Bedrock, Early Bloomers, and Bugs

What with birthday-cake baking and present shopping, houseguests arriving, dentist appointments, etc., etc. this past week, I haven't had time to post an extensive blog. But I do want to share these photos of flowers, taken early this week in a beautiful area of the Palmertown Mountain Range in Moreau . The spring wildflower rush is upon us now, and by next week so many more flowers will be blooming, these will seem like old news by then.  And they deserve to be celebrated now!  

There's a trail that leads up to the heights of the Palmertown Mountains at the northern boundary of Saratoga County, but my favorite spot along this trail is right where the trail begins to sharply ascend. Old lady with bad knees that I am, I don't go higher, but I linger here in this stream-crossed sunlit area, surrounded by impressive bedrock and boulders, delighting in the masses of wildflowers blooming now and soon, including many lime-lovers. Must be some marble in those rocks, or emerging in springs that water the rocks or join the streams that tumble down the mountain slopes. 

Uncountable numbers of Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana) abound in this spot so thickly, it is hard to walk without stepping on them. This pretty pink-striped, pink-anthered, early-blooming wildflower has certainly earned its vernacular name of Spring Beauty. It's amazing to watch the bees visiting these lovely flowers and then flying off with pollen baskets colored pink from the pollen gathered here.  

In fact, there's a particular species of bee, called the Spring Beauty Miner (Adrena eriginiae), that my friend Sue Pierce managed to get an amazing photo of:

Photo by Sue Pierce

My friend Sue and I found many, many mounds of Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) leaves at this site, but only a few were blooming yet. I was grateful to find some with dark shade behind the blooms, the better to show off their pantaloon shape.

The Hepatica Festival continues, well into its third week now since the fur-covered buds first released the lovely blooms, usually in more muted colors than the two pictured here. It's rare to find the flowers so vividly colored, so these gorgeous magenta Sharp-lobed Hepatica blooms (Hepatica acutiloba) really stood out against the leaf litter. This species of Hepatica is known to prefer a calcareous habitat, and other lime-loving plants at this site -- Canada Violets, Plantain-leaved Sedge, and Maidenhair Fern -- attest to that soil chemistry. 

Quite unusual for Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), there was only this one single flower along the trail. This lovely flower usually blooms -- ah, too briefly! -- in groups. Maybe that's why this bee was loathe to leave this solitary pollen provider and stayed put for the picture-taking. 

Here was another critter that stayed around for the picture-taking. This cute little tachinid fly (a nectar-eating fly of the kind I call "bristly butts") landed on my finger and spent a considerable amount of time walking back and forth, dabbing its "tongue" on my sweat-dampened skin.  I know that the adults of these important pest-controlling insects (their larvae consume many destructive insect pests) like to sip sweet flower nectar, but in this case the fly appeared to be sipping my sweat.  Maybe it likes salty as well as sweet.

I was disappointed not to find the beautiful lime-loving Canada Violets blooming yet, but two other violets, notable for being early bloomers, had opened their beautiful flowers.  The bright-yellow blooms of Round-leaved Violet (Viola rotundifolia) were easy to spot among the leaf litter.  This violet is known to abound in the Adirondacks, but I rarely find it in the lowland woods I usually haunt. But this site in the Palmertown mountains is actually within the same eco-range as the Adirondacks, so it was not such a surprise to find it here.

These tiny white violets are probably the Northern White species (Viola pallens), due to their tiny size, roundish leaves, and early bloom-time.  I have difficulty distinguishing them from other small early white violets, so I'm glad my life doesn't depend on being correct. By whatever name they might be called, I was delighted to find them blooming abundantly along the trail. 

For a preview of the floral feast that's just beginning now, I stopped on my way home along Spier Falls Road to search among the rocky ledges lining the road for a plant that's soon to turn these ledges into amazing rock gardens.  Sure enough, the Early Saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis) was very close to opening its clusters of tiny white blooms among the moss-covered cracks and crevices in the rock.  Red Trilliums will soon follow, joined by Shadblow Trees with their drifts of snowy flowers, and shortly after that, the deep-pink, super-fragrant blooms of Early Azalea will be spilling over these cliffs. Stay tuned!