerging sometimes as long as four years later, when they will shed their skin and become adults. The tricky thing about these particular dragonflies is how male and females can look so much alike.

About a week before this shot was taken I saw a red dragonfly land on this log for a few seconds and then fly away. I thought it was probably just another red meadowhawk but wait a minute; its wings weren’t clear like the other red meadowhawks I had seen. That’s because, I was to find out later, there is a red meadowhawk called a “saffron winged meadowhawk” and I believe that is what is shown here. The problem was, the saffron coloring (for me at least) was impossible to see unless it landed on something light colored like this log. I stood near here day after day wondering if one would land and finally, this one did. Compared to the 3 inch long lance tipped darner we saw previously this dragonfly is tiny at about an inch long.

I stopped at the river in Swanzey one day and saw what I at first thought was just a pile of walnut size rocks. I wondered why anyone would have collected them and put them there, but then I saw why. There was a stone with an unusually shaped pocket in it and someone had tried to find a stone with the same shape as the pocket. Finally they found one that fit perfectly, as you can see. Someone sat here for who knows how long working at creating something beautiful and then just left it behind. This once again affirms something I’ve thought for a very long time; it isn’t what we create that’s important, it’s the act of creation. I think all of us, whether we know it or not, are just trying to create something beautiful in this life any way we can.

There can’t be an award for longevity among the flowers because there are several that will bloom from June right up until a freeze, and Black eyed Susans are one of them. They get a little lost among all the other beautiful flowers of summer, at least in my mind they do, but as all the other beautiful flowers slowly fade there they are with their cheery yellow blooms; often the only flower left to see.

Another long flowering plant is heal-all, also called self-heal or prunella. The happy little flowers are always at their best in the fall, in my opinion. They do all they can to attract insects and in so doing they make themselves beautiful, but they are very small and easily missed.

The birds have eaten all the elderberries and what is left always remind me of star charts.

Some signs of fall are quite subtle, like the beautiful splash of red that appears on the top tier of leaves on an Indian cucumber root plant. Not all plants have it but those that do almost always have ripe, deep purple berries standing just above the splash. I’ve always suspected that this splash of color was there to alert and attract birds like turkeys, which eat the berries. The ripe berries appear at just about eye level of a turkey so it makes sense, but I doubt we’ll ever really know for certain.

If you are lost inside the beauties of nature, do not try to be found. ~Mehmet Murat ildan

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Aquatics

I’m starting this post on aquatics with blue vervain (Verbena hastata,) only because I like its color. It isn’t a true aquatic but every time you find it there will be water very nearby. Blue vervain provides a virtual nectar bar for many species of bees including the verbena bee (Calliopsis verbenae.) Butterflies also love it. It likes wet soil and full sun and can reach 5 feet when it has both. I find it in wet ditches, on river banks and just about anywhere where the soil stays constantly moist.

Wild calla (Calla palustris) is also called water dragon or water arum, and it is a true aquatic. It is an arum like skunk cabbage or Jack in the pulpit, both of which also like wet places. I don’t know if I could say this plant is rare but it is certainly scarce in this area. It’s the kind of plant you have to hunt for, and you have to know its habits well to catch it in bloom. Like other arums its flowers appear on a spadix surrounded by a spathe. The spathe is the white leaf like part seen in the above photo. This plant is toxic and I’ve never seen any animal touch it.

I missed the tiny greenish white flowers this year. They grow along the small spadix and are followed by green berries which will ripen to bright red and will most likely be snapped up by a passing deer. This plant was in the green, unripe berry stage. One odd fact about this plant is how its flowers are pollinated by water snails passing over the spadix. It is thought that small flies and midges also help with pollination, because the odor from the blossoms is said to be very rank.

Pickerel weed is having a bad year and gone are the beautiful ribbons of blue flowers along the river’s banks. I’m not sure what is causing such a sparse bloom but I hope it rights itself because large masses of this plant in bloom can be truly spectacular.

One of the things that always surprises me about pickerel weed is its hairiness. I don’t expect that from a water plant. Its small blue / purple, tubular flowers on spikey flower heads will produce a fruit with a single seed. Once the flowers are pollinated and seeds have formed the flower stalk will bend over and drop the them into the water, where they will have to go through at least two months of cold weather before being able to germinate. If you see pickerel weed you can almost always expect the water it grows in to be relatively shallow and placid, though I’ve heard that plants occasionally grow in water that’s 6 feet deep.

