Wall to Wall Sunshine

It’s time to get out of the woods and into the fields because that’s where all the sun lovers like these lupines are found. These particular plants grow alongside the road so I’m fairly sure they must have been planted by the state to help stabilize the embankment they grow on. Lupines seem to be even more beautiful when grown in large groups, and that’s probably because that’s the way they grow naturally.

Don’t forget to look up; there are some beautiful things going on up there. This is one of many black locust trees in the area that are blossoming right now.

Like the wisteria blossoms I showed in the last post black locust flowers hang in pendulous clusters and are very fragrant. Black locust wood is very hard and prized for use as fence posts, among other things. It is said that a fence made of black locust posts can last a hundred years.

In this shot I tried to get the bristles that give bristly locust its name, as well as the flowers. Bristly locust is more shrub than tree. Though it is said they can reach 8 feet the ones I know barely reach 6. Bristly purple-brown hairs cover its stems, the backs of its flowers and even its seedpods but they aren’t stiff or particularly prickly. The plant is native to the southeastern United States but has spread to nearly all of the lower 48 states. The beautiful pinkish purple flowers are very fragrant and bees love them. Certain nurseries sell them, so if you’re looking for a beautiful “plant it and forget it” native small tree that would do well on the edge of the woods and which pollinators would love, you might try one.

I don’t know who thought up the name “Jack go to bed at noon” for yellow goat’s beard but it’s accurate. They open when the sun finds them in the morning and then close up in early afternoon. These plants are from Europe but they could hardly be called invasive. I know of one colony off in a sunny meadow that really hasn’t expanded much in ten years. I’ve read that a kind of bubble gum can be made from the plant’s milky latex sap and its spring buds are said to be good in salads but I haven’t tried either.

I went to a local pond to see if the fragrant white waterlilies were blooming, and found maybe 30 of what will eventually be hundreds of them blooming. When you’re there and the breeze blows just right you can smell their wonderful fruity scent that some say smells like cantaloupe.

While I walked around the pond looking for a good place to get a shot of a waterlily blossom I got a big surprise; one of the biggest snapping turtles I’ve seen. That white clover blossom is about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch across, if that tells you anything.

At first I thought this big turtle had died of exhaustion but then I saw one of its back feet twitch and I knew it was alive. It’s best not to get too close to these creatures because what looks like a short neck is actually quite long and if one of your fingers gets caught in that beak well, you have a problem. This is the first shot I’ve ever gotten of a snapper’s big foot and claws. For a minute I felt as if I had been transported back in time a few million years.

These are gentle creatures that come on land only to lay their eggs, and they should be left alone to do so. I always just snap a couple of quick photos and leave them in peace. This one stayed in my mind though, so I went back to check on her the next day and was happy to not find her there in the hot sun. Though they glide through the water like a bird in the air on land they lose their buoyancy and feel their weight, and sometimes it seems as if they are struggling just to move. Egg laying also seem to take a lot out of them.

This is an invasive iris from Europe that is quite aggressive, and it grows wild in two or three spots along the river in Keene. It’s a beautiful thing but it spreads quickly so I can imagine the banks of the river lined with them in the not too distant future.

The dark markings on the petals are a good sign that this is “the” iris. I can’t think of a native iris that is yellow, grows in water, and is this big. They stand a good three feet tall and are very showy.

Our native wild irises are blue flags, which have shorter stalks and smaller flowers.

Sheep laurel are closely related to mountain laurel but they bloom a bit earlier. The flowers are smaller than mountain laurel and pink rather than white but as can be seen here, they have the same ten pockets that the tips of the anthers fit into. This makes them spring loaded, so when a heavy enough insect lands on them they all spring out and dust it with pollen. It seems like a lot of trouble for a flower to go through but it obviously works; there are always more laurel plants coming along.

Dragonflies are finally appearing and some like the chalk fronted corporal can hatch in the hundreds in just a small pond. This is a fairly common dragonfly that is good to practice your dragonfly photography on, because it likes to perch and wait for prey to come along. This one kept flying off this log and returning to the same spot and it didn’t mind me watching. They have pretty wing patterns and the chalky white coloring on their bodies can seem blue in certain light.

Chalk fronted corporals get their name from the “Corporal bars” behind their head. They’re not afraid to fight and won’t put up with interlopers trying to take over their spot. If you don’t like being bitten by mosquitoes then you should cheer the arrival of these and other dragonflies because they eat mosquitoes by the bag full. In fact if you’re very fortunate a swarm of chalk fronted corporals may follow you as you walk along, eating all the mosquitoes and deer flies that are swarming around you. If you’ve ever wondered why dragonflies will sometimes hover in front of you and seem to stare this is why; you attract their lunch.

