Fall Color

The trees have transformed themselves with blazing color almost overnight this year, and the leaf peepers are here to see them. “Leaf peeper” is what all the tourists who come to see the fall colors are called. For about a month millions of them come and swell the population of the state to twice its size, and they are loved by the people who live here. They stand in awe of the colors with looks of amazement and wonder on their faces and we locals stand right there beside them with the same look on our faces, because no matter how many times we’ve seen this it’s still amazingly beautiful. It’s like being inside a kaleidoscope.

This year I thought I’d take you on a popular leaf peeper mini tour, heading east out of Keene on Rte. 101. There are lots of maple trees along this stretch and maples usually turn earlier than most other trees. Red maples especially have a wide color range and can be yellow, orange, red and sometimes even pink. This shot shows the Branch River on the way to Marlboro on a recent cloudy day. It’s one of my favorite stops to see early color. By the time the oaks and beeches come ablaze most of the trees here in this view have dropped their leaves.

Another thing I sometimes do in these fall color posts is take two shots of the same scene; one under cloudy skies and one in full sunshine. I do this because I’ve always thought that the colors were richer and more vibrant on cloudy days but to be honest that could simply be my eye trouble, because there are lots of people who think brilliant sunshine best shows the colors. It doesn’t matter because it’s all beautiful, but I’ve put some of both sunny and cloudy skies in here and there and I’ll let you decide.

On Rte. 101 in Marlboro as you’re traveling towards Dublin there is a cow pasture on the right and you can often see a line of cars parked alongside the road. The hillside on the other side of the pasture is the reason why, as you can see. It’s one of the most colorful and beautiful places to see along this road in the fall.  

Leaving Marlboro and into Dublin is Howe Reservoir, where can be seen more beautiful color from maples. I went twice, once on a cloudy day which is seen above and once on a sunny day. Again, I think the colors “pop” more on cloudy days but one drawback at this particular spot is that clouds will often obscure the view of Mount Monadnock.

This is essentially a continuation of the previous shot, followed to the right. There are beautiful colors here this year.

Here is a view of Mount Monadnock from Howe Reservoir that I spoke of, taken in full sunshine. Once again, I’ll let you decide what you like best.

Here is a red maple that stands just at the edge of Howe Reservoir. In the fall red maples aren’t always red.

I took a left turn onto Rte. 137 in Dublin, heading for Hancock, and stopped at Half Moon Pond where I discovered that the view was very different from this spot than it used to be in the morning before work. At 6:30 am the sun is just coming up over the hills that were behind me, and it falls on the strip of colorful trees there at the edge of the water and lights them up as if they were on fire. I used to stop almost every morning at dawn just to see it happening. On this day the deep colors were bleached out by the bright sunshine. Two geese quickly swam away, apparently upset that I interrupted them. I’ve seen and heard geese flying overhead in formation as well.

There was color along the Nubanusit River in Hancock. This is another stop that I used to sometimes make in the morning.

I used to also drive by this tree every morning, so I could watch it go from hints of color to color on every leaf; another fine example of a red maple in the fall. Without red maples this would be a very different landscape, especially at this time of year. Old timers call these trees “swamp maples” but if you look for that name in a tree identification guide you won’t find it.

From here you can go through the small town of Hancock and return to Keene by way of Rte. 9 south, or you can go back the way we came. Either way it really doesn’t matter because there is glorious color everywhere, along all roads. The big difference between routes is how many places you can stop and get out of the car. I think the way we came on Rte. 101 has more opportunities for doing so.

I thought we could take a rest from the road for a bit and look at few other things that are part of fall in this part of the world, like this beautiful fragrant white waterlily leaf. I loved it for its beautiful color and its veining. It was one leaf on a plant with many leaves and all were green except this one, which dared to be different.

And this will most likely be the last fragrant white waterlily bloom we’ll see until next spring. I took the photo about three weeks ago, I think.

Poison ivy is beautifully red this year. You might want to touch it or pick a few leaves to dry or press, but you might want to think that over because unless you’re immune to its toxins you’ll itch like mad for a week or two. Once it’s on your hands it can spread to other parts of the body and before you know it you have it all over you. The old saying leaves of three, let them be, is true.

Growing up out of the large bed of poison ivy was a Solomon’s seal plant with fruit dangling under the leaves. I’ve tried and tried to get a shot of the berries for years without much satisfaction but this year I decided to use my cell phone and the shot I got with it is what you see here. Very carefully, without touching any leaves, I reached up and over the poison ivy, and I haven’t itched at all.

I stopped to see the asters that grow in a local park one day and I think I saw as many bees as I did flowers. We hear a lot of bad news about bees and I can’t say whether it is right or wrong, but I do know that I’ve seen more bees this summer than I can ever remember seeing. If you look closely you’ll see them in this photo. Honeybees, I believe.

Here is a close look at one of those bees. I wanted to show you the open (true) flowers of a daisy and along came this accommodating bee to show you how they worked. This is a Montauk daisy which also grows in the park, and which was originally developed in Japan. For that reason it is also called the Nippon daisy. It is like a Shasta daisy on steroids and is very hardy. I saw them blooming in a snowstorm one year in late fall.

I went to Robin Hood Park in Keene and just as I got to the trail entrance I saw this sign. Attack owl or not I would follow this trail. As I walked along I could hear the flapping of wings, as if a bird sat in a tree above and was flapping its wings, but I never saw the source of the sound and I never saw an owl.

I wanted to follow the trail because lots of maple leaved viburnums grow here, and they’re beautiful at this time of year. They come in a wide range of colors and these examples were a kind of orangey pink.

And these were a deep purple, which is my favorite. If you’re looking for a native shrub that will attract birds and other wildlife and put on a good show in the fall, you might want to consider maple leaved viburnums. They’re a “plant it and forget it” shrub that ask for nothing except an hour or two of sunlight. Here at the park they grow in the shade of old white pines, maples, and oaks.

The next day was cloudy, so I visited the Army Corps of Engineer’s Dam in Surry for this view of one of the hillsides that was blasted during the dam’s construction. It was too dim on this overcast evening for the Canon camera that I often use for landscapes so I used one of the cell phone cameras, which do better in low light. It was the evening light that was important because in this light the color of the stone changes from ash gray to the beautiful blue gray color seen here. The contrast between the blue of the stone and the many colored shrubs / trees is beautiful and I could have stood here enjoying the scene for much longer if the sun hadn’t been going down. It’s one of my favorite places to come in the fall because it speaks of the beauty that can be found in wilderness. Or what was once wilderness; if you somehow tumbled down this slope today you’d end up in the dam’s spillway, so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. If memory serves me correctly some teenagers climbed the safety fences one day and had to be rescued from this slope.

Surry dam dams up the Ashuelot river enough to create Ashuelot Lake behind it, but what trickles through is once again called the Ashuelot River, seen here just after it leaves the dam and begins its run through Bretwood golf course.

I headed south from Surry and once again ended up back in Keene, where I stopped at the Ashuelot River again. Following the trail through Ashuelot Park that winds alongside the river, I came upon this scene. As you could see there was a cloudless sky and it was too bad I thought, that the sun shined so brightly.

I was surprised to see an arrowwood viburnum still full of berries. The birds usually strip them of the pretty berries as soon as they ripen.

I went to a spot where many cinnamon ferns grow to see if they had turned pumpkin orange yet. They had, and they were beautiful.

I remembered that I hadn’t gone up to Beaver Brook natural area in Keene to see the only examples of blue stemmed goldenrod, so I went there to see it. The only trouble was, its stems weren’t blue. The blue color comes from the same naturally occurring wax crystals that cause the “bloom” on plums, blueberries and many other things found in nature. A lot of heat can melt them and a lot of rain can wash them away, and we’ve had both. If you look closely though you can see a hint of a blue stem running just over the leaf litter under this flowering stem.

Beaver brook was as beautiful as ever, and I knew I’d have to come back when I had time to walk the full length of the road. There are lots of oaks and beeches here and as I’ve said elsewhere in this post, they’re beautiful trees in the fall.

So you’ve seen the slice of fall color in the south western corner of New Hampshire for this week but we’re just getting started, so there will be plenty more to see.

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ~Oscar Wilde

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High Summer

The Ashuelot River in August is usually so low in places you can walk across it without getting your knees wet, but when I went there last week it was about as high as we like to see it. I have a feeling that someone somewhere opened the gates on a dam or something since then though, because two or three days after I took this shot the water had gone down considerably, and mud showed on the banks.

I went to the river to see if the beautiful cedar waxwings were there. At this time of year the sun has a certain slant at this location. In the evening insects are lit up by the light and I assume that the waxwings have an easier time seeing them. They wait in the trees and bushes and fly out and snap up mosquitoes, dragonflies, and other insects that happen to be flying through the shafts of light. There is a small maple tree there that has died and it’s a favorite perch, so I wait for them to get used to my being there and then try to get their photo when they land in it.

