Hey Spring, Not So Fast!

 Hold on there, little Snow Trilliums!  I promised my friends in the Thursday Naturalists that they would see these tiny trilliums when we visit Orra Phelps Nature Preserve tomorrow.  But when I checked on them yesterday, I found they were fading fast.  That hot Easter Sunday didn't help, with temperatures nearing 90 degrees.  Let's hope we can at least see some remnants of their pretty white blooms.  For sure we will find the small leaves, like those in the photo below.  I had hoped these plants would still produce flowers, but it seems they won't, this year.

Oh well, at least I am sure we will see many other pretty flowers, such as this violet-studded mossy bank along the stream.

Here's a closer look at those lemon-yellow flowers of the Round-leaved Violets (Viola rotundifolia), one of our earliest violets to bloom around here.  This is a violet that seems to prefer mountainous habitats -- it truly thrives along Adirondack trails -- so I rarely find it on my ordinary excursions around the county.  How lucky we can find them in the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve.

Hundreds of Sessile-leaved Bellworts (Uvularia sessifolia) have sprung up along the creek, and I bet by Thursday this week they will be dangling their yellow flowers.

We might even see a Red Trillium (Trillium erectum) or two, opening their fat buds that already show just a bit of red.

For sure, we will find the Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) dangling their little pantaloons.

I seldom find many Hepaticas blooming at Orra Phelps, but the few that grow there are definitely now in flower.

Also blooming now is Plantain-leaved Sedge (Carex plantaginea), with its tufts of staminate flowers that look like Rod Stewart's wild blond hairdo.  The pistillate flowers are those tiny white hairs on the stalk.

The Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) bloomed long ago, its pollenaceous spadices sheltered within its Morocco-red bulbous spathes.  But now its big, showy, bright-green leaves have unfurled in the muddy swale where this plant thrives by the hundreds.

Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum) is a long way from blooming yet, but its velvety pink-tinged leaf buds, held as erect as candle flames, glow with a pearly light throughout the woods.