Autumn Beauty Everywhere!

This was a strange week, with me feeling quite ill after receiving the quadruple-strength flu shot recommended for old people like me (I'm 78).  The feverish feeling came and went, with me feeling terrible one day, then fine the next, then crappy the next, etc., etc.  Luckily, the feeling-better days corresponded with some nice-weather days, so I did get out to enjoy this gorgeous season. I am grateful beyond words that I live in such a beautiful part of the world, made even more spectacular when our surrounding fields and forests take on all the colors of a chrysanthemum garden.  Here are just some of the wonders that awaited me outdoors this past week.

Some Rolling Hills Above the Hudson River

A powerline follows the curves of the Palmertown foothills along the northern boundary of Saratoga County. There's no real footpath here, but I pretend to be a deer and follow their trails up and down the rolling hills. I love the open sky over my head and the changing kaleidoscope colors beneath my feet.  

Massive patches of Hay-scented Fern glow butter-yellow and cinnamon-brown against the deep shade of the surrounding forest. Late-blooming goldenrods add their sunny blooms to the scene.

No other native wildflower can add a punch of vivid color to a meadow the way that New England Aster can.

The super-ripe fruits of Solomon's Plume become translucent and glow like rubies clustered on the forest floor.

I love how the sun lights up the silvery wisps on the Little Bluestem Grass.

Eventually, a service road leads down to the shore of the Hudson, the river's quiet waters flowing blue beneath a radiant sky.

A cloud that had shaded this rocky islet moves on, and suddenly vivid colors emerge on the rock, as well as the mountainsides.

On my way home along Parkhurst Road in Wilton, I noticed this roadside meadow ablaze with the bright-yellow foliage of Spreading Dogbane.  I am so glad I stopped to take in this spectacular site, since the next time I passed by this meadow, a frost must have kissed these vibrant leaves good-bye!

Lake Bonita in Moreau Lake State Park

I've avoided the trails around Lake Bonita this summer and early fall, since the overflowing parking area has almost every day indicated overflow crowds on the trail that circles this pretty little lake atop Mount McGregor. But my friends Sue Pierce and Ruth Brooks and I chose a Wednesday to venture a walk around its shore, and we mostly had many quiet moments to ourselves.

Well, quiet except for the constant muttering, occasional honking, and often quite vigorous splashing of Canada Geese that had congregated on the lake.  A small group of the geese followed us to the eastern end of the lake, where they climbed up on a rock to preen their feathers and gossip quietly among themselves.

Did I mention that Lake Bonita is as pretty as its name suggests?

There were pretty sights on the forest floor as well as across the water. This patch of Wintergreen looked very comfy atop its bed of Pincushion Moss.

Was it Christmas already, with a tree strung with shining lights?  No, something even better: a tree strung with clusters of Witch Hazel flowers that almost appeared to twinkle when the sun picked them out against the dark shade of the woods.

The Hudson River Ice Meadows, West Bank

I never would have thought to visit the Ice Meadows up north of Warrensburg this late in the year.  Sure, this stretch of upper Hudson River shoreline is renowned as one of the richest sites in the state for rare plants, but heck, I've already been there several times this year to witness them in bloom.  But then, a Facebook friend and fellow wildflower enthusiast from Brooklyn contacted me, telling me he would be visiting the area near here this past week, and would I know of any interesting botanical sites we might visit together?  "Well, sure I do," I told him.  So that's how I finally met Chris Kreussling,  fellow member of the Facebook group "Flora of New York,"  consultant on urban gardening with native plants, and author of the related blog "Flatbush Gardener." That's Chris in the orange-plaid shirt in the photo above, clambering over the riverside rocks with my pal Sue Pierce, who joined us for our explorations this past Saturday.

Of course, the rarest wildflowers that grow here are long past blooming, but most display persistent remnants that can still be identified.  And indeed, we found many of the persistent seedpods of Sticky False Asphodel (Triantha glutinosa), a plant that is ranked as an Endangered species in New York State.

An even rarer plant, found on these Ice Meadows and reported from no other site in the state, is the New England Violet (Viola novae-angliae).  Sheltered among cracks in the riverside rocks, the leaves of this Endangered species of violet looked as green as they did last spring, when we found them in bloom with vivid-purple flowers.  And we found even more basal clusters of this violet's leaves than we did last spring, and in many more places.  Some of the plants still bore their split-open three-parted seed pods.

Not every plant that thrives here is rare, of course.  For example, the two species of St. John's Wort mingling here -- Marsh St. John's Wort (orangish) and Dwarf St. John's Wort (greenish yellow) -- are common denizens of wetlands nearly everywhere in the state.  This mix of species here on the shore looked wonderfully colorful.

But wow!  Talk about COLOR! It's hard to imagine any flower or fruit or seedpod or leaf more colorful than these Winterberries, the gray of the rock providing a perfect foil for the vivid red of the fruit.

Only slightly less vivid were the hips and leaves of the many Smooth Roses we found today.  I loved the shadow this specimen cast on the golden-hued rock behind it.

There are spring-watered pools at this site, and some have edges lined with sphagnum mosses and abundant patches of both Large and Small Cranberries, ripe now and glowing a deep rich red among the greenery.

An early-blooming bladderwort called Flat-leaved Bladderwort thrives in many of these shallow pools, and their leaves are still very evident this time of year.  What was also evident now on the ends of their leafy stems were globular buds called turions.  These will fall off and persist underwater over the winter, ready to produce clones of the original plants during the next growing season.

As we gazed upstream, we felt we could go on exploring forever, as ever more rocky shoreline and grasslands beckoned us.  But our feet and knees were growing weary from scrambling and leaping and teetering among the rocks, and the thickening clouds to the north reminded us that thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon. Perhaps we should call it a day.  But a wonderful day it was, meeting a great new friend who was just as nuts about plants as we were,  and granted such an amazing place to botanize to our hearts' content.  We will have to do this again!

On my way home along the west bank, I had to pull over for one more photo. What spectacular cliffs, rising so high and so steeply along the east shore of the Hudson!  And their grandeur was certainly amplified by the trees in their autumn splendor.