Dodging Raindrops, Finding Flowers at Orra Phelps

Friday, July 3:  I hadn't planned to go out today, with rain predicted for off and on all day. But feeling the stress of having lost our only remaining house-shading tree, a towering Box Elder blown down on Wednesday by an errant gale, I needed a nature fix to calm my nerves.  And where better to find calm green serenity but the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in nearby Wilton. There's even a creek that runs through it, splashing and dancing over the rocks and throwing droplets up into the air, a process that produces negative ions in the surrounding air, known to cause moods to lift and nerves to be soothed.  So off I sped, raincoat clad, to dodge raindrops while I wandered this lovely preserve.

I wondered if I might find the spectacular Rosebay Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) blooming here already.  It seemed a bit early yet, but as I approached the bank where this gigantic shrub leans over the stream, lo! I saw giant clusters of snowy-white flowers!

Yes, some floral clusters were wide open now!  Snowy-white petals, freckled with green, and studded with pale-pink anthers. What a glorious sight!

Other clusters were equally lovely, with some blooms wide open, while still-closed pretty pink buds waited their turn.

I wandered back to a sandy area where years ago I had found one or two Spiked Lobelia plants (Lobelia spicata). And again, there they were!  Dainty blue flowers stacked thickly on slender stems.  And beautifully silhouetted against a dark shady woods.

And oh, there were many more Spiked Lobelias than I had ever seen here! Their gentle blue color and dainty florets displayed such a contrast next to the brilliant yellow and sunburst shape of the Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) that shared their clearing in the woods.

As I wandered the now-soggy paths, I spied a few more open flowers, including the gracefully arching stems of  Common Agrimony (Agrimonia gryposepala), with bright-yellow flowers marching along the stems.

I was surprised to find only a single budding flower cluster of Wild Leek (Allium tricoccum), in the very spot I had seen a large patch of leek leaves back in May.  I sure hope this doesn't mean that the rest of its colony had been poached when Ramps (a popular name for this wild onion coveted by wild-food foragers) were in leaf last spring. The leaves have all died back by now.

Indian Cucumber Root (Medeola virginiana) grows abundantly near the stream that runs through the Orra Phelps Preserve. The spidery flowers that earlier dangled beneath the top tier of leaves have moved up to surmount the leaves by now, producing shiny green fruits that will in the fall become shiny blue-black, just as the top leaves are splashed with vibrant red patches. A beautiful plant, even though its flowers are hardly what one would call "showy."

The green plants, too, looked lovely today, freshly washed by the rain and glowing in the dim light of this cloudy day.  This Fan Clubmoss (Diphasiastrum digitatum) looked especially vivid, sprouting new bright-green growth.

Masses of various ferns grow in the damp soil near the stream, and today the handsome green fronds were spangled with sparkling raindrops.

Oh my, was THIS a surprise!  This trio of golden Canada Lilies (Lilium canadense) glowed like hanging lamps against the green that surrounded them.  There was ZERO chance I would not have spotted them! And if they had grown here before, I doubt I would have missed seeing them over all the years I have visited this preserve. Could Orra Phelps Nature Preserve possibly be a new site for them to grow?  I sure hope so, since other sites where I've found them before have been rendered inhospitable to Canada Lilies, due to infestations of the Scarlet Lily Beetle and its lily-devouring larvae.

Here's another photo of the Canada Lily, showing the pollen-laden anthers, sheltered from the rain by the freckled "tepals" (petals and look-alike sepals) that act like an umbrella.

Continuing my walk, I found one more Canada Lily, this one a deeper orange, vivid against the green of a patch of ferns.

Here was more vivid color, this time from the myriad Fuzzy Foot Fungi (Xeromphalina campanella) that had sprouted all over this rotting conifer stump. The word Xeromphalina means, roughly, "dry belly-button," referring to the little depression atop each mushroom cap.  The finely hairy mycelium that surrounds the base of each mushroom is what inspired the common name "Fuzzy Foot." It is always a treat to find these bright-colored mushrooms, massed by the hundreds on rotting logs, fruiting in sizes ranging from that of a dime to that of the head of a pin.

Here's a closer look at these amazing little mushrooms.

I put my finger here to reveal how truly tiny some of these Fuzzy Foot Fungi can be!

(To see my photos of the "fuzzy feet" of this fungus,  here's a link to another blog I posted about them.)

More mushrooms!  And wow, what a brilliant orange! The small size and rounded caps indicate these could be Orange Wax Caps (Hygrocybe cantharellus).  The Delicate Fern Moss (Thuidium delicatulum) beneath them provided a lovely green foil for the mushrooms' vivid beauty.

Yet another orangish fungus, set off once again by the vivid green of that Delicate Fern Moss. This one is smaller yet, barely an inch above ground, and (sort of) shaped to suggest its name, the Orange Earth Tongue (Microglossum rufum).  One of the sac fungi, it has no external fertile surface like gills or pores.  Its  flattened head is a spore sac that has a pore at the tip through which the mature spores are forcibly ejected into the air.

And what the heck is THIS! Could this be another fungus, perhaps the one called Dead Man's Fingers, just emerging from the soil?  But no, these buds were crisp and kind of juicy, more like plant tissue than fungal.  And look at the dark stringy root mass that surrounds the white nubbins.  No fungal mycelium looks like this, at least none that I know of.  I had a hunch, so when I got home I googled images of "Indian Pipe buds."  And there they were, chubby white nubbins, dark stringy root mass and all.  So that's what these are: the buds of the flower  Monotropa uniflora.  Some folks believe using the word "Indian" somehow offends our native peoples and would prefer the name Ghost Pipe. So OK, these are the buds of the plant called Ghost Pipe.  Definitely a flower, not a fungus.