Have you ever thought about what someone means when they say a plant is just an old weed? To me it means that they aren’t seeing the truth, because all things have their own beauty. They are spending more time sorting than seeing, and chances are they miss the beauty of things like blue toadflax, seen above. Just stop and look, and then really see.

Maiden pinks have started blooming. Though described as invasive everyone I know enjoys seeing them, so they aren’t any trouble. They like dry, hot, sandy soil in waste places where nothing else will grow anyway, so I say let them brighten the bare spots. They were once called “flashing lights” and it’s a good name for them.

This blue damselfly landed on a leaf right in front of me. “Thank you,” I thought as I took its photo. This is what I mean when I say that sometimes it can seem as if nature is throwing itself at you, and it’s a wonderful thing. Anyhow, this little damselfly might be a female eastern fork tail. And it might not; that’s the best I can come up with after a quick online comparison. I’m done spending hours, days, weeks and sometimes even months trying to put a name to something, because in the end the name is meaningless to me. It’s just a pretty blue damselfly.

Of course some names that are learned with effort aren’t easily forgotten, and that was the case with this spangled skimmer dragonfly. The “spangles” are the black and white bits at the leading edge of its wings; black is on the outside and white on the inside. These spangles shine in sunlight, which makes this dragonfly very easy to spot.

The pollen cones have opened on the red pines, white pines, and umbrella pines. These are the opened male pollen cones of the red pine seen here. If you have hay fever right now is not a good time, because the air is filled with pollen. One day I looked through a haze at the far hills that was so thick I thought it was smoke from more Canadian wildfires. I checked the air quality on my phone and it was good for this area, so it must have been pollen. That’s how I discovered that pollen doesn’t bother my lungs in the same way that smoke from fires does. It does make me sneeze though.

Where does all that pollen go? Everywhere, actually. It gets all over cars and inside the houses of people foolish enough to leave their windows open. When it rains it is washed into waterways, which is what the above photo shows. It floats on water and gathers in the shallows, so thick that great blue herons can’t see fish and frogs through it. Once we have a good heavy shower of rain it all disappears, presumably to the bottom of the pond or lake.

Not all the pollen is wasted though; some will reach the places it is needed, like these tiny pink flowers of the red pine. These flowers will become the tree’s pinecones, which will carry the trees seeds. That pollen, nuisance that it can be, means the continuation of life.

I went and saw the river of Dame’s rocket, which was always beautiful. I say “was” because I went back a week later and found that all of the plants in this photo had been dug up. The plants are not native and are very invasive, so I can understand why but still, I’ll miss them.

At a glance Dame’s rocket can fool you into thinking it is garden phlox, but phlox flowers have five petals and Dame’s rocket flowers only have four. It’s quite beautiful and fragrant but if you have it in your yard you’d better keep an eye on it, because it can spread quickly.

The alliums are blooming, from large ornamental flowerheads…

…down to small edible flowerheads like chives. Both are in the onion family and are quite pretty.

I thought I’d sneak in one plant that doesn’t like wall to wall sunshine; the blue bead lily. The leaves of this plant look like lady’s slipper leaves without the pleats and the flowers look like miniature Canada lilies. Blossoms have three petals, three sepals, and six stamens, as do all members of the lily family. Later on in July or August the electric blue berries that give this plant its name will appear. They’re beautiful and unusual, and worth keeping an eye out for.

This dragonfly is I believe, a lancet club tail. I saw it perched on a rock studying what looked like plans for a house or garage. Now wait just a minute, I thought, dragonflies are smart but they aren’t that smart. In fact what it was studying were just plant parts that had randomly fallen in a pattern that looked like a house and I’d bet that it wasn’t studying them at all, but it makes an interesting photo. When you get to know them dragonflies can keep you guessing because they are indeed more intelligent than we have been taught insects should be.

I like this one’s eyes, and I hope you do as well. I’d love to be able to see through those eyes, just once.

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds. ~Regina Brett

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Summer Flowers Come A Little Early

Pink lady’s slipper orchids, our state wildflower, are blooming a little early this year. They usually bloom when ox-eye daisies and lupines bloom but this year they were a bit earlier than both. And there are fewer of them. Where I often find a dozen in bloom this year I’m finding only two or three. This photo shows five or six plants with only one blooming, and that seems to be the way it has been going in this area. I have a feeling the lack is connected to the past two summers of drought; so dry there was hardly a mushroom to be seen. That’s important, because these orchids depend on a soil borne Rhizoctonia fungus. This year so far we’ve seen what I would call average rainfall, so maybe that will mean more blooms next summer.