The waxwings love many of the berries that grow along the river such as the arrow wood viburnum berries seen here. Other berries that grow along the river in this immediate area are silky dogwood, pokeweed, wild grapes, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy, and waxwings love them all.

I like the way this waxwing was peeking up over the branches with its eyes probably on an unwary insect. I’ve seen them snatch dragonflies right off the bushes a few times. The waxwings move in small flocks and can strip a crabapple tree of its fruit in no time at all. The name “waxwing” comes from the way the tips of their wings look like they’ve been dipped in red wax. The undersides of their wings flash bright white in the evening sun and they are very beautiful. I love their little bandit mask and how sleek they are and how they dive, swoop and twirl in the air when chasing insects. If I had to make a list of favorite birds, cedar waxwings would be near the top.

I hope everyone is seeing and hearing their favorite birds this year. I downloaded the “Merlin” birding app from Google Play and it has opened a new world. Now, though I might not see a bird, I can record it and identify it with the app. It’s both amazing and fun, and I now know which songs are by which birds. I believe the free app also comes in an Apple version.

I went to a local park the other day to visit the small pond there. Usually there are hundreds of dragonflies there but on this day I had to struggle to find any. I sat on a bench wondering where they had all gone and then I saw several cedar waxwings streaking out of the trees and I knew. All the dragonflies were in hiding. From what I’ve seen of waxwings, they were wise to hide.

I’ve been trying to get better shots of the emerald spread wing damselflies. I’ve discovered a spot where they gather so I sit on a boulder on the pond shore and learn their habits, which are much the same as dragonflies. One noticeable difference is, these insects don’t have the same great speed as dragonflies. The “spread wing” part of the name comes from the way they keep their wings spread when at rest.

Unfortunately the spot where they gather at the pond is heavily shaded so I haven’t been completely happy with any shot I’ve gotten so far. This one does show the underside of its abdomen but doesn’t show the sky blue color that I had hoped to get. One day I’ll catch them perching in the sunshine and then I’ll be able to show you their beautiful colors the way they should be seen. Meanwhile I’ll wait.

One of the things that you come to understand quite quickly in nature study is that you will spend a lot of time just waiting and watching, because 99% of it is simply being in the right place at the right time. Knowing the habits of that which you study helps, but nature will always teach us patience one way or another.

I found a staghorn sumac with a deformed flower head at the end of a branch. You can pick out 2 tiny flowers in full bloom there in the lower right. This is something few people ever see.

A fern shadow spilled over a log. This is what I mean when I say that no matter where you look there is beauty. It is always there, waiting for us to discover it.

A few of the Indian cucumber root plants are throwing in the towel and taking on their beautiful deep purple fall colors. The berries will soon be ripening on plants that have them.

Purple loosestrife is one of our most invasive plants but I always have to admit that they’re quite pretty, even if do they look like someone hung them on the stalk before ironing them.

Joe Pye weed is blooming, with its wispy, thread like flower petals calling to all the insects. Bees and butterflies love them. Depending on which version of the story you believe a Native American named Joe Pye used this plant to heal, or the name of the plant he used was named Jopi. Either way the story points to the plant’s one time medicinal use.

I was happy to see what I thought was a monarch butterfly on some Joe Pye weed but no, it was a viceroy, and I know that because of the black lines on its hind wings. Still, it’s a beautiful butterfly and there haven’t been many of those around this summer. I imagined that two months of rain had a lot to do with that but that can’t be it because Maryland is in drought and they have as few butterflies as we do.

It was a very windy day when, as I walked through some tall grass, two pearl crescent butterflies flew a few feet ahead, always staying out of the wind by staying down low in the grass. This shot was a challenge because the camera kept wanting to focus on the grass and leaves instead of the butterfly. This butterfly is small and seems to be about the size of one wing of the bigger butterflies like monarchs or admirals.

One day I saw a very strange bird asleep on a log at a pond. You couldn’t see its face but one eye stared out of the photo I sent to a birding friend. He came back with the name Muscovy duck, which is a domesticated bird that will occasionally fly off into nature. It can’t fly as well as a wild duck or goose so it just kind of hangs out near water. The next day it was still there and it let me get a shot of its face. I saw then that it was an odd duck indeed. The Jimmy Durante of waterfowl. It was as big as a Canada goose.

A few days later I saw posters about a lost pet duck and sure enough, this was the duck I had seen. The poster said “she was very old, lost and probably scared” but she didn’t seem scared when I was near her. More curious than scared, I’d say. But anyhow, I called the phone number on the poster but didn’t get an answer, so hopefully they’ve found her.

Canada geese were in sight of the Muscovy duck, eating the same pond weeds that it eats. The duck will bully smaller wild ducks but it didn’t seem to want to tangle with the geese. That is probably wise.

Soon they’ll all be eating the seeds of American bur reed, which dots the shallows here and there.

Tall white rattlesnake root was once used in a poultice by Native Americans to cure headache, fever, and rattlesnake bite. A tonic made from its bitter roots was also used in place of quinine by early settlers and it is also called gall of the earth due to its bitterness. I like its beautiful lily like white flowers, which always speak of quiet serenity to me. Nothing seems to bother this plant; I never see it eaten by insects or harmed by munching animals, and that could be because it is toxic. It is native to the northeastern and midwestern U.S. and will grow as far south as North Carolina.

I like this scene for two reasons. The waterlily is obvious, but not so obvious is the pattern in the pickerel weed leaf. As fall gets closer these leaves will develop some beautiful and colorful flowing patterns. The light was also beautiful on this day. It looked like it was shining out from the water rather than on it.

We used to call this a Turk’s cap lily but I don’t know if they’re still called that now when people are so easily offended by terminology which in truth, usually comes from ignorance rather than malice. But names don’t matter. It’s an unusually shaped flower in the lily family and one that I’ve never loved enough to grow. I found these growing in a local park.

When I walk through public gardens I’m always surprised to see plants that the people I used to work for wanted nothing to do with. Anything in the allium family was hands off, probably due to the way garlic chives could take over a garden. That meant nodding onion was also left out, which I think is too bad. It’s a plant that I could have used in some of the gardens I worked in.

I saw a petunia that made me think of a cloud.

I like the tree branch patterns in a balloon flower. They’re almost always there, as if the shadows of overhead branches are falling on the flower. I also love that shade of deep blue.

For those who don’t know, balloon flower gets its name from its balloon like buds, which look as if they’re full of gas. Really there is just air inside but they will make a soft popping sound if you squeeze them.  They are native to Japan, Korea, China, and parts of Russia but are now grown all over the world.  Cough syrup was once made from the plant’s roots but I’ve never heard how effective it was.

I see far more of this color bee balm than I do red these days, and I think that’s too bad because I liked the native red. I used to grow the red ones and I had bees and hummingbirds all over them. I’ve never seen a bee or a hummingbird on these plants but I can’t sit and watch for them like I could when I grew the red ones, so maybe they do attract the birds and bees. I hope they do.

In summer, the song sings itself.  ~William Carlos Williams

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Aquatics

It’s that time of year when all the water loving flowers bloom and with 22 out of 30 days in June rainy, they’re loving life and blooming well, as this pickerel weed shows. I usually like to show a closeop of the fuzzy flowers with their yellow spots but water levels in all the ponds are high enough to keep me from getting close enough. This group grew just off shore but was still in two feet of water.

Pickerel weed as the story goes, gets its name from the way pickerel fish hide among the stems. Like so many stories I always thought that though there might be some truth to it, it had probably been “enhanced” over the years, so I always took it with a grain of salt. Then one day I happened to be walking by a fisherman whose rod suddenly bent almost double. I stopped and watched as he reeled in a good sized pickerel that had put up quite a fight. He thanked me for bringing him luck even though I had done nothing, and I asked him where the fish had taken his bait. “Right out there in those pickerel weeds,” he said.

American bur reed has just come into bloom. The spherical bur like parts are its flowers. This plant grows in shallow water near shore and can form huge colonies that can take over small ponds. There are two types of flowers on this plant. The smaller and fuzzier staminate male flowers grow at the top of the stem and the larger pistillate female flowers lower down. Even the larger flowers are less than a half inch across. After pollination the male flowers fall off and the female flowers become a bur-like cluster of beaked fruits that ducks and other waterfowl eat.

If you spend time near ponds in summer in New Hampshire you’re going to see plenty of dragonflies, like this twelve spotted skimmer. To get to 12 on this one you count only the dark wing spots, not the white ones. Skimmers usually fly just above the water looking for flies, mosquitoes, beetles, and other flying insects, but the name “skimmer” comes from the way they can scoop up water to help with egg laying by using two flanges on the underside of the abdomen. This one was perched on shore and would fly out, circle, and return to its perch. All I had to do was be still, watch, and wait.

