Bog Beauties

 

Pale St John's Wort (Hypericum ellipticum?) is my guess

Watershield (Brasenia schreberi) in flower

Golden pert (Gratiola aurea)

Obscure Details

Variable Milfoil has flowers that are tiny, obscure features of the plant. Flowers appear on an emergent stem to lift them out of the water for pollination, and they are two times smaller than the bract (specialized leaves associated with reproductive structures) that supports them. Everything else about this plant is so bouffy and in your face, that I thought I'd get down and personal to see if I could photograph these miniature beauties. This is what I got:

The flowers are the whitish bits sitting in the cradle of green bracts. So tiny - about 0.04 of an inch across.

I was pleased to have found them whilst still flowering, so I could get this close up view.

Red Baneberry

These glossy, plump looking berries look inviting, but they are in fact, poisonous to humans (actually, the entire Red Baneberry plant is considered toxic). Birds eat them, and are the main agents of seed dispersal. Deer won't eat them ...

The archaic form of the word 'bane' means poison, so this native is aptly named. Just having it grow in one's yard does not make it harmful - only ingesting the berries and roots deliberately would be what causes distress, and the berries are said to be distasteful, anyway.

Speckles

 I liked how this aster leaf looked with this speckling effect - quite pretty.

Skullcaps

What a delicate color these amazing marsh plants have - I love the speckles in the lower petals, and the fuzziness of the top half of the flower - this is the Hooded skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata). 

They occur commonly in wetlands in the north temperate regions. The wide, flattened lower petal is a perfect landing spot for insects.

Meadows of Orchids

There's something incredibly satisfying about coming across a natural meadow of native orchids in our wetlands on Lake Arrowhead. It's a glorious, uplifting sight in bog habitats.

This late spring bloomer, called Rose pogonia or Adder's mouth, has a bearded lower petal, and is pollinated by bees.

Aaaaahhh, I just can't get enough of their uniqueness and beauty in such great numbers. Happy!

Stump Display

This cheery stump full of Creeping Buttercups (Ranunculus reptans) has so much character! What a lovely sight.

Liverwort

 This beautiful dendritic pattern on tree bark is probably a Frullania species of Liverwort.

Intricate and beautiful, like a piece of embroidery

Soldier Beetle

 This is a soldier beetle, a great pollinator, and consumer of soft, smaller bugs. It's a cosmopolitan species, sometimes also called a leatherwing. Though they look a lot like lightning bugs/fireflies, these beetles don't have light-producing organs. They're pretty cool-looking.

A Fragrant Walk

We had time to kill last week whilst waiting for an appointment in Orange, MA, so we took a walk in the Kiwanis Bicentennial Park. 

It's a lovely, easy walk around 3 ponds, one of which has been dammed by beavers, the top edge of which you can see around the tree in the pic below

There were waterlilies and Red-winged Blackbirds everywhere

Looking up to an enormous Black Cherry tree

It was a very peaceful, serene spot -

- made all the more wonderful by the intense fragrance of the mat of tiny partridgeberries blooming on the forest floor - incredible how pungent and heady a scent these little fuzzy flowers produce en masse. We were clearly there at the right time. This pic shows them amongst the pine needles to give an idea of how small they are.

Verdant Perfection

What a lush and magnificent array of greenery! We're so fortunate to live in a sparsely populated area where we can still admire unspoiled woods on a  neighborhood walk.

Light Saves the Day

On a day clouded by a supposed, restorative afternoon "nap" being disrupted by a continuously yowling cat, and after having been defeated by a hefty log that wouldn't respond to being floated back to our cove, our day was salvaged by an approaching storm!

When we saw that the storm was imminent, we dashed outside, and found ourselves transfixed by the incredible light display.

It called for a selfie!

The beautiful light salvaged our day, which we had shored up already with a Tequila sunrise cocktail (plus, we came home with a smaller, more manageable floating garden).

Something New!

Wow! Just when I thought there were no new species to discover in my area, I noticed a different flower on a recent, casual walk in our neighborhood. It was a white flower by the roadside, hiding down low amongst the white Shasta daisies. The flower itself looked like a white morning glory, but the leaves were totally wrong for that. 