I haven’t seen any berries yet but elderberries (Sambucus nigra canadensis) have bloomed well this year so we should have plenty. This is another plant that doesn’t grow in water but it grows as close as it can to keep its roots good and moist. This native shrub can get quite large and its mounded shape and flattish, off white flower heads make it very easy to identify, even from a distance.

A floating plant that is attached by roots to the pond or lake bottom is an aquatic, and that description fits floating hearts (Nyphoides cordata) perfectly. Floating hearts have small, heart-shaped, greenish or reddish to purple leaves that are about an inch and a half wide, and that’s where their common name comes from. The tiny but very pretty flowers are about the size of a common aspirin and resemble the much larger fragrant white water lily blossom. They grow in bogs, ponds, slow streams, and rivers. This flower was having trouble staying above water because it had rained and the water level had risen.

Forget me nots are not an aquatic plant but I keep finding them in very wet places. This one grew right at the edge of a pond so its roots must have been at least partially in water. The ground they grew in was also so saturated my knees got wet taking this photo. Many plants that are thought of as terrestrial are able to tolerate submersion in water and can live where they’re exposed regularly to water and from what I’ve seen, this is one of them.

Water lobelia (Lobelia dortmanna) is probably the rarest of all the aquatics that grow in this area. I still know of only one pond it grows in and there are only a handful of them there. I’ve read that the plant has the unusual ability of removing carbon dioxide from the rooting zone rather than from the atmosphere. It is said to be an indicator of infertile and relatively pristine shoreline wetlands. This year I saw only 4 or 5 plants in a small group. The small, pale blue or sometimes white flowers are less than a half inch long and not very showy. They have 5 sepals and the base of the 5 petals is fused into a tube. The 2 shorter upper petals fold up. I’ve read that the flowers can bloom and set seed even under water. True aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater) and this one has adapted well.

I saw a strange looking bubble which had ripples coming from it, as if it were moving. It was in a pond, just off shore.

Of course if you go looking for aquatic plants, you’re going to see dragonflies like this widow skimmer.

I’m also seeing lots of what I think are spangled skimmers this year. On this day all of them were watching the water.

Pipewort plants (Eriocaulon aquaticum) are also called hatpins, and this photo shows why perfectly. Pipewort plants have basal leaves growing at the base of each stem and the leaves are usually underwater, but falling water levels had exposed them here. Interestingly, this photo also shows the size difference between a floating heart, which is there in the center, and a standard water lily leaf, which you can just see in the top left. Floating hearts are tiny in comparison.

Pipewort stems have a twist and 7 ridges, and for those reasons it is called seven angle pipewort. The quarter inch diameter flower head that sits atop the stem is made up of minuscule white, cottony flowers. I think it’s interesting how their leaves can photosynthesize under water.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter if there are any flowers in view. The light is enough.

I saw what I thought was a pretty clump of grass right at the very edge of the river bank but when I looked closer, I saw that it wasn’t any grass that I had ever seen before and I think it is reed sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima,) which is invasive. It is native to Europe and Western Siberia and is a semi-aquatic, perennial grass with unbranched stems that get up to 8’ tall. There is a reddish tint on the lower parts of the stems. This plant towered up over my head but I can’t swear it had red on the stems because I have trouble seeing red. Reed sweet-grass invades wetlands and crowds out natives, and is not suitable for nesting. It is also a poor food source for our native wildlife.

Meadowsweet (Spirea alba) grows in the form of a small shrub and is in the spirea family, which its flowers clearly show with their many fuzzy stamens. It’s a common plant that I almost always find near water.

Meadowsweet flowers are fragrant and have a sort of almond-like scent. A close look shows that clearly, they belong in the spirea family. Before long their pretty purple cousins the steeple bushes will come along.

In my opinion swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is the most beautiful milkweed of all. It grows onshore but a few yards away from the water’s edge on land that rarely floods. Many insects were visiting it on this day. I know of only a single plant now, so I hope it produces plenty of seeds. The flowerheads always remind me of millefiori glass paperweights.

Swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris) are not true aquatics but they do grow close enough to water to have their roots occasionally flooded. They are common along the edges of ponds and wetlands at this time of year. Their name comes from the way their bright color lights up a swamp, just as they did here.

Swamp candles have a club shaped flower head (raceme) made up of 5 petaled yellow flowers. Each yellow petal of a swamp candle flower has two red dots at its base that help form a ring of ten red dots around the five long stamens in the center of the flower. The petals are also often streaked with red and this is common among the yellow loosestrifes. Reddish bulbets will sometimes grow in the leaf axils. I’ve read that our native yellow loosestrifes were thought to have soothing powers over animals so people would tie the flowers to the yoke of oxen to make them easier to handle.