Swamp candles is the name given to one of our yellow loosestrife species. Though most grow on dry land this one prefers to have its feet wet and it is often found growing just off shore where the ground is more mud than soil. It grows to about knee high and can form quite large colonies. I also see it in ditches and at the edge of forests where the soil stays very moist. The plants pictured here were growing in water at the very edge of where the land met the water.

If you look closely you usually find at least a bit of red somwhere on a swamp candle flower, and on other yellow loosestrife flowers as well. They’re very pretty, even from a distance, and they do indeed light up a swamp or anywhere else they grow.

Joe Pye weed isn’t blooming quite yet but it’s still beautiful with its purple leaves. It is said that the color is there to protect the new growth from sunburn but it will quickly fade to green once the leaves become accustomed to the bright sunlight.  The plant almost always grows near water and is known for its large, dusty rose flower heads that butterflies and bees love. There are two legends about the origin of its name. The best known says Joe Pye was the name of a Native American healer who used the plant to heal, and the second says that the true name is Jopi, which is the native name of the plant, not the healer. I’m more inclined to believe the latter version but in the end I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter. The moment now when I become lost in its beauty is all that matters.

I was walking through some knee high growths of grasses, sedges, and rushes at the edge of a pond and up flew a widow skimmer. I wasn’t thinking of dragonflies at the time but I shouldn’t have been surprised because I’ve read that off in the knee high growth near water is just where this dragonfly likes to be. I’ve noticed by watching them that they like to hang or perch vertically as this one did. I’ve read that females don’t have the white patches on their wings like this one displays. They are called “widows,” it is said, because the males don’t guard the females while they’re laying eggs like other dragonflies do. This one might be an immature male.

I thought I might see a frog to include in this post and I saw many just as they jumped into the water, so instead I settled for a slower moving turtle. Something about this one seems odd to me but I can’t put my finger on what it is. It’s as if there is too much yellow on it, or maybe that the yellow seems brighter than usual, I’m not sure. Maybe its just me and this turtle looks just the way it should. It’s always funny how you can see something like this thousands of times and then one day you pick something out that makes it seem like you’re seeing it for the first time.

One of my favorite wet feet, swampy flowers has just come into bloom and I’m happy to see it. I’m told that blue vervain is actually purple but I didn’t name it. Native Americans had many medicinal uses for the roots, seeds, and leaves of this plant. Its leaves were dried and then used in a tea that was used as a spring tonic. Seeds were roasted and ground into flour, and the roots were used to ease headaches and calm the nerves. I’ve read that even the flowers can be eaten in salad, but I’ve also read that ingesting the plant can interfere with some blood pressure medications, so as is always the case when using wild or unknown plants, care should be taken.

Cattails are flowering and since a single stalk can produce an estimated 220,000 seeds, it looks like a good year. Female green flowers appear near the top of the tall stalk and the fluffy yellowish green male pollen bearing flowers above them. Once fertilized the female parts turn from green to dark brown and the male flowers will fall off, leaving a stiff pointed spike above the familiar cigar shaped seed head.

Cattails were an important food for Native Americans. Their roots contain more starch than potatoes and more protein than rice, and native peoples made flour from them.  They also ate the new shoots in spring, which must have been especially welcome after a long winter of eating dried foods. They had uses for every part of this plant; even the pollen was harvested and used in bread.

One of the most unusual and rare aquatic plants in this area is the water lobelia. I’ve seen it in just one spot and that might be because it is said to be a more northern species. It is said to be an indicator of infertile and relatively pristine shoreline wetlands. The small, pale blue or sometimes white flowers are less than a half inch long and not very showy. As is true with larger lobelias like cardinal flowers, the bases of the 5 petals are fused into a tube and the 2 shorter upper petals fold up. I’ve read that the flowers can bloom and set seed even under water. The seed pods are said to contain numerous seeds and that might be why I saw that there were many more plants this year than there have been in the past.

Chalk fronted corporal is kind of a tedious name for a dragonfly but as I’ve said; I don’t name them. I keep taking photos of this one so I can show you the “corporal stripes” that give it its name and you can just see them there behind the head. It’s not a great shot of the stripes but since I can’t get one to face me it’ll have to do. I’ve noticed that many dragonflies prefer having me behind them or off to the side, not face to face. The white on its body does look chalky so that fact along with the stripes makes its name sensible, even if it is a little tedious. This dragonfly is another skimmer; one of the “king skimmers,” so called because of the way they dominate dragonfly activity at a pond. I’ve seen them chase off many other dragonflies that I was trying to get shots of so again, the name fits. I like to see the patterns in a dragonfly’s wings and these are quite beautiful.

This shot is for those who’ve never seen a fragrant white water lily bud.

Those buds will open into what I think of as the queen of the aquatics, which is the beautiful waterlily seen here. I saw something strange happen this year, speaking of water liles. A small fire pond next to a shopping center is full of fragrant white waterlilies and that’s my usual “go to” spot when I feel like taking photos of them. I went one day and decided it was just too cloudy to do anything worthwhile. Then a couple of days later after some heavy rain I went back to find that the water level of the pond had risen so much not a single flower could be seen. Were they all under water? I don’t know; I’ve never seen it happen before. Hopefully they’ll bloom again when the water level drops.

I call it frog jelly but a more correct name would be frog spawn. How it got on top of this lily pad I don’t know. If you click on the photo and look closely you can see tadpoles, but I wouldn’t think they’d be doing very well under the hot sunshine we had this day. By the way, you can buy jars of frog jelly online. I didn’t read the ingredients, and I’m not really sure I want to.

I believe this dragonfly is another skimmer called the slaty skimmer but I’m not sure because of its blotchy body color.  Mature males have dark blue bodies and black heads but since the blue coloration is a bit splotchy on this one I think it must be an immature male growing into its adult body color. In any event it’s a beautiful dragonfly and is supposed to be another “king skimmer,” even though I’ve seen the chalk fronted corporals chase them off many times.

From a distance I thought I was shooting another slaty skimmer but then I saw the white “spangle” on its wing in the foreground and I realized it was a spangled skimmer. It’s hard to see but there is a black spangle on the outside leading edge of the wing and a white one on the inside, toward the body. The spangles are called pterostigmata, which is why I call them spangles. This dragonfly, if I understand what I’ve read correctly, is a mature male. Its blue color shows that; immature males and females are brown with yellow stripes. It was amazingly hot and humid when I was taking some of these photos but it didn’t seem to bother the dragonflies.

I always feel fortunate when I find floating heart plants growing close enough to shore to get photos of them, but even then I have to use a zoom lens. This is our smallest water lily, with small, heart-shaped, greenish, or reddish to purple leaves that are about an inch and a half wide. They are what give the plant its name. The tiny flowers of floating heart are about the size of a common aspirin, but never seem to open fully. I look for them in shallow, still water but they aren’t common. I saw a lot of insects visiting the flowers on this day and I was thinking that the flowers might not open fully so water doesn’t get in. The cup shape might prevent some splash over.

Floating hearts grow a foot or two (sometimes more) off shore and in this spot forget me nots grew in the water right at the shore line. The forget me nots were so lush and tall they actually kept blocking my shot of the floating hearts. I never thought much about forget me nots and water until I saw them at this spot a year or two ago. Since then I’ve remembered the time I found a huge colony of thousands of plants growing on a river bank that floods regularly, so there is no doubt that these plants like a lot of water.

Pale St. Johnswort flowers are sometimes quite pale and at other times bright, lemon yellow, but they always seem to grow new branches just under the terminal flower cluster, as can be seen here. The plants are usually in colonies where they grow, with some right at the water’s edge and others a foot or two away. The plants grow to about shin height with flowers that are about half the size of a standard St. Johnswort, or about a half inch across. I’ve never seen this plant grow anywhere but in or near water on pond shores or in wetlands.

I’m far from being an authority on insects but most of the dragonflies in this post are fairly common so I didn’t think any of them would trip me up. Until I met this one, that is. At first I thought it was an eastern pondhawk because of the powdery blue color, but they don’t have amber on their wings, so it couldn’t be that. You can see how the leading wing edges are colored amber and they’re the same color where they meet the body. I have a bad shot that shows yellow on the side of the body, so I’ve settled on the yellow sided skimmer, and I think it’s an immature male. If I’m wrong with this or any other dragonfly identification I hope someone will let me know.

NOTE: Thanks to some help from a friend I went and looked up blue dashers, and I think this dragonfly is one of those. They have the same amber on the wings and other features match the male blue dasher as well. Thanks Georgette!

