Gentians and More, at Orra Phelps

Several friends have been posting photos of Fringed Gentians (Gentianopsis crinita) on Facebook  this week, which surprised me.  Already?  But then I remembered: Oh yeah, it's September!  This gorgeous native wildflower always suggests to me that summer saves her best flowers for last.  I can certainly think of very few summer blooms that rival for gorgeousness this stunning flower.  So off to Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in nearby Wilton I hurried.  And sure enough, there they were!  Although they grow in an area crowded with other tall plants and grasses, their radiant blue color, vividly illuminated by the bright sun, made them easy to spot.

There were many fewer blooms this year than last, but since this species is a biennial, that doesn't mean there won't be more next year.  But I do fear that this population of Fringed Gentians may eventually die out at this site if the weedy poplars and pines aren't removed from the open wet meadow where these gentians have thrived for many years. The trees will not only steal the sunlight from these sun-loving flowers, but also their roots will draw the water from the damp soil that Fringed Gentians require.  I did count 11 separate plants this week, and each plant possessed many more buds, so the show should continue for a while longer this year.

After sating my gaze sufficiently with the beauty of these wispy-fringed flowers, I remembered that another kind of gentian had made a surprise appearance at Orra Phelps last year, down along the shaded creek that runs through this small preserve.  Curious to see if this interloper had persisted, I followed a trail through the woods that descended to the creek.  And sure enough, there it was: a Closed Gentian plant (Gentiana clausa), its stems flattened by the creek's occasional floods but with multi-bloom flower clusters held upright against the muddy ground.  Another cobalt-blue beauty blooms at Orra Phelps!

There were several other lovely finds in the woods along the creek. The Indian Cucumber-root plants (Medeola virginiana) were now in fruit, holding their shiny black berries above the top-tier of leaves, the still-green leaves now colored with splashes of crimson. 

Some White Baneberry plants (Actaea pachypoda) also stood along the creek, with porcelain-white berries held on chubby rosy-red pedicels.  Noting the black dots on the blossom-ends of the white berries, it's easy to see how the vernacular name "Doll's Eyes" came to be another name for this plant.

Some big bright-yellow flowers also bloomed along the creek, probably one of our native sunflowers (Helianthus sp.) that prefers the shade of the woods to the bright sunlight of open meadows. Many similar-looking species of sunflowers bloom in our area, and I have great difficulty distinguishing their species.

Many species of asters are blooming now, and many of them are also difficult to distinguish. But I think I would win a wager if I asserted that this pretty bunch growing close beside the tree-shaded stony-bottomed creek was the White Wood Aster (Eurybia divaricata).

Plop!  Plop! Plop!  With every step I took along the creek, little Green Frogs vaulted away from my feet, most of them quite promptly burying themselves into the mud or hiding under the rocks that lined the bottom of the creek.  For some reason, though, this one decided to keep its head above water.  The better for each of us to get a good gander at the other.  And my camera to zoom in for a photo!

The spring-watered swale that surrounds the creek is a bryophyte Paradise, with mosses and liverworts of many species abounding here. I was struck by how each rounded rock that lies in the mud was thickly covered with a near-pure population of a single species.  This rock was home to almost nothing but Delicate Fern Moss (Thuidium delicatulum), although a few leaves of Water Pennywort (Hydrocotyle americana) were sharing the moss's territory.

And this rock had little room for anything else but the broad scaly leaves of a Conocephalum liverwort.

This ruffly-looking, yellow-edged, lime-green liverwort has the wonderful name of Handsome Woollywort (Trichocolea tomentosa), and I wonder whether I love it more for its whimsical name or its fluffy appearance. I don't encounter this liverwort all that often, so I'm glad to know it seems to be secure in the muddy parts of the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve, quite close to my home. I can visit it often, and in nearly every season.  These liverworts and mosses stay green and beautiful all winter, although they do hide out under deep snow.

A closer look at this nearly-exclusive mound of Handsome Woollywort reveals a few visitors.  The most prominent one is Atrichum undulatum, a moss that resembles a wee little vegetable hedgehog with its spiky "undulating" leaves.  A leaf of that Water Pennywort pokes up from amid the Atrichum. And way off to the bottom right of this photo, I also detect a single flat leaf of that scaly-looking Conocephalum. Maybe there's some Delicate Fern Moss paying a visit, too. It's nice to know that all these bryophytes get along so well.