Pretty little sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) will sometime grow in standing water but only when it rains and the water level rises. By choice they live right at the water’s edge. On the day I saw these I saw thousands of flowers blooming on the banks of a pond.

Here is a closer look at the flowers. Sheep laurel is part of the Kalmia clan, which in turn is part of the very large heath family, which includes rhododendrons, blueberries and many other plants. I know of only three Kalmias here and they are Mountain, Sheep and Bog laurel. The flowers of all three, though different in size and color, have ten spring loaded anthers which release when a heavy enough insect lands on the flower. It then gets dusted with pollen and goes on its way.

You can always tell that you’ve found one of the three Kalmias by looking at the outside of the flower. If it has ten bumps like those seen here you have found one of the laurels. Each bump is a tiny pocket that the tip of an anther fits into. If the flowers are anything but white it is either a sheep or bog laurel. If the flowers are white it’s a mountain laurel, though I’ve seen mountain laurels with pink flowers in gardens for the first time this year.

Fragrant white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) are having a good year, I’m happy to say. They’re one of our most beautiful native aquatics. If you could get your nose into one you might smell something similar to honeydew melon or cantaloupe, but getting your nose into one is the tricky part.

I went to a local pond and saw what I thought were two-foot-tall white flowers on an island offshore. The pickerel weeds growing near the island told me the water could be up to six feet deep, so I certainly couldn’t wade out to them. My only choice was the zoom on my beaten-up old camera so I put it on the monopod and gave it a shot. When I looked at the photo I was stunned to see that the flowers weren’t white, they were pink. That was because they were rose pogonia orchids (Pogonia ophioglossoides,) a most rare and beautiful flower that I had been searching for in the wild for probably twenty years. And here they were, at a pond I had visited a hundred times. Why had I not seen them before? Because I had never come to this exact spot on the shore at this exact time of year before. That’s how easy it is to miss seeing one of the most beautiful flowers found in nature in bloom.

I’m sorry these are such poor photos but if you just Google “Rose Pogonia” you will see them in all their glory. This is a fine example of why, once you’ve started exploring and studying nature you feel that you really should keep at it, because you quickly learn that right around that next bend in the trail could be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. I hope you have found that this is true in your own walks through nature.

Away from the tumult of motor and mill
I want to be care-free; I want to be still!
I’m weary of doing things; weary of words
I want to be one with the blossoms and birds. 
~Edgar A. Guest

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Things I’ve Seen

 

I think since March we’ve had one completely dry week and that was last week. Other than that we’ve had at least one rainy day every week, and sometimes as much as 4 inches of rain has fallen in that one day. Parts of the state have seen flooding and roads have been washed away, but so far in this part of the state we seem to be weathering the storms quite well. All that water means waves in the Ashuelot River though, so I was able to practice my wave photography skills. I try to catch them just as they curl, as this one was.

Deer tongue grass (Dichanthelium clandestinum) blossomed along the Ashuelot. I don’t suppose many people have seen a deer’s tongue but I have and the leaves of this grass really do look like one, so it’s a perfect name for the plant. This is a very course, tough grass that is common in waste areas, roadsides and forest edges. It can be very beautiful when its leaves change in the fall; sometimes maroon, deep purple or yellow, and sometimes multiple colors on one leaf.

All the rain means a great mushroom season is upon us. The American Caesar mushroom (Amanita jacksonii) starts out bright orangey red and then turns to orange or yellow. Its flesh is white and its gills are bright yellow. It is said to be the American version of the European Caesar mushroom (Amanita caesarea,) which got its common name by being a favorite food of early Roman rulers. This mushroom is closely related to the toxic fly agaric and the deadly death cap and destroying angel mushrooms, so great care should be taken with identification before it is eaten.

Violet toothed polypore (Trichaptum biformis) looks a little like the turkey tail fungus (Trametes versicolor,) and I’m fairly certain that I have misidentified it as such here on this blog. Once you get to know the two though, it’s obvious that the purple edges on these are not found on turkey tails. I wish I had taken a photo of the undersides of these as well because it is supposed to be a beautiful lilac purple color and that’s something I’ve never noticed before. I see this pretty fungus rarely enough to always forget to peek underneath.

Elderberry flowers have been successfully pollinated and are slowly becoming berries, but at this stage the big flower heads look like star charts.

All the rain, heat and humidity we’ve had means perfect conditions for slime molds. I found this example searching for food on a fallen branch. Through a process called cytoplasmic streaming slime molds can reach speeds of up to 1.35 mm per second, which is the fastest rate recorded for any micro-organism. Scarcity of food is what drives them on, always searching for bacteria and yeasts to feed on. As this photo shows, slime mold plasmodium can be a mass of glistening vein-like material (actually a single-celled amoeba) that creeps across dead leaves, wood, or soil. I think this example might be the many headed slime (Physarum polycephalum.)