When plants are weakened by drought they are less likely to bloom prolifically but life is a circle and the woods will surely be full of them again in the future. The blossoms on pink lady’s slippers are especially beautiful with their darker, vein like insect guide lines that will guide the insect, hopefully a bumblebee, right to the slit seen here at the top of the pouch. Once inside the bee finds there is only one way out, which is through the top of the blossom. While squeezing through the hole in the top it has to brush against the sticky stigma and it leaves behind any pollen it might have collected from other flowers. It will also have picked up pollen from this flower, ready for transport to another. It all seems complicated but orchids are the most highly evolved of all plants and their method works; I see quite a few seed pods in late summer.

Shy little bunchberries seem to be blooming well this year. They are associated with wood and grow on stumps, logs, and even live trees. Even when they appear to be growing on the ground there is usually an old log or something made of wood beaneath them. Why this is isn’t known but it is thought that they must receive nutrients from the wood they grow on. Bunchberry is in the dogwood family and is also called creeping dogwood or bunchberry dogwood. White bracts surround the actual flowers, which are greenish and very small. The entire flower cluster with bracts and all is often no bigger than an inch and a half across. If all goes well the flowers will become a bunch of bright red berries.

When you see dogwoods flowering you know it’s time to look for bunchberries, because being in the same family, they almost always bloom at the same time. Once again on this tree there are large white bracts surrounding the much smaller flowers in the center, just as we saw on the bunchberry.

Some dogwoods were hit hard by the freeze we had on May 18th, as these blossoms show. The leaves don’t seem to have been bothered though, so the trees should do okay. In certain areas many trees like catalpla and black locust had all their leaves and flower buds killed or damaged by the freeze so we’ll have to wait and see how they recover. I should be seeing catalpa trees blossoming all over right now and I haven’t seen even one.

Golden ragwort is in the aster family and is considered our earliest blooming aster. It doesn’t mind growing in wet soil and tolerates shade so it always seems like a beacon with its bright yellow flowers shining in the dappled shade I find it in. It isn’t a common plant so I’m usually surprised by it as I was this time when I found it in a place I’ve walked by hudreds of times. It seems to be a plant that “gets around.” You’ll see it in a spot for a year or even three and then it will disappear, only to be found in a different spot.

Tatarian honeysuckle is one of the prettiest of the invasive honeysuckles, in my opinion. It is originally from Siberia and other parts of eastern Asia and in the fall its pretty pink flowers become bright red berries. Of course, birds eat the berries and the plant spreads quickly.

Morrow’s Honeysuckle is another invasive honeysuckle. It has sweetly fragrant, pretty white flowers that turn yellow with age. Unfortunately, it spreads by its berries like Tatarian honeysuckle and it can form dense thickets and outcompete native shrubs. It seems more aggressive than Tatarian honeysuckle and I see it far more often.

It’s a shame to have so many invasive plants and I would never make light of it, but the truth is once the genie is out of the bottle from what I’ve seen, it is nearly impossible to put it back in. Invasive honeysuckles have been around since I was just a small boy and I know that the only way to truly be rid of them is to dig them up and pull all the seedlings. But I can attest to the fact that digging up a honeysuckle is very hard work, and who will do it?

Does that mean we shouldn’t fight invasives? No, what I’m saying is, maybe Instead of setting out to “rid the world of the scourge” we should just be at peace with whatever we can accomplish. A lot of littles can add up to a lot. People seem ready to get together and “do the big thing” and then when they see more invasives growing where they’ve done so much hard work they get discouraged and give up. This is not the way to win. Everyone doing what they can when they can is the way to win.

An eastern swallowtail butterfly appeared to prefer the white Morrow’s honeysuckle but there were no tatarian honeysuckles in the area, so that probably isn’t a fair assesment. I doubt it has any real preference.

I hadn’t seen any dragonflies yet this spring so I went to Hancock one day, back to the nature camp I once worked for, just to take a walk and see what I could see. There is a pond there and there used to be so many dragonflies I had them land on me and even fly alongside the tractor when I mowed the meadow. They did that because they knew the tractor was going to scare up insects for them to eat. That’s when I discovered that dragonflies are not only smart but they must have at least a hint of a memory.

I spent some time at the pond hoping to see dragonflies, but didn’t see any. That’s because they were all here on this dirt road, apparently. Google lens says this one is a lancet clubtail, which likes to rest on gravel roads, so that fit. Two things bother me about that identification though; eye color, and the photo isn’t good enough to see the “tail.” If I understand what I’ve read this dragonfly’s eyes should be blue or gray, not brown. The color might just be caused by the harsh lighting though, because I’ve had trouble finding dragonflies of any kind with brown eyes online.

There were lots of fringed polygala at the camp when I worked there but I didn’t see many this time so I went to another spot and found these. These plants are in the milkwort family and aren’t really common but if they like a spot they can grow into a good size colony. I could explain how they’re pollinated but it’s quite a convoluted process so I’ll just ask that you trust me; they are pollinated. And it all starts when a heavy enough insect lands on that little fringe.

