Red and Blue

Lobelias, the cardinal flowers! What gorgeous displays they're giving me at this time of year. These are natives, beautiful and thriving.

I started off with one Lobelia siphilitica, and now it's everywhere. I weed them out of my lawn and place them where they won't get mown. An extract of the plant was once used by European settlers to treat syphilis, hence the scientific name -but my naughty thought is that it's because it spreads as easily!

 

My red cardinal flowers, Lobelia cardinalis, are doing splendidly this year too. Look at the deep red that glows in the sunlight, attracting hummingbirds to pollinate them.

They're hard to photograph, because there's so much going on with them - petals pointing this way and that, 2 up and 3 down, as well as reproductive parts that stick up at a different height: nothing's on the same plane. They look like a bunch of elegant birds swinging around a maypole!

The male phase of the flower
 has the white moustache

 

The spent flower shows the female phase
extending out beyond the moustache

 

Shy Visitor

Long legg'd visitor

Shy, graceful great blue heron

On the hunt for prey.

Virgin's Bower

This beautiful native vine, Clematis virginiana, is the most common clematis in New England, according to the Go Botany website, maintained by the Native Plant Trust.

Plants can produce only male, only female or both flower parts. They attract many bees (including Sphecodes clematidis), wasps, and flies to their nectar feast, and caterpillars to their foliage (one of which is the clematis clearwing moth, Alcathoe caudate). They smell wonderful! These are male flowers in my yard.

The foliage is toxic to deer, rabbits and beavers so ... plant one - it won't get browsed by deer.

Snorkeling Haiku

Snorkel surveying

Bobbing with swaying eelgrass

Vertigo sets in