Here is another form that shape shifting slime molds can take. I believe this is the plasmodium stage of egg shell slime mold (Leocarpus fragilis.) In one stage of their life cycle these slime molds have a brittle outer shell that cracks and fractures like an eggshell. They will mature and become dry and turn first brown, and then gray. Blackish spores will be produced. Eggshell slime molds like to hang out on pine needles logs, stumps, and sometimes will even appear on living plants.

Spotting slime molds from a distance isn’t that hard if you know what to look for and where to look. It’s important to remember that hot sunlight dries them out, so they’ll be on the shaded sides and undersides of logs, on stumps, mossy rocks, and in the leaves on the forest floor in the darkest part of the forest where the soil stays moist. I look for what look to me like white or colored smudges. The closer you get to the smudge the easier it is to see detail, as this photo from about 3 feet away shows.

Here’s a closer look at the slime mold in the previous photo. I think it might be coral or white fingered slime mold (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa.) Most good mushroom books will include a section on slime molds that can help identify some of the most common ones, but uncommon slime molds can be very hard to identify.

A juvenile male widow skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) landed on a grass seed head for a few seconds. I think it’s a juvenile male because the females don’t have white wing markings and adult males have a whitish blue body.  The luctuosa part of the scientific name means sorrowful or mournful and it is thought that it might be because the darker wing markings make them look like they are draped in mourning crepe.

I haven’t seen a single monarch butterfly yet this year but I’ve seen a few of the other large butterflies, like this eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus).  Butterflies can absorb minerals and salts from the soil and I think that’s what this one was doing. It’s called puddling.

This eastern tiger swallowtail found a tasty heal all plant (Prunella vulgaris) to snack on.

I thought that this stunning creature was a butterfly when I first saw it on the grass in a lawn but after some research I found that it was a virgin tiger moth (Grammia virgo.) It is a large, butterfly sized moth and I’ve read that its hindwing color can vary from yellow to scarlet. Unfortunately they can’t be seen in this photo. The larvae feed on various low growing plants, which is apparently why I found it in a lawn. Though there are countless photos of this moth online there is very little information on it. It is certainly one of the prettiest moths I’ve seen.

I’ve been checking milkweed plants for signs of monarch butterflies but so far all I’ve seen are red milkweed beetles (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus.) These beetles eat milkweed plants and absorb its toxins much like monarch butterflies do and this and their red color keeps predators away. I’ve read that milkweed beetles squeak when they’re feeding on milkweed, but I saw hundreds and didn’t hear a single peep out of any of them. The ancient Greeks called this insect four eyes because of the way their antennae bisect and seem to grow out of their eyes.

Timothy grass was unintentionally brought to North America by early settlers and was first found in New Hampshire in 1711 by John Hurd. A farmer named Timothy Hanson began to promote cultivation of it as a hay crop about 1720, and the grass has been called Timothy ever since. Timothy-grass (Phleum pratense) flowers from June until September and is noted for its resistance to cold and drought.

Timothy grass is an excellent hay crop for horses but what I like most about it is its flowers. Each flower head is filled with tiny florets, each with three purple stamens and 2 wispy white stigmas. This one wasn’t showing the purple stamens so I might have been too early. Quite often the heads look completely purple when they bloom. The example shown does show the tiny, feather like female stigmas. Flowering grasses can be very beautiful and I hope more people will stop and take a look at them.

If you want purple in your grass it’s hard to beat purple top grass (Tridens flavus cupreus.) This is a perennial grass that can get 3-5 feet tall. It likes to grow in disturbed soil and I see it along field and forest edges. I’ve tried for several years to get the camera to see what I see when I look at purple grasses but the photos were never accurate until I discovered the secret just recently, and that is taking the photo just after sunset when the light is still bright but there is no direct sunlight on the grass heads. There is also less wind to blow them around at that time of day as well.

I actually learned the secret of purple grasses last year when I was taking photos of purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis,) but it didn’t click in my mind until this year. As a nature photographer you never stop learning, and nature itself is often the best teacher. You try and try and then try again, and eventually you hit on the right light, or the right background, or the right perspective and then finally you have it, and then you can show the plant or any other bit of nature at its best. In my line of thought, this is how you get people interested enough to want to get out there and see nature for themselves; by showing it at its most beautiful. This beautiful little shin-high grass grows on sandy roadsides and flowers in late summer and early fall. Its purple flower heads will eventually turn a tannish color and break off. They are often seen rolling and floating along the roadsides like tumbleweeds in the fall.

