Braving the Heat For Mountain Mint

Oh Lord, how I hate this hot humid weather! Day after day after day with temps in the 90s with humidity to match have really put a damper on my desire to head outdoors.  So what could tempt me out to explore one of the most sun-baked habitats like this powerline pictured below? (I mean, aside from the prospect of having a botanical adventure with my good pal Sue?)

It was Mountain Mint, that's what!  A particular species of Mountain Mint called Short-toothed (or Clustered) Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), rated as a Threatened species in New York State, and never having been reported growing wild in Saratoga County.  At least, that's the species I suspect it is.  I first encountered it along this same powerline in the fall of 2022, and now that I expected it to be in flower, I wanted to see it in its prime.  And so I did!

Here's a closer look at this Mountain Mint's flower cluster. 

According to The Native Plant Trust's Go Botany, the inflorescence of P. muticum is  "very dense, only the lowest branches, if any, visible, and calyx lobes lack a tuft of long, septate hairs, though other hairs may be present."

I will have to have my suspicions confirmed by an expert botanist before I can be sure, but the density of the flower cluster as well as the breadth of the short-toothed leaves where they meet the stem (among other details) had me guessing it might indeed be this particular rare species.  I did collect a specimen to present to such an expert for examination, and I did so without fear of depleting this population. As this next photo reveals, there was no shortage of specimens I could have collected at this location. (This represents only a small portion of this population's extent.)

While my desire to collect a flowering Mountain Mint specimen was indeed my primary motivation for exploring this open powerline on this sweltering day,  it certainly turned out there were many other delights I experienced along the way.  The trailside meadows presented a kaleidoscope of gorgeous colors and textures, with native wildflowers (like this pale-purple Wild Bergamot) and introduced species (like these flower-studded spikes of Common Mullein) enhancing each other's beauty.

Then add a punch of vibrant color, like the brilliant orange of this Butterfly Milkweed!

Another surprise was a solitary Wild Bergamot bloom colored a vivid fuchsia!  Pow!

What an explosion of primary colors amplifying each other's impact: the sun-yellow blooms of Black-eyed Susan punctuated by the royal-blue spikes of Viper's Bugloss! A single stem of Fleabane joined this festive arrangement.

A few other meadow dwellers added their own beauty and color.  These bright-pink blooms are Showy Tick Trefoil, one of our showiest native wildflowers.

A bit more demure, but lovely in their own right were the pale-blue multiflora wands of Spiked Lobelia.

A few stalks of the white-flowered anemone called Thimbleweed were in the process of producing their thimble-shaped seed pods, while also providing some nutrients to a couple of inch-worm-like visitors, possibly the same species of Geometer moth larvae at different instars and colorations.

A number of shrubs,  too,  were adding their colorful beauty along the trail.  The fruits of this Chokecherry shrub were in the process of turning a glossy scarlet.

The puffy white tufts of New Jersey Tea's flowers had now yielded these handsome bi-colored seedpods of lime-green and rose.

I can't tell if this Smooth Sumac's colorful conical cluster is composed of rosy flower buds or ripening fruits.  Whichever, the clusters added their stately beauty to the whorls of pink-stalked leafy branches.

Wow!  These statuesque plants of Pokeweed, dangling clusters of both white flowers and green fruits, looked like a veritable forest of purple-trunked trees towering over our heads.

While much of this powerline was sandy and dry, there were some quite wet sections, too, where plants more accustomed to wetland habitats were thriving. There was actually some standing water at the base of these tiny-flowered plants of Water Plantain.

Mad-dog Skullcap was thriving here, too, since it does like to have its feet wet.

I often find Blue Monkeyflower growing on riverbanks, so I was not surprised to note how happy it looked near this mud puddle.