This looks like a side view of the yellow sided skimmer in the previous shot but there is no amber on the wings, so that can’t be it. It has white appendages (ceri) at the very tip of its “tail,” its wings are clear and it has a greenish thorax, which is the part where the wings meet the body. It has a green face and blue green eyes, and likes to perch on the ground, so all of that points to an immature male eastern pondhawk. Males are at first green, slowly changing to powdery blue over several weeks, and this one had apparently almost completed the process. Pondhawks are said to be “ferocious hunters” which will eat just about any other insect, including other dragonflies and damselflies. Though they’re found near water they can also be found in meadows, away from water. I sat and watched this one fly off and return to this spot a few times but I never saw it eating. It was tough to get a clear shot of it with such a busy background so I was hoping it would land on a twig or leaf, but it never did.

One of my favorite “pond flowers” is swamp milkweed. It normally grows a few feet from the water up on shore but this year for the first time I found it growing in the water of a slow moving stream. It’s a beautiful thing that always reminds me of millefiori paperweights. Millefiori means “thousand flowers.” I have a small paperweight collection from years ago and I often think of how nice it would be to have something like this encased in glass on a desk, but as far as I know it has never been reproduced. The “flowers” seen in paperweights are sections of colored glass rods, so maybe this color is hard to get. Too bad; it would be a wonderful thing for a nature lover to see on those below zero winter days.

There are certain rare flowers that I always hope to see and one of those is the rose pogonia orchid, so imagine my surprise last year when I came upon this small bog mat / island full of them just a few yards offshore in a local pond. I was stunned, and what stunned me more than anything was how I had visited this place so many times before and never seen them. That was because I had never been here at just this time of year. Last year when I first saw them I tried a monopod and didn’t get a very good shot of them so this year I used a tripod, but still didn’t get a very good shot of them. Next year waders?

I’m showing this close up from a few years ago, taken when I went to Distant Hill Gardens in Walpole, so you can see how beautiful they are. This encounter illustrates once again why it’s important for anyone interested in nature study to get out there every day, and to revisit the same places time and again. All of life is in a state of constant change and the best way to become aware of those changes is to simply pay attention.

Next year when I see native dogwoods and tall meadow rue blooming I’ll know that the orchids should also be blooming. Great spangled fritillary butterflies will appear, blueberries will start to ripen, and elderberries will start setting fruit at the same time the orchids bloom. Life is a circle, and when it’s time to see the orchids again I’ll know by watching for these and other signs. This isn’t anything new; it’s how nomadic peoples got to a place at just the right time to find food. Nature set the table but they had to provide the transportation. Get there at the right time and sleep with a full belly. Miss it and go hungry. Learn what signs to watch for and you’ll never miss out.

Anyhow, now I know that if I want to see rose pogonia orchids in bloom all I have to do is visit this spot when I see the swamp milkweeds and the other plants in this blog post starting to blossom. I’ll be there, because they’re such a rare and beautiful thing to see. If they aren’t disturbed they should be there for many years to come.

The dome of coolness above the pond throbs with croaking. Dragonflies and damselflies pierce the slanting light that burnishes the surface of the water with fire. At the edges frogs wait to spring.
~Grace Dane Mazur

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Mid September Flowers

Our beautiful fall roadside flowers are slowly showing themselves more and more each day, with asters and goldenrods dominating until frost. And frost may be on the horizon; we’ve already seen 20 degree F. temperatures in the northern half of the state.

We have so many aster species here it’s virtually impossible to identify them all in the time I have but New England asters are easier than any because of their size, both of the flowers and of the plants. These deep purple ones are my favorites. They come out a little later than the others but they’re so beautiful it’s worth the wait.

This aster has me baffled. Its flower is as big as a New England aster but note how few petals (actually ray flowers) it has compared to the purple one in the previous photo. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before. Though white is a common color most if not all of our white asters are smaller than New England asters.

Blue stemmed goldenrod (Solidago caesia) appears early on in summer but waits until September to bloom. Its stems grow vertically until the flowers begin to open and then they fall over into a more horizontal position, as if to show off the yellow blooms that grow in tufts all along the stem. This plant tolerates shade and seems to prefer places where it will only get two or three hours of sunlight. It isn’t considered rare but I know of only one or two places where it grows. It is also called wreath goldenrod.

The stems of blue stemmed goldenrod get their blue color from the same natural wax coating that is found on grapes, plums, blueberries and other plants. The coating is called a bloom and plants use it as a form of protection against moisture loss. It’s made up of tiny powdery, whitish crystals which reflect and scatter light in ways that can make the surface that they cover appear very blue. The heat can make the blue coating disappear but I was able to find two or three stems that still had it. It’s a beautiful shade of blue.

The white heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) (I think) is a plant that is so loaded with small white flowers along its stems that it doesn’t look as if you could fit one more on it. For that reason it has another common name; the many flowered aster. It is also called small white aster, smooth white aster, and old field aster. There are many asters that look alike and to complicate matters they cross breed and create natural hybrids. One of the features that help with the identity of the heath aster is how it has nearly every inch of free stem covered by a blossom, all of them on the sunny side of the stem. The shrubby little plants are about knee high and I find them growing in unmown fields and pastures. The blossoms are fairly small; 1/4 to 1/2 inch across at best.

Goldenrods are generally tough plants, as this clump coming up in an abandoned parking lot shows. At first I thought it was rough stemmed goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) because of its clumping habit but since the leaves aren’t toothed I doubt it is that one. Butterflies, bees, and other insects visit goldenrods for their nectar. And no goldenrods do not cause hay fever, because its pollen grains are too big and sticky to become airborne. Though many blame goldenrod for their sneezing fits it is actually ragweed pollen that causes them. I told a woman this once and she absolutely refused to believe it. Before she turned on her heel and stomped off she told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. “Don’t you think I know what causes my allergies?!” she asked. Some people just refuse to believe the truth, even when it is put right in front of them.

Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) is having a last gasp I think, and it’s time to say goodbye to this interesting plant until next year. It originally hails from Europe and is thought to have been introduced in the colonial era. I’m guessing it originally came over in the tail of a horse or cow. It has spread throughout the United States, much to the dismay of farmers and cattle ranchers. It is also called spear thistle, with good reason. The first flowers often open in the center of the plant and that can make it tricky to get a photo of. Those spines are very sharp. Bees love these flowers and it is not uncommon to have them flying all around me as I take photos of it.

Most bull thistles look like this right now so the goldfinches have been eating well.

If the square stems and tufts of tiny pink / purple flowers in the leaf axils don’t ring a bell, then one sniff of a crushed leaf will tell you immediately that the plant is wild mint (Mentha arvensis.) Mint has been used by man since the dawn of time and Pliny, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Charlemagne each wrote of its virtues. Each time we see it we are seeing one of mankind’s earliest memories.

Most jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) plants are finished for the season but I see them still blooming here and there. This plant looked a little sad but it was still blooming. There are still plenty of pollinators about so I’m sure they’re happy to see more flowers blooming.

Jewelweed has such an interesting and unusual flower. They dangle at the ends of long, slender filaments and dance in the slightest hint of a breeze though, so that makes them a real challenge to photograph. The plant gets its common name from the way raindrops sparkle like jewels on its wax coated leaves.

At first I thought this was a Shasta daisy but the leaves were too fleshy, so I believe it was a Montauk daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum) which is a Japanese creation also called the Nippon daisy. It is extremely hardy; I’ve seen it bloom after a 28 degree F. night and it is also a very late bloomer. It would be an excellent choice for a fall garden.

Red clover continues to be beautiful and continues to shine its divine light out at any who care to take a moment to look at it. It is a tough plant that will bloom until a freeze. Sometimes it’s the very last flower I see for the season, and that seems as it should be; a bit of one-upmanship for what is a lowly, hated weed to many. That’s how I felt about it for years until I sat with it one evening and let it shine its light on me. Then my opinion changed. 

I always find silverrod in dry, gravelly places at the edge of the woods near the end of August. It’s hard to get a good photo of because it’s usually surrounded by other plants and rarely grows alone. It grows about knee high and isn’t seen anywhere near as often as the yellow goldenrods.

I think almost everyone knows what goldenrod looks like but not everyone has seen silverrod. Silverrod (Solidago bicolor) is in the goldenrod family and is also called white goldenrod. It is the only native white flowered goldenrod found in the northeast. The small flowers almost always have at least one ant on them but all I saw were spider webs on this one.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) was covered with insects. Yarrow starts blooming usually in June and then takes a rest in the heat of summer before re-blooming when it cools off again, much like dandelions do. Its flowers are sparse at this time of year but I find it blooming here and there. Humans have used this plant in various ways for thousands of years. Its stems were used to glean answers from the Chinese I Ching, an ancient Chinese divination text which is said to pre date recorded history, and it has been found in an excavation of a Neanderthal grave site. Yarrow was known as the soldier’s woundwort and herbe militaris for centuries, and was used to stop the flow of blood. It was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs.” It was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today. Native Americans used it for everything from snake bites to deodorant.