When the tiny green flowers of staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) have been pollinated they become fuzzy red berries, but before that they go through a fuzzy purple stage, as can be seen in the above photo. I’ve never seen this before this year, probably because I wasn’t paying attention. Native Americans made a kind of lemonade from these berries and they can also be dried and ground to be used as a lemony flavored spice.

The black willows (Salix nigra) along the Ashuelot River have gone to seed. Willows have been used medicinally for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks made willow bark tea to ease the pain of stiff joints and headaches and to reduce fevers, and Native Americans used the plant in the same way. Willows are so useful for pain relief because they contain a compound called salicylic acid. The acetylsalicylic acid found in aspirin is a synthetic version of it. Willows like wet feet and usually grow on the banks of ponds and rivers.

The blue of blue bead lily berries (Clintonia borealis) is quite different from the blue of blueberries; what I call electric blue. The seeds in these berries can take two years to germinate and adult plants can take twelve years to finally show their yellow, lily like blossoms. This plant is also called “cow tongue” because of the shape of its leaves. Deer, chipmunks and many other animals and birds love the berries and I often have trouble finding them because they get eaten so fast. Native Americans used the plant medicinally to treat burns and infections, and bears are said to be attracted to its root.

What I believe is a male slaty skimmer (Libellula incesta) is easily one of the most beautiful dragonflies I’ve seen. Its deep indigo blue color isn’t seen often in nature, but the blue bead lily berries do come close. I actually thought this dragonfly was black when I was taking its photo from several feet away and didn’t realize it had such a beautiful color until I saw the photo.  Nature is full of surprises, and that’s one reason I’m outside as often as possible. I just love seeing things like this that I’ve never seen.

Nearness to nature keeps the spirit sensitive to impressions not commonly felt and in touch with the unseen powers. ~Charles Eastman

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Late June, Early July Flowers

Did everyone see fireworks on the 4th? I did, but not in the traditional sense. Mine came in the form of tall meadow rue flowers (Thalictrum pubescens,) which always bloom close to the 4th of July and which always remind me of “bombs bursting in air.” These are the plant’s male flowers; starbursts of petal-less dark yellow tipped stamens.

I don’t see tall meadow rue in meadows unless the meadow is very wet. I usually find it at the edge of streams or in ditches as the example in the above photo was. In fact this one sat just where a ditch met a stream. It was down an embankment, which is the only way I could have gotten this view because it often grows 7-8 feet tall and towers over me. Getting above it is usually next to impossible without a ladder. Native Americans are said to have given lethargic horses ground meadow rue leaves and flowers to increase their vigor and to renew their spirit and endurance. In spring the plant’s young leaves fool many into thinking they’ve found wild columbine.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is not a native plant so I’m always surprised to see it growing along the edge of the forest like these examples do. I don’t see it in the wild often but it seems to escape gardens and find places that suit its temperament and there it stays, sometimes forming small colonies. There were maybe a dozen plants in this group and they were beautiful.

I like to try to get a bee’s eye view of foxglove blossoms. The blossom in the foreground shows whiter spots than the younger blossom on the right. They apparently start life with yellow spots which turn to white as they age. The lower lip protrudes a bit to give bees a landing pad, and from there they follow the spots, which are nectar guides, up to the top of the blossom where they find the nectar. While the bee is busy with the nectar the anthers above it rub on its back and deposit the flower’s pollen, which will then be taken to another blossom.  If successfully pollinated a foxglove plant can produce from one to two million seeds.

Humble little narrow-leaf cow wheat (Melampyrum lineare) seems like a shy little thing but it has a secret; it is a thief that steals nutrients from surrounding plants. A plant that can photosynthesize and create its own food but is still a parasite on surrounding plants is known as a hemiparasite. This little plant wants it all.

Narrow-leaf cow wheat’s long white, tubular flowers tipped with yellow-green are very small, and usually form in pairs where the leaves meet the stem (axils). I usually find this plant growing in old, undisturbed forests but I’ve also seen it recently on roadsides. It is quite common, but so small that few seem to notice it. The tiny flowers bloom at about shoe top height.

The small, furry, white to light purple flowers of motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) are easy to miss. At a glance this plant might resemble one of the nettle family but the square stems show it to be in the mint family. The tiny flowers grow in a whorl around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant, originally from Asia, is considered an invasive weed but I don’t see it that often and I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 2 or 3 plants growing together.  It was brought to this country because of its long history of medicinal use in Europe and Asia. It is found along roads and in fields.