When I was looking for winged polygayla flowers I found a rag lichen. Despite a recent rain it was quite dry and, as is often the case with lichens, most of its color had changed as it dried. It wasn’t its color that I was interested in though; it was its amazing net like texture. This is the first time I had seen this lichen so I spent quite a lot of time getting photos of it. If you click on the photo you’ll be better able to see what I mean about its texture.

I thought I’d show one more shot of new spring oak leaves. They’re probably the last I’ll see this year. This shot shows how they finally turn green while still wearing their velvet coats. Once green and photosynthesizing they’ll lose their velvet and shine.

The male flowers of pine trees are called pollen cones because that’s what they produce. Pine trees are wind pollinated and great clouds of pollen can make it look like the trees are burning and releasing yellow green smoke each spring. Pine pollen is a strong antioxidant and it has been used medicinally around the world for thousands of years. Its health benefits were first written of in China nearly 5000 years ago and they were said to be numerous. You can still buy it today.

I love to see Robin’s plantain, which is one of the fleabanes, bloom in spring because it reveals all the flower lovers among us who, rather than mow it down, leave it to bloom. It is a common “weed” that comes up in lawns everywhere but it’s beautiful, so you’ll see large islands of unmowed grass with pink flowers poking up out of them on otherwise manicured lawns. For a week or so the weeds win and it always makes me smile. If only people could understand that it is these “weeds” that are normal, not their lawns. There was a time when grass was the weed, and it was dug up so the weeds, mostly used for food or medicine, would have more room to grow. The world must have been even more beautiful then.

Germander speedwell is another beautiful weed that is one of the larger flowered “lawn” speedwells. It is also called bird’s eye or cat’s eye speedwell and is considered invasive but I always find it growing in the unmown grass at the edge of the woods, so I don’t know why it would be a bother. It can make rather large colonies so maybe if it got into the garden it could be a pest, but after a lifetiime in gardens I’ve never seen it in one, so I say just enjoy its quiet beauty and let it be. I would welcome it in my own yard.

Lesser stitchwort is blooming among the tall grasses. This plant is originally from Europe and is also called common or grass leaved stitchwort. It likes disturbed soil and does well on roadsides, old fields, and meadows. The common name stitchwort refers to the plant being used in herbal remedies to cure the pain in the side that we call a stitch. The stellaria part of its scientific name means star, and these beautiful little stars twinkle all summer long, just about everywhere I go. They and so many other weeds call me out of the shade of the forests and into the sunny meadows. There is great beauty found in both places but I learned as a boy that a meadow was much easier to walk through. When I wanted sweet and soft rather than rough and tumble I chose a sunny summer meadow.

Tradescantia, also called spiderwort, has come into bloom. I took this photo because I thought I had found a pale blue one which I’d never seen, but my color finding software tells me it’s purple and I’ve seen plenty of those. I keep forgetting that I have a color blind helper app on my phone. It works well in the field but only if you remember to use it. The same could be said for the color blind glasses I have; they’re great, but you have to remember them.

I was a little disappointed when I saw this white tradescantia blossom because last year it had blue streaks in its petals along with the blue in the center. It was a beautiful thing and it still is, but I do miss the blue in its petals. I looked at several different plants and all the flowers looked just like this one. If you’d like to see what I saw last year just Google “Tradescantia Osprey.” Apparently they can revert back to the solid white.

If you could somehow look back into the past to Ancient Greece at about 371 BC, you’d probably see this beautiful daffodil there. It’s called the poet’s daffodil and is such an ancient plant that many believe it is the flower that the legend of Narcissus is based on. It is one of the first cultivated daffodils and is hard to mistake for any other, with its red edged, yellow corona and pure white petals. It has naturalized throughout this area and can sometimes be found in unmown fields. Its fragrance can be compared to that of the paper white narcissus; so intoxicating that being in a room with 2 or 3 flowers in a vase can give some people headaches or make them sick. It blooms a bit later, just as most other daffodils are giving in. is also called the pheasant eye daffodil, for obvious reasons.

Lupines have just started blooming. I found this one at the local college. Anyone who has spent any time in a garden knows that lupines are in the pea / bean family. It’s a huge family of plants and you see its representatives just about everywhere.

Five swans came together on the back of a columbine blossom.

One of my favorite spring shrubs is the rhodora. It is a small, native rhododendron that loves swampy places. It’s native to the northeastern U.S. and Canada and its flowers appear before the leaves for a short time in late spring. By mid-June they will have all vanished. On May 17, 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote “The splendid Rhodora now sets the swamps on fire with its masses of rich color,” and that is exactly what this beautiful little plant does.

There’s nothing else quite like this flower blooming on pond shorelines in spring, so it’s close to impossible to confuse it with any other shrub. It often grows so close to the water that the best way to see it is by boat or kayak.

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. ~Frances Hodgson Burnett

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