I took photos, of course, and was thrilled to have identified it once back home as the Upright False Bindweed (Calystegia spithamaea), native to the Eastern U. S. but regionally rare in New England due to it being at the northernmost limit of its range. What a lucky find! 

Go Botany describes it as "designated imperiled in some states, with few populations extant. It prefers disturbed sites with minimal competition from other plants, and therefore may be threatened by more aggressive non-native species."

This discovery is a reminder that plant communities are ever changing, dynamic entities. Or is it that the more I learn, the more I see? Had it not been there before, or had I merely overlooked it, camouflaged as it was by the daisies?

It's a very exciting find for me! And a sobering reminder that there's still lots to learn.

Spice Strata

I was amazed at how beautiful my home-made Texas rub looked before I blended all the spices together. It definitely reminded me of sedimentary rock strata - and I wasn't even trying!

Eudaimonia

Water, trees and sky -

Beautiful, moody evening:

Eudaimonia.

* According to Britannica.com, eudaimonia is the condition of human flourishing or of living well, while Wikipedia describes it as "a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit' "

Old Friends

I'm pleased to still be seeing the Canadian Owlet Moth caterpillar visit its nearly exclusive plant (Thalictroides pubescens) in my yard.

I photographed this species on my Tall Meadow Rue in 2021 and 2022 - I'm so happy to have a visit from a species of old friends.

Blackberry Blooms

What a beautiful and simple flower our blackberries produce - so easily overlooked when all we cherish is the fruit they give us.

Papery petals

Spangled with reddish anthers

Readying for fruit

Similarities

 I was struck by the similarity in color scheme between my Wild Columbines

and my Coral Honeysuckle

Both attract hummingbirds ...

Getting Knotted

It was very tough photographing this over-active threadlike worm, appropriately called a Horsehair worm. It just wouldn't keep still! It moved in amazingly sinuous and beautiful curves, often seeming to loop back and knot itself making it very obvious why they are also known as "Gordian knot" worms.

  

 

The larval stages of these nematodes are parasitic, colonizing the bodies of grasshoppers, beetles, and other such invertebrates. They pose no threat to humans, pets or livestock. Adults are not parasitic and feed on their own, without depending on other life forms. Up close, they're featureless, showing no definitive distinction of a head or tapering tail.

We found this one wriggling about amongst our aquatic plant samples - they live near and in water, the parasitic form often 'driving the host' to drown itself, to get to water. They're found worldwide.

Blazing Sunshine

This magnificent bloom is Coreopsis lanceolata, commonly known as tickseed, since its seeds apparently look like little ticks. It represents blazing sunshine to me!

The intense color and its not-very-picky growing requirements makes it very popular as a garden plant, but it has become invasive outside its natural range (the U.S.) where it aggressively outcompetes natives. It was declared an invasive species in 2006 and may no longer be sold, bought or transplanted outside its native range.

Volunteering Thrill

I had a blast helping a neighboring lake association with their Swollen Bladderwort removal initiative. The Maine D.E.P. contracted a suction harvester to remove as much of the invasive plant as they could in 3.5 days.

Volunteers were there with nets to scoop up fragments that had escaped during the process.

It was a mammoth task, and though we cleared large areas, the infestation is broader than we had previously realized. The plant has long trailing vegetation that is difficult to capture in its entirety without breaking it apart.

Even though there was still a lot left by the time the contracted time was over, it felt so rewarding to have been part of this effort, and I came home happy and satisfied each day. I definitely enjoy getting down and dirty for things that matter to me.

Falsely Named

This native grows throughout the continental U.S. and it's often found in association with Solomon's Seal, with which it shares similar leaves. Its common name is variously False Solomon's Seal, False Lily-of-the-valley and False Spikenard - poor plant, it only seems to be nameable in terms of being a false version of something else! The scientific name is Maianthemum racemosum.

The tiny little flowers look like mini cauliflowers to me.

Cute Rodent

Look at this adorable little piggy! It's lovely having them come so close while I sit and drink my morning coffee outside. So brave!

 

Pollen Universe

 I imagine these are pollen stars and constellations

Pollen comets?