The tiny flowers of motherwort are very hairy and look like a microscopic orchid. They’re very hard to get a good shot of because of both their size and color and I don’t think I’ve ever been really happy with any photo I’ve taken of them. The ancient Greeks and Romans used motherwort medicinally and it is still used today to decrease nervous irritability and quiet the nervous system. There is supposed to be no better herb for strengthening and gladdening the heart, and it is sold in powdered and liquid form.

Our native common elderberry bushes (Sambucus nigra canadensis) have just come into bloom and can be seen dotted around the landscape, especially near brooks and streams. Its mounded shape and flattish, off white flower heads make it very easy to identify, even from a distance.

Common elderberry flower clusters look similar to Queen Anne’s lace. Each flower is tiny at only 1/4 inch across, and has 5 white petals or lobes, 5 yellow tipped stamens and 3 very small styles that fall off early after blooming. Each flower will be replaced by a single black (dark purple) drupe. A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a single seed like a peach or cherry. Native Americans dried the fruit for winter use and soaked the berry stems in water to make a black dye for basketry.

The unusual, hairy twin flowers of partridge berry (Mitchella repens) fuse at the base and share one ovary. They will become a single small red berry that has two dimples that show where the flowers used to be. Partridgeberry is one of the lowest growing evergreen plants on the forest floor, hardly growing more than 3 or 4 inches high. Plants have a vining habit but don’t climb. Instead they form dense mats by spreading their trailing stems out to about a foot from the crown. Roots will often form at leaf nodes along the stems and start new plants.

Here is a better view of how partridge berry flowers are joined at the base to form a single ovary and a single berry. The berries are rather tasteless but ruffed grouse, quail, turkeys, skunks, and white footed mice eat them. Native American women made a tea from the leaves of partridge berry to promote easy delivery in childbirth. Tea made from the berries is said to have a sedative effect on the nervous system.

Our native whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) has just started blooming in the tall grass along roadsides. This plant’s leaves and flowers grow in a whorl around the stem and that’s how it comes by its common name. A whorl, in botanical terms for those who don’t know, is made up of at least three elements of a plant (leaves, flowers, etc.) that radiate from a single point and surround the stem.

Both the leaves and flowers grow in a whorl on whorled loosestrife, because where each leaf meets the stem (axils) a five petaled, star shaped yellow flower appears at the end of a long stalk. Many plants grow flowers in the axils of the leaves, but most do not grow in whorls. Almost all species of loosestrife with yellow flowers often have a lot of red in them as this example had.

A view looking down on a whorled loosestrife shows how the leaves and flowers are arranged in whorls around the stem. The leaves in each whorl can number from 3 to 7. This example seems to have had 4. According to Pliny the young leaves of whorled loosestrife will stop bleeding when they are tied to a wound.

There are a few lobelias that look similar but I think this one might be pale spike lobelia (Lobelia spicata,) which gets its common name from its small, pale blue to almost white flowers. Every now and then you can find a plant with deeper blue flowers, as I was lucky enough to do on this day. There is also a purple variant but I’ve never seen it. Native Americans had many medicinal uses for lobelia and one of them was as a treatment for asthma. The plant must have worked well because early explorers took it back across the Atlantic where it is still used medicinally today. It has to be used with great care by those who know how to use it though, because too much of it can kill.

Black Swallowwort (Cynanchum louiseae) has purplish-brown to nearly black star shaped flowers that are about 1/4 inch across. They have five-petals and are fragrant, but not in a good way. It has a hard to describe their odor but I’ve seen it described as a rotting fruit odor, which I’m not sure I agree with. I think it’s worse than that; it’s a very sharp, almost acrid odor and on a hot summer day your nose will tell you that you’re near this plant long before you see it.

Black swallowwort is a vining plant native to Europe that twines over native shrubs and plants at the edges of forests and shades or strangles them out. It is believed to have come to North America from Ukraine in the 1800s.  Colonies of this plant have been found that covered several acres of land and it is said to be able to completely replace a field of native goldenrod. It is nearly impossible to eradicate from a garden because its roots mingle with those of other plants and if you pull the stem it just breaks off at ground level. In Canada it is called the dog strangling vine and Canadians are testing the use of Hypena opulenta moth caterpillars as a means of biological control. So far they say, the results look promising. The caterpillars come from Ukraine and are a natural enemy of the plant. This plant illustrates the biggest danger of importing plants; the animals and insects that control them are left behind in their native lands, and once they arrive in their new home they are able to grow unchecked.