Sand jointweed (Polygonum articulatum) is a curious little plant that gets its common name from the way it that grows in pure sand, and from its many jointed stems. I know of only one place where it grows. It is an annual but the plants must produce plenty of seed because there seem to be more plants each year. They grow to only about knee high.

How small are sand jointweed blossoms? This shot from 2016 shows that they’re about 1/8 of an inch across, or nearly the same size as Abraham Lincoln’s ear on a penny. You can see the curiously jointed stems that give the plant its common name in this shot as well.

Much like the red clover this dahlia had the light of creation in its blossoms. It’s hard to know what to say about such a thing, and I suppose that means it leaves me speechless.

This yellow azalea is another plant that I don’t know what to say about, because I don’t expect to see an azalea blooming at this time of year; azaleas are spring bloomers. Each fall I tell myself I will come back and see if it blooms in spring as well, but of course I forget every spring. There are lots of plants that have their primary bloom in spring and then re-bloom later on, and I have a feeling that’s what this one does. It has just a few blossoms in the fall and if this is its primary bloom time I’d call it far from showy.

Out of a pond with hundreds if not thousands of fragrant white waterlilies (Nymphaea odorata) blooming, this was the last one I saw. They whisper thoughts of serenity to me and they’re another flower that it’s hard to see pass on. But I think that the void that comes with their passing always makes the following spring and summer so much more welcome and enjoyable.  

Summer is leaving silently. Much like a traveler approaching the end of an amazing journey. ~Darnell Lamont Walker

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Early August Flowers

Beautiful little marsh St. John’s wort (Hypericum virginicum) grows in the wet soil at the edge of ponds but it isn’t easy to get a photo of because it closes its flowers at night and won’t open them again until they’re in full sunshine the following afternoon. You never find them blooming on a cloudy day or in the morning so it is a plant that makes you go to it when it wants you to come, especially if you happen to be an insect or a nature nut. This is the only St. John’s wort I know of with pink flowers; all of our other St John’s worts are yellow.

If you’re very lucky you might find swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) growing alongside the marsh St. John’s wort like I did. It’s hard to believe it’s already time to say goodbye to this beautiful flower. I do hope you’ve had a chance to meet it in person.

Burdock (Arctium lappa) is blooming and it hopes you’ll come by later and give it a ride. The plant is a good example of a biennial plant. In the first year of life it grows leaves and in the second year it flowers, sets seeds, and dies. This is what biennials do, so we know that its tubular flowers with purple stamens and white styles signal that it is close to finishing its journey. There is no reason to grieve though, because the germination rate of its seeds is high and there will surely be burdocks for many years to come, especially if you (or your dog) help spread them around.

Burdock is said to have been introduced from Europe because it was noted in 1672 by self-styled naturalist John Josselyn, who wrote that it had “sprung up since the English Planted and kept Cattle in New-England.” He said the same thing about the dandelion, but fossil evidence has proved him wrong. Native American tribes across the country had many uses for burdock, both as a medicine and food, so some form of the plant had to have been here long before European settlers arrived. Its spread across the country from New England to the Pacific took about 270 years, because the Native Americans of western Washington State said it had been recently introduced there in the 1930s.  Burdock’s tubular purple flowers are densely packed into round prickly flower heads, but though many are familiar with the flower heads few seem to ever notice the flowers. As the above photo shows, when fully open long white styles grow from the dark purple flowers.

Pearl crescent butterflies (Phyciodes tharos) seem to love burdock flowers. There were clouds of them around these plants.  I’ve read that males have black antenna knobs, so I’m guessing that this must be a female.

I’m seeing more tall blue lettuce (Lactuca biennis) flowers this year than I ever have, and they seem to be everywhere I go.. These particular flowers were a lighter ice blue but sometimes they can be quite dark. They grow in a cluster at the very top of the sometimes six foot tall plant and each blossom is no bigger than a pencil eraser. They’re always worth a look because they’re always beautiful.

All flowers have, in my opinion, a divine light shining from them and few flowers illustrate that better than orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca.) It’s a beautiful thing that I don’t really see much of, even though it is said to be invasive. I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one in orange and I’ve wondered if maybe their scarcity is due to the color orange being virtually invisible to bees. These flowers do reflect ultraviolet light though so you would think that some insects must find them, but on this day in the meadow these grew in there were tiny butterflies all over many other species, but not a single one landed on these blossoms.

In my last post that showed an  Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I never showed a face on view, so here is one. I still don’t see a monkey. According to the USDA it grows in almost every state in the country and nearly every Canadian province, but I rarely find it. They usually grow to about 2 feet tall and growing in wet, sandy soil. Each plant has its flowers strung along the stem, coming out of the leaf axils. I’ve read that the flowers can occasionally be pink or white. 

It’s time to say goodbye to my old friends the purple flowering raspberries (Rubus odoratus.) This shade tolerant plant is in the rose family and the 2 inch wide flowers might look like a rose at first glance, but one look at its large, light gathering, maple like leaves will show that it isn’t. The plant has no thorns but it does have a raspberry like fruit. The flower petals always look a bit wrinkled and once you know it, it’s difficult to mistake it for anything else.

The fruit of the purple flowering raspberry looks like a large raspberry and is edible but is on the tart, dry side. I’ve heard that it is sweeter if put on the very tip of the tongue but I haven’t tried that. Native Americans had over 100 uses for this plant, both as food and medicine.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a European native that has been cultivated for centuries. The ancient Greeks knew it well and it was grown in the herb gardens of Charlemagne. It was brought from England by early colonists and by 1785 it had naturalized in New England. The flat flower heads are made up of many button-like disc flowers that have a peculiar, medicine like fragrance that some compare to camphor. The plant has a long history of use as an insect repellant and early colonials added it to the straw in mattresses to keep bedbugs away.

Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) gets its common name from the way the chopped and boiled leaves produce a soapy lather that is particularly good at removing grease. This plant is a native of Europe and is thought to have been brought over by colonists to be used as a soap substitute. Though it is also used medicinally it is considered toxic and some people have violent toxic reactions to it.  Another common name for this plant is bouncing bet. I’ve heard several stories about how this name came about but I like the one that claims that the curved petals catch the breeze and make the plant bounce back and forth in the wind. The flowers are very fragrant.

The backward bending petals make soapwort easy to identify. They bend back as they age. The flowers will be pink or lavender in full sun and whiter in shade. They are said to open toward evening, but I’ve seen them in the morning.

Lobelia inflata is called Indian tobacco because its round seed pods resemble the pouches that Native Americans carried their smoking materials in. It is an annual that grows new from seed each year and its tiny flowers are very hard to get a good photo of. Native Americans used all parts of the plant medicinally, and some tribes also used it in their religious ceremonies. Though the flowers closely resemble those of pale spike lobelia that growth habit does not. Pale spike lobelia grows in a single erect flower head and this plant is branched.

A friend at work grows Tomatillos in his garden and I noticed that the flowers were both unusual and quite pretty. I’ve never grown it.

The tomatillo fruit is even more unusual. It has a berry like fruit inside a papery husk and my friend uses it for salsa. According to Wikipedia the plant is also known as the “Mexican husk tomato. It is a plant of the nightshade family bearing small, spherical and green or green-purple fruit of the same name.” They originated in Mexico and were cultivated in the pre-Columbian era.

Spearmint  (Mentha viridis) has been used since recorded time both medicinally and as a flavoring. Pliny wrote of it and the ancient Romans cultivated it to scent their bath water. In Athens where every part of the body was perfumed with a different scent mint was specially designated to the arms. Spearmint is originally from Europe but the pilgrims brought it on their first trip to America, so valuable was the plant to them, and now it is found in the wild. The flowers are said to be pink or white but these were white, blue, pink and lavender. I wish I could send you their scent because it was refreshing on a hot summer day.

Wild thyme is blooming in lawns. Bees love these tiny blossoms so I’m sure they are just ecstatic.

And they are tiny; I won’t tell you how many tries this shot took. Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming and the ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burned it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage, so it has been with us for a very long time.

Balloon flowers (Platycodon grandiflorus) get their common names from their buds, which look like small, air filled balloons. It’s an Asian native that apparently doesn’t escape gardens, at least in this area.

Balloon flower is also called the Chinese bellflower and is in the campanula family. I love its blue color. This one had beautiful blue veins.

One day I stood on the shore of a pond full of hundreds of fragrant white waterlilies. The breeze was blowing over them and the incredible fragrance that came across the pond made me want to never leave that place. But of course I had to leave eventually, so I brought this photo home to remind me of that day. There are some things that happen to you in nature that you never forget, and for me I’m sure this will be one of those.

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. ~Lewis Mumford

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More Mid August Flowers

I was very happy to find a new colony of narrow leaved gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) on my recent trip to Pitcher Mountain. I saw a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye as I drove by and thought it was probably vetch, but I turned around and was surprised by what you see here. These plants are on the rare side in this area so finding more is always a good thing.

