Indulging My Flower Love

I just LOVE Great St. Johnswort! It's hard to find native wildflowers that are so remarkably showy, with big bright blooms, exuberant numerous stamens, and a fat green pistil shaped like a Turkish vase that flares at the top.  They would make wonderful cultivated garden blooms if they had a longer period of bloom than just a few short days.  Because they won't be with us for long, I returned to their river island yesterday to fully indulge my delight in them.


I know of only one place to find them, and they're easily seen as I approach by canoe, bright spots of yellow against the dark green foliage of the river bank.  Although they're classified as a rare plant in New York and many surrounding states, they must be very hardy to tolerate the conditions here, in thin rocky soil that is periodically flooded as the river rises and falls.

I pulled my boat up on shore and walked around behind the plants to enjoy how they looked against the flowing water.

How beautifully their golden blooms are complimented by the blue of the reflected sky.

Somebody else was enjoying these big beautiful blooms.  I believe that this is a Katydid nymph.

Many of the flowers had petals that were curling inward as they started to fade.  Too soon, those petals will fall.  But there will be many flowers yet to come, to judge by the quantity of fat yellow buds I found.

Sharing the same riverbank were many Buttonbush shrubs with their spiky balls formed of tiny white trumpet-shaped florets.  Working those florets over one at a time was this splendid Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, so occupied with its nectaring task that it completely ignored my presence.

When the butterfly worked its way around to the opposite side of the floral ball, I was able to have a perfect view of its ornate underwings and furry tiger-striped body.  Lovely!