Spreading dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium) is toxic to both dogs and humans, but insects love it. It’s closely related to milkweeds and has milky sap like they do. Monarch butterflies drink the nectar but I rarely see one on them. Though it is an herbaceous perennial its growth habit makes it look like a 3 foot tall shrub. The Apocynum part of its scientific name means “away from dog.” Not only dogs but most other animals avoid it because of its toxic sap.

Native Americans used spreading dogbane medicinally and used its strong fibers to make thread and cord. The plant’s milky white sap is very sticky and I wonder how they removed it from the thread they made.

Spreading dogbane’s bell shaped flowers are very fragrant and I love to smell then when I can find one without an insect in it. They’re also very pretty, with faint pink stripes on the inside. They remind me of lily of the valley flowers but are quite a lot larger. The ant traveled from blossom to blossom as if trying to make up its mind which was best.

St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) gets its common name from the way that it flowers near June 24th, which is St. Johns day, but it has been well known since ancient times. The Roman military doctor Proscurides used it to treat patients as early as the 1st century AD, and it was used by the ancient Greeks before that. The brown / black dots on its 5 yellow petals make this flower very easy to identify. Originally from Europe, it can be found in meadows and along riverbanks and roadsides growing in full sun.

I should like to enjoy this summer flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one for me.~ Andre Gide

Thanks for coming by.