These flowers appear identical to those of bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) but the foliage is quite different. Narrow leaf gentians like moist, calcium rich soil and that’s one reason you don’t see them in this area very often. Another reason is that the flowers never open so insects have to force their way in, and it takes a strong insect like a bumblebee to do so. I saw several trying to get into the flowers while I was with them on this day. Its seeds are too small to interest birds and its foliage too bitter to interest herbivores. Put all of that together and it’s a wonder that this plant is seen at all. It’s listed as rare, endangered or vulnerable in many areas.

Pretty groundnut (Apias americana) flowers have just started blooming. They come in pink, purple or reddish brown and always remind me of the helmets worn by Spanish conquistadors. The plant is a vine that will climb just about anything and I usually find it growing in the lower branches of trees and shrubs along the river.

Indeed Spanish explorers most likely would have seen the plant, because its potato like tuberous roots were a very important food source for Native Americans from New England to Florida. It has been found in archeological digs of Native settlements dating back 9,000 years. Native Americans used the roots of the plant in the same ways we use potatoes today, but groundnut “potatoes” contain about three times the protein. Natives taught the early colonials how to use the groundnut and the plant helped save the lives of the Pilgrims during their first few years as settlers. Not surprisingly another name for it is Indian potato.

Native hog peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata ) flowers are small and beautiful, but it’s a plant that comes with a lot of baggage. As the story goes author and forager Samuel Thayer calls them ground beans rather than hog peanut because he claims that the name “hog peanut” was a racial slur against Native Americans. He says that the Europeans came to a point where they refused to eat them because even though the small legumes saved many of their lives they insisted they were only fit for hogs (implying that Native Americans were hogs.) Personally I find this story hard to believe because anyone who has ever raised pigs knows that they root around in the soil looking for just the kinds of legumes that grow on these vines, and it isn’t hard to imagine colonials, who raised pigs, saying “look, the hogs have found some nuts.” I call it hog peanut here not to slander anyone but because nine out of ten people will use a plant’s common name when they look for it in field guides, and field guides call the plant hog peanut. If Samuel Thayer can get them to change that, then I’ll be happy to call it a ground bean.

Like a true peanut, after pollination some of its flowers bury themselves in the soil and form a small, edible, bean like seeds that give the plant its common name. Mice collect these seeds and store them in large caches that Native Americans used to search for. They can be eaten raw or cooked. The plant also forms inch long, pea-like, above ground pods that contain three or four inedible seeds. Hog peanut is a strong, wiry vine that can cover large areas of forest floor and choke out other plants. It is also good at tripping up hikers.

I found a forest of downy rattlesnake plantain orchids (Goodyera pubescens) all in bloom.

The tiny flowers look like miniature versions of our native pink lady’s slipper orchid flowers. Each one is so small it could easily hide behind a pea with room to spare. This photo shows where the “downy” part of the common name comes from. Everything about the flower stalk is hairy.

I like the downy rattlesnake plantain orchid’s mottled silvery foliage as much as its blossoms.  The flowers grow on a relatively long stalk and though I’ve tried hundreds of times I’ve been able to show the flower stalk and basal leaves together clearly in a photo only once. This orchid grows in the woods usually in deep shade, but I find that most plants get at least an hour or two of sunshine no matter where they grow.

Slender gerardia (Agalinis tenuifoliais) is also called false foxglove. There might be a faint resemblance but I think it would be hard to confuse the two, especially after a good look at the slender, sword shaped leaves. The blossoms are very hairy and have a long curved protruding pistil and especially from the side look nothing like foxglove to me.

Slender gerardia is a shy little plant that grows in full sun. It has the unusual habit of dropping all of its opened flowers each afternoon. It opens fresh buds at the start of each day which means that its flowers don’t even last for a full day, so insects (and photographers) have to be quick. The plants that I find are always 6-8 inches tall but I’ve read that they can reach 2 feet.

I’m seeing more slender gerardia flowers this year than I ever have before. You can see in this shot how the blossoms seem to float in the air because the leaves and stems are so small.  

I know of only one place to find field milkwort (Polygala sanguinea) and it is always worth the walk to see them.  The flowers are very beautiful and unusual enough to make you want to sit beside them for a while and study them, and that’s just what I usually do.

On field milkwort flowers what look like petals arranged on a central stem are actually individual flowers packed into a raceme no bigger than the end of an average index finger. Each tiny overlapping flower has two large sepals, three small sepals, and three small petals that form a narrow tube. Several different kinds of bees help pollinate this plant but on this day they were covered in bumblebees. Its flowers can be white, purple, pink, or green and I’ve noticed that the color can vary considerably from plant to plant.

I thought I’d show you a field milkwort flower head on a penny so you could get a better idea of their size. You can also see the small sword shaped leaves in this photo, and how the flower heads sit at the very top of the stem. Both field milkwort and the slender gerardia we saw previously grow in gravel in full sun.

Native Canada St. John’s wort (Hypericum canadense) has deep red seed pods but its flowers come in the more traditional yellow. Though some very reputable websites will tell you that this plant likes wet soil I always find it in dry gravel. It has grown in full sunshine for months now without harm and I think most of the watering it has had has come from morning dew, so it’s a very tough little plant. I wonder if they might have it confused with dwarf St. John’s wort (Hypericum mutilum) which likes the wet soil of pond edges, or if I have it confused with yet another variety of St. John’s wort that I don’t know about. Canada St. John’s wort is also called lessor Canada St. John’s wort, so I assume that there must be a greater Canada St. John’s wort. These blossoms are tiny; less than the diameter of a pencil eraser.

It’s almost time to say goodbye to blue vervain (Verbena hastata) and you can tell that because the remaining blossoms are at the tops of the stems. This is another plant that loves water and it grows near ponds and rivers, and even wet roadside ditches. The bitter roots of this plant were used by native Americans to relieve gastric irritation, as an expectorant, and to induce sweating. The seeds were roasted and ground into flour by some tribes, and others dried the flowers and used them as snuff to treat nosebleeds. Natives introduced the plant to the Europeans and they used it in much the same ways.

I just love the color of blue vervain.

Pretty little blue toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis) must be one of the longest blooming wildflowers we have here. It usually starts blooming in May and I’m still seeing it in quite large numbers. I love the shade of blue that it wears.

I think I’ve seen more jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) this year than I ever have. This plant typically blossoms right up until a frost but as day length shortens the plants will produce smaller, closed flowers with no petals and no nectar. They self-pollinate and their sole purpose is to produce plenty of seeds. Jewelweed gets its name not from its orange flowers but from the way raindrops sparkle like jewels on its wax coated leaves.

Jewelweed blossoms dangle at the ends of long filaments and sway in the slightest breath of a breeze, so it’s always tricky getting a shot of one. I like to do it for the practice, but it can make you crazy.

I’ve probably shown too many fragrant white waterlily photos already this year but this one was covered by what I thought might be tiny black water lily aphids (Rhopalosiphum nymphaea.) These insects feed by draining sap from the lily’s leaves, thereby weakening the plant so I wasn’t happy to see them. But when I got home and saw the photo I had taken I saw that even covered with insects, fragrant white waterlilies are very beautiful. It’s one of my favorite aquatic plants.

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. ~Edgar Allan Poe

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Mid August Wildflowers

Because I have trouble seeing red I doubted I’d ever be able to show cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis) on this blog but finally, after years of searching for them, here they are. Judy from the New England Garden and Thread blog wrote and told me she had seen them along a stream up in Stoddard and her excellent directions led me right to them. The color red when it is against the color green becomes invisible to me, but these bright red flowers were against gray stones and blue water and for the first time in my life I saw cardinal flowers. Though I couldn’t get close they were even more beautiful than in photos.

Here’s a closer look. Unfortunately because of all the rain the stream had come up on the stems and the plants swayed back and forth wildly, which made getting a photo almost impossible. Out of probably close to 50 attempts I got exactly one useable photo and this one is cropped out of that single shot we saw previously. But the beauty of it all is now I know what the plants look like, where they grow and when they blossom, so I’ll be able to go back and see them next year. Thank you Judy, it was worth the drive!

I can’t think of a single time that I have found northern water horehound (Lycopus uniflorus) growing away from water. It’s an odd little plant that might get knee high on a good day, and often leans toward the water that it grows near. Its tiny flowers grow in round tufts at each leaf axil and remind me of motherwort, which has the same habit. It is in the mint family and has a square stem as so many of the plants in that family do. It is also closely related to American water horehound (Lycopus americanus) and the two plants are easily confused. Paying close attention to leaf shape helps tell them apart. The foliage is said to be very bitter and possibly toxic, but Native Americans used the tuberous roots for food.

The flowers of northern water horehound are pretty little bell shaped things, but they are small enough to need a hand lens (or macro lens) to really appreciate them. The tiny things are pollinated by bees, wasps and flies and each one will become 4 small nutlets.  I don’t know what birds or animals eat the seeds, but muskrats love the roots. Another name for the plant is northern bugleweed. I think this is the earliest I’ve ever seen it flower.

Forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) have just started to bloom. I love their bright color and always look forward to seeing them as soon as August arrives.

Eastern forked blue curls have beautiful flowers that might make a half inch across on a good day and the entire plant barely reaches ankle high, so it’s a challenging plant to photograph. One unusual thing about the flower other than its unique beauty, is its four long, arching stamens that dust bees with pollen when they land on its lower lip. You can just see the white pollen granules on the ends of the arched stamens in this photo.

The insect is guided by the spotted lower lip of the flower. This plant is an annual that grows new from seed each year. It seems to like sandy soil and I find it growing along river banks and sometimes roadsides, and sometimes in my own yard.

This very beautiful rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) grows just off the side of an old dirt road at the edge of a swamp. At least I think it is rosebay willowherb; there seems to be some confusion among sources about the regions it grows in. According to the USDA it doesn’t grow in New England, but the University of Maine lists it in its database. Another name for the plant is fireweed and Henry David Thoreau mentions seeing great stands of it in 1857, so I’m wondering if the USDA map is incorrect. If you live in New Hampshire and have seen this plant I’d love to hear from you.

Narrow leaved gentians (Gentiana linearis) grow alongside the same road that the rosebay willowherbs were on. Gentians of any kind are extremely rare in these parts and I’m always as excited to see them as I would be to see a field full of orchids.

Narrow leaf gentians like moist, calcium rich soil and that’s one reason you don’t see them here very often, because our soil is generally acidic. Another reason is that the flowers never open so insects have to force their way in, and it takes a strong insect like a bumblebee to do so. Third is how its seeds are too small to interest birds and its foliage too bitter to interest herbivores. Put all of that together and it’s a wonder that this plant is seen at all. It’s listed as rare, endangered or vulnerable in many areas. I love its beautiful deep blue color and I hope this small colony will spread. Luckily readers have told me that there are also other hidden colonies of it in Nelson as well.

It isn’t uncommon to see a carpet of knee high, white blooms in the woods at this time of year. White wood aster (Aster divaricatus) is known for its drought tolerance and will grow under a heavy leaf canopy. The stalked, coarsely toothed, heart shaped leaves help with identifying this plant. The small, one inch flowers of white wood asters can have red or yellow centers. This aster is very easy to grow and makes an excellent choice for a dry shaded woodland garden. It is best used in mass plantings and many nurseries sell native asters grown from seed. Where I work they’re used as under plantings for lilacs, but the choice was theirs and they moved under the lilacs completely on their own.

A roadside stream was filled with fragrant white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) and I had to stop and see.

It’s hard not to just sit and stare at something so beautiful, lost in the fire that burns at its center.

I first met the beautiful little marsh St. John’s wort (Hypericum virginicum) when I was in a kayak and I remember what a time I had getting a photo of them then. Luckily though, I found them growing in the wet soil at the edge of a pond so getting their photo is easier these days. Sort of, anyway; this plant closes its flowers at night and won’t open them again until they’re in full sunshine the following afternoon, so you’ll never find them blooming on a cloudy day or in the morning.

This is the only St. John’s wort I know of with pink flowers; all of our other St John’s worts are yellow. The plant likes saturated soil and will even grow in standing water at the shoreline. The flowers are small, about 3/4 of an inch across on a good day but usually more like 1/2 an inch. This beautiful little shin high plant grows south to Florida and crosses the Mississippi River only in Texas and Oklahoma.

Like the cardinal flower seen earlier the club spur orchid (Platanthera clavellata) has never been seen on this blog, because I’ve never seen one until very recently. I jumped a roadside ditch, looked down and discovered that I was almost stepping on a group of 5-7 plants. They’re small plants, no taller than 6 inches, and the flowers are also very small. Each plant has a single leaf at the base of the stem and another about half way up.

The flowers of this orchid seem to go every which way, spiraling up the stem as they do, so getting a photo of just one is impossible. I couldn’t even seem to get a shot looking into one. My orchid books say this orchid is “occasional“, meaning it isn’t rare but it isn’t common either. It self-pollinates so it doesn’t have to rely on insects. Orchids are notorious for disappearing from one year to the next but I hope to see these again.

The flowers of mullein (Verbascum thapsus) grow in a great long spike and they bloom from the bottom to the top. Once the blossoms reach the very top of the flower spike the plant is done. Native Americans used tea made from its large, gray green furry leaves to treat asthma and other respiratory ailments. It is also said to be useful as a relaxant and sleep aid.

Mullein is a biennial and flowers and dies in its second year of growth. It is considered a weed but if all of its flowers opened at once along its tall flower stalk I think that it would be a prized garden specimen.

The Shasta daisy was developed by plant breeder Luther Burbank over 100 years ago and was named for the white snow of Mount Shasta. These plants are a hybrid cross of the common roadside ox-eye daisy and an English field daisy called Leucanthemum maximum. They are one of the easiest perennials to grow and, other than an occasional weeding, need virtually no care. Dwarf varieties are less apt to have their stems bent over by heavy rains. I haven’t seen many of them this year, and this one was quite late.

I’m still seeing scenes like this one here and there along roadsides and I always try to stop and get a photo when I do. That leads to a few curious stares from people but I hope they also notice the flowers when they stare. Next time maybe it will be they who will stop and take photos.

Many people have never learned to see the beauty of flowers, especially those that grow unnoticed. ~Erika Just

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Late June Flowers

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 black dots on its yellow petals make this flower very easy to identify. Originally from Europe, it can be found in meadows and along roadside growing in full sun.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is not a native plant so I’m always surprised to see it growing here and there along the edge of the forest. 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. It’s an unusual and beautiful flower that does well in gardens.

Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) trees can be messy but I’d still love to have one in my yard because they’re one of our most beautiful trees. Imagine a 100 foot tall tree covered in large white, orchid like blossoms and you’ll have a good mental picture of the catalpa. This native tree is used ornamentally, but it needs plenty of room because it gets very large.

At 1-2 inches catalpa tree flowers are large. Each flower will become a long, bean like seed pod and when I was a boy we called them string bean trees. Luckily we were never foolish enough to eat any of the “beans” because they’re toxic. The word catalpa comes from the Native American Cherokee tribe. Other tribes called it catawba. Some tribes used its inner bark to make a tea which had a sedative effect and is said to be mildly narcotic. The bark tea was also used to treat malaria.

I find mallow plants (Malvaceae) growing in strange places like on roadsides but I think most are escapees from someone’s garden. The flowers on this example look a lot like those of vervain mallow (Malva alcea), which is a European import. Like all plants in the mallow family its flowers were large and beautiful. I like its wrinkled petals, which look like they were cut from crepe paper. Other well-known plants in this family include hibiscus, hollyhocks, and rose of Sharon.

I sample the fragrance of roses every chance I get because they take me back to my childhood and our hedge full of gloriously scented cabbage roses. Those poor roses attracted rose chafers by the billions it seemed, but if you sat out on the porch and closed your eyes on a warm summer evening you didn’t have to imagine what heaven would smell like. You knew that you were smelling it right here on this earth. The one pictured smelled just like those old cabbage roses.

Brown knapweed (Centaurea jacea) has just started to bloom. I’ve always thought that knapweed flowers were very beautiful but unfortunately this plant is also from Europe and according to the U.S. Forest Service is a “highly invasive weed that is capable of forming large infestations under favorable conditions.”  The large infestations crowd out native plants including those used for forage on pasture lands, so it is not well liked by ranchers. The brown bracts below the flower are what give the plant its common name. The flowers seem to be very darkly colored this year, or maybe that’s because they had just opened.

One of the native foods found here in New Hampshire is the cranberry. I usually find them in wet, boggy areas near ponds and that’s where these were. We have two kinds here, the common cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) and the small cranberry (Vaccinium microcarpum.) I think the plants pictured are the common cranberry.

Early European settlers thought cranberry flowers resembled the neck, head, and bill of a crane so they called them crane berries. The flower petals do have an unusual habit of curving backwards, but I’m not seeing cranes when I look at them. Cranberries were an important ingredient of Native American pemmican, which was made of dried meat, berries, and fat, and pemmican saved the life of many an early settler.

Though the flower petals curve backwards on most cranberry blossoms you can occasionally find a blossom that wants to be different, as this one did.

Blue toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis) is almost a month late this year and there aren’t many of them. In the past I’ve found fields of these plants along roadsides and this year they are all gone, and that’s probably because are biennials which flower and die in their second year. Toadflax flowers have an upper lip that is divided into 2 rounded lobes, and a lower lip which is divided into 3 lobes that are rounded and spreading. They also have a long spur, which can be seen in this photo.Toadflax likes sandy soil and waste areas to grow in. It doesn’t last long but the cheery blue flowers are always a welcome sight.