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Early Summer Wildflowers

It wasn’t all that long ago that I was spending most of my wildflower hunting time deep in the woods, peeking around trees and under bushes. Now all of the sudden fields and roadsides are bursting with color. This certainly makes a plant hunter’s job easier and also means there are even more flowers to show you. If you, when you saw this picture, wondered if it wasn’t a little early for Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) to be blooming the answer is yes it is, but then everything is blooming early this year.  Still, I was surprised when I found what I usually don’t see until July. Black Eyed Susan is a native plant whose seeds are an important winter food source for birds. That’s why when they are grown in gardens they shouldn’t be cut back in the fall. The small, furry, light purple flowers of motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) are easy to miss. At a glance this plant might resemble one of the nettle family but the square stems show it to be in the mint family. The tiny flowers grow in a whorl around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant, originally from Asia, is considered an invasive weed.  It was brought to this country because of its long history of medicinal use in Europe and Asia. It is common along roads and in fields. This is another flower that it is easy to walk right by, because it grows at about ankle height. The small, white, tubular blossoms of the native narrow leaf cow wheat plant (Melampyrum lineare ) have a yellow lower lip which also helps make them a little more visible. The flowers always seem to grow in pairs and the plants usually form a colony, which also makes them a little easier to find. I found this plant growing alongside a shaded path in a forest of mostly pine and tamarack trees. It always grows close to shrubs and trees because it is partially root parasitic. There is another plant called Small Cow wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum) with lemon yellow flowers, and another called common cow wheat (Melampyrum pretense) that doesn’t have the two sharply pointed lobes at the base of the leaf like those seen on the narrow leaf cow wheat.  A calyx (at the base of the flower) that curls upward like an eyelash is a good clue to the identity of this plant. This one is a real stinker, and I’m not exaggerating. This is the female blossom cluster of the smooth carrion flower (Smilax herbacea.) One of its pollinators (the fly) was kind enough to stop in for our photo session. These female pistillate flowers with their stubby, three-lobed stigmas are much shorter than the male staminate flowers, which are shown below.  The plants carry only male or female flowers, so they can usually be found growing quite close together. This is the male flower cluster of the smooth carrion flower (Smilax herbacea.) Male blossoms have six white stamens. Each of these flower clusters, both male and female, are the size of a golf ball. Personally, I thought that the male flowers were much more malodorous than the female flowers.  This plant is a vine that can reach 8 feet long. Later on the female blossoms become globular clusters of dark blue fruit that will appear like Christmas ornaments all along the vine’s length.  The fruit is said to be edible, but you won’t catch me eating it! Crown vetch (Securigera varia) is very different in both appearance and color than cow vetch (Vicia cracca L. ssp. tenuifolia ) or hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) but the three plants are continually mistaken for one another.  Another vetch is bird vetch (Vicia cracca L.,) which cow vetch is nearly identical to. Hairy vetch, crown vetch and bird vetch all grow in New Hampshire but according to the U.S.D.A., cow vetch does not. Crown vetch is in the pea family and was imported from Europe and Asia for soil erosion control. As is usually the case, it has escaped and the long, wiry vines can now be found along roadsides and in fields. This plant is toxic and has killed horses. I can’t say if our native striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) is rare but I can say that, other than on this one occasion I have never seen it, and I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the woods. Unfortunately I missed its white, nodding blossoms and got there just after it had formed the seed pods seen in the photo. This was on June 4th and the plant isn’t supposed to bloom until late-July. This plant is also called spotted wintergreen, striped pipsissewa, and prince’s pine. According to the U.S.D.A. it is endangered in Canada, Illinois, and Maine, and is considered vulnerable in New York. It seems strange to me that there are so few of these plants found in an area that has huge colonies of its close relative, pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellate,) which is called umbellate wintergreen.I was being eaten alive by hoards of hungry mosquitoes when I took this picture so it isn’t the best one I’ve ever taken. This is the nodding, cup shaped flower of the shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica.) Unlike striped wintergreen, this plant is plentiful in pine woods and grows near trailing arbutus and pipsissewa.  The greenish white petals look waxy and sometimes will have greenish veins running through them. These plants were always thought to be closely related to the wintergreens because their leaves stay green all winter, but DNA testing now puts them in the heath (Ericaceae) family. Shinleaf foliage looks a lot like that of trailing arbutus, but the leaves are shorter.  A better photo of it can be seen by clicking here. The plant’s crushed leaves were applied to bruises in the form of a paste or salve and the aspirin-like compounds in the leaves would ease pain. Such pastes were called “shin plasters,” and that’s how the plant got its strange common name. The tiny flowers of Heal All (Prunella vulgaris) appear together on a club-like, squarish stem in enough numbers to make them noticeable. This plant is native to Europe but is found all over the world. Heal all  is also called self-heal and heart of the earth and has been used medicinally for centuries. It is edible and is one of those plants that most certainly would have appeared in medieval cottage gardens. Heal all tea was used by Native Americans, which makes me believe that it is native to North America as well as Europe.Even smaller than the flowers of heal all are those of Rabbit-foot Clover (Trifolium arvense.) If you look closely you can see 2 or 3 of the almost microscopic white flowers poking out of the feathery, grayish- pink sepals. These feathery sepals are much larger than the petals and make up most of the flower head. This plant is in the pea family and is used to improve soil quality. It is originally from Europe and Asia and is considered an invasive weed. It gets its name from the fuzzy flower heads, which are said to look like a rabbit’s foot.  I found a few plants growing on a river bank. This is another clover called golden clover (Trifolium aureum.) The 1/2 inch long yellow flower head is made up of tiny yellow flowers that resemble pea flowers. The flowers have 5 petals and are said to be decumbent, which means “lying along a surface, with the extremity curving upward.” As the photo shows, they overlap much like roof shingles.  These individual flowers turn brown as they age, and some think they look like hops when they are in that stage. This gives the plant one of its common names; large yellow hop clover. Like other clovers it has three leaves. These plants are common in waste areas and along roadsides. This one was growing near our local airport.Native Lance Leaf Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) is liable to be found in the garden or the meadow. Coreopsis is a large family of plants that includes many natives and hybrids that come in yellows, oranges, pinks and maroons. This plant was in a meadow with many others which were all being swarmed by bees. A common name for this plant is tickseed because the seeds are said to resemble ticks. They are one of the easiest plants to grow and will virtually grow in any soil that gets plenty of sunshine. I’ve even seen them thrive in almost pure sand.The native Red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea) blossoms have finally opened and are seen along almost every road at the edges of forests. If you aren’t colorblind the red stems make this plant easy to identify, otherwise counting the 4 petals (bracts) will be the clue to its being a dogwood. The flowers are fragrant and bees and butterflies love them.  By the end of summer the flowers will turn into clusters of light blue berries that birds and deer feed on. These shrubs get quite large, sometimes reaching 15 feet tall and twice that across. Red osier dogwood is an excellent choice for large shrub borders because their red branches stand out against the snow in winter. Growing right alongside the red osier dogwoods in many instances are native elderberry (Sambucus) shrubs.  Though they like the same growing conditions, elderberry leaves are quite different than those of dogwoods and the small flowers have 5 petals instead of 4 bracts. Elderberry flower clusters are usually much larger than those of dogwoods and the stamens aren’t as long.  Elderberry flowers become small, dark blue, almost black, berries. These berries are edible if they are cooked but can cause severe stomach distress if eaten raw. The leaves, stems and roots contain cyanide-causing gliconides and are toxic. When I was a boy we lived across the street from an Italian family who made elderberry wine from bushes that grew along the river but since I wasn’t old enough, I never got to taste it.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous ~ Aristotle

That’s some of what’s blooming right now here in New Hampshire. Thanks for visiting.

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