Beautiful ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) has just started blooming. This is a plant that I’ve searched for many years for and could never find until I finally found some growing in an unmown lawn last year, and this year I’ve seen it in two places so I have hope that I’ll see even more plants next year. It is said to prefer disturbed habitats like meadows and fields and I guess the fact that it grew in a lawn proves it. Though there are native plants called ragged robin in the U.S. this particular plant was introduced from Europe into New England.

Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) 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. The small, bright white flowers look almost like snowflakes scattered across the forest floor.

The unusual, hairy twin flowers of partridge berry fuse at the base and share one ovary. They will become a single small red berry that has two dimples that will show where the flowers used to be. Ruffed grouse, quail, turkeys, skunks, and white-footed mice eat the nearly tasteless berries.

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.

Wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) has pale yellow flowers similar in color to those of the sulfur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta) but they can also be white or pink. This plant is considered a noxious weed because it gets into forage and grain crops. I always find it growing at the edges of corn fields at this time of year, not because it likes growing with corn but because it likes to grow in disturbed soil. Wild radish is in the mustard family and is sometimes confused with wild mustard (Brassica kaber,) but that plant doesn’t have hairy stems like wild radish. Everyone seems to agree that this is a non-native plant but nobody seems to know exactly where it came from or how it got here.

White campion (Silene latifolia,) can also be pink, but I didn’t see a blush of it on this example. Just to confuse the issue red campion (Silene dioica) flowers can also be pink or white and it takes a botanist to tell them apart. Both are natives of Europe, Asia and Africa. The flowers have 5 deeply notched petals that have an easily seen fringe at their base. This example is a male flower.

Red campion (Silene dioica) likes alkaline soil with a lot of lime and that’s why we rarely see it here. That’s also why I’m fairly sure that this plant is a white campion, which can also be pink. It’s pretty, whatever it is.

Fragrant white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) are still in bloom and I couldn’t resist another photo. There are certain flowers that are beautiful enough to make me want to just sit and gaze at them all day, and this is one of them. Some say the scent of fragrant white water lilies reminds them of honeydew melon but a reader wrote in and said she used to pick them for her mother and they thought they smelled like anise. Each blossom lasts only 3 days before the stems coil and pull them underwater to set seeds, so if you see some and come back a week later and find that they’re gone, you aren’t imagining things.

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

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Early September / Late August Flowers

Tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) lived up to its name near the Ashuelot River. It was a full head and shoulders taller than me. This is the time of year that goldenrods get blamed for everyone’s allergies, but pollen grains that cause hay fever symptoms are very small and dust like and carried by the wind. The pollen grains of goldenrod are very large, sticky, and comparatively heavy and can only be carried by insects. Even if you put your nose directly into a goldenrod blossom, it is doubtful that you would inhale any pollen.

Ragweed and many grasses on the other hand, are wind pollinated and release their pollen at about the same time that goldenrod blooms. These plants aren’t as showy as goldenrod however, so they escape notice. People focus their anger on what they see rather than the facts, and some refuse to accept the truth even when it’s right in front of them.

I think almost everyone knows what goldenrod looks like but not everyone has seen silverrod. Silverrod (Solidago bicolor) is in the goldenrod family and is also called white goldenrod. It is the only native white flowered goldenrod found in the northeast. Every single small flower in this photo has at least one ant on it.

I always find silverrod in dry, gravelly places at the edge of the woods at the end of August. It’s hard to get a photo of because it’s usually surrounded by other plants and rarely grows alone. It grows about knee high and isn’t seen anywhere near as often as the yellow goldenrods.

The flowers of false dandelion (Hypochaeris radicata) look much the same as those of true dandelions in a photo, but in the field they are much smaller and stand on 6-8 inch long, wiry stems. The plant is also called cat’s ear, possibly because of the bracts along its stem that look like tiny cat’s ears. I see them almost everywhere I go at this time of year. This one had a friend visiting.

Both dandelions and false dandelions have a rosette of edible leaves and a central taproot, bur the flower stems of false dandelion are solid, tall and wiry while those of true dandelions are hollow and much shorter. False dandelion leaves are also much smaller and narrower than the dandelion’s leaves. The plant is a native of Europe.

Though smooth gerardia (Agalinis purpurea) is also called false foxglove, I don’t see it. The flowers are tubular like foxglove but that’s where the similarities end. The flowers are much smaller than foxglove blossoms and point upwards instead of downwards like foxglove. I find gerardia every year on the flanks of Mount Caesar growing in hot, dry sand but these 1 inch long examples that grew along the Ashuelot River were twice as big.

I’ve never seen a foxglove blossom that looked like this. Two upper lobes, two side lobes, and a lower lobe spread from the mouth of a smooth gerardia blossom. The inside of each blossom is very hairy and has two yellow patches with dark purple spots that serve as nectar guides.

Nodding smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia) gets its common name from its drooping flower heads and the very sharp, peppery taste of the stems, which makes the tongue smart. It doesn’t seem to bother ducks, geese, and all of the other animals that eat it, though. This is also called curly top smartweed; obviously because of the way the long flower spikes droop. It is originally from Europe.

Each nodding smartweed flower spike is made up of many pink to white, very small flowers. The flowers never seem to fully open, which can make it hard to count any of their reproductive parts, but each one has 5 sepals and no petals. There are also six stamens, two partially fused carpels and two styles.

It isn’t uncommon to see a carpet of knee high, white blooms in the woods at this time of year. White wood aster (Aster divaricatus) is known for its drought tolerance and will grow under a heavy leaf canopy. The stalked, coarsely toothed, heart shaped leaves help with identifying this plant.

The small, one inch flowers of white wood asters can have red or yellow centers. This aster is very easy to grow and makes an excellent choice for a dry shaded woodland garden. It is best used in mass plantings as the natural grouping in the previous photo shows. Many nurseries sell native plants grown from seed. Where I work they’re used as under plantings for lilacs, but the choice was theirs and the native plants moved under the lilacs completely on their own.

Pokeweed is just starting to set fruit. The name pokeweed comes from the Native American word for blood and refers to the red dye that can be made from the purple / black berries. The juice was used as a dye by the early colonists and they also used it to improve the color of cheap wine. All parts of the plant are considered toxic and should never be eaten unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) flowers are about 1/4 inch wide and have 5 petal-like, rounded sepals. In the center of the flower are green carpels that come together and will form the berry. It happens quickly and you can find both flowers and fruit in all stages of growth on a single flower head (Raceme.)

A few posts ago blogging friend Rich asked if I knew an easy way to tell a Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) from a woodland sunflower. I told him that I didn’t and in fact had put all 70 species of Helianthus into my too hard basket, because many are so much alike that only an expert can tell them apart. But as it turns out that isn’t entirely true, because the Jerusalem artichoke is different than all the others and that makes identifying relatively easy.

Jerusalem artichoke grows in large numbers where the conditions are right. This large colony and several others as large grew along the edge of a forest. The Jerusalem artichoke isn’t an artichoke and has nothing to do with Jerusalem, and nobody seems to know how it came by the name.  One theory says that the Puritans, when they came to the New World, named the native plant after the “New Jerusalem” they believed they were creating in the wilderness, but that’s just a theory.

Anyhow, it turns out that Jerusalem artichoke is the only Helianthus that has leaf stems (petioles) longer than a half inch and has wider leaves than other species. It also has a hairy stem, and those three things make it different from nearly all of the other Helianthus species.

I put this photo of a Jerusalem artichoke leaf here so we could see the difference between it and the leaves on the plant that follows.

I found this photo of a woodland sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) on Wikipedia and was surprised to see that it was taken by our old blogging friend Jomegat. I hope he doesn’t mind my using it, but I wanted to show the short leaf stems and smooth leaf edges on this plant. If you scroll up and down between this photo and the previous two the differences are easily seen.

Jerusalem artichokes were cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years for their tuberous roots, which they cooked and ate much like we do potatoes. They are said to be starchy with a nutty flavor and they were immediately adopted by the early settlers. The tubers have fewer calories than potatoes and the plant’s carbohydrates and sugars can be assimilated by the digestive tract without insulin. This makes them an excellent choice for diabetics.

Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) is considered an invasive species but I don’t see it that often and when I do it’s in fairly small colonies of up to maybe a hundred plants.  When the plant is grown under cultivation its flowers are often used as cut flowers and are said to be long lasting in a vase. It has been used medicinally in Europe and Asia. It always reminds me of snapdragons.

Fragrant white water lilies have bloomed in huge numbers this year; more than I’ve ever seen, and they still continue to bloom. Somehow they’ve moved into a pond where I’ve never seen them before and that’s where this one was. They’re beautiful things and I wouldn’t mind if they moved into all of our ponds.

We are beings who seek the infinity of beauty over the finitude of time. ~J.M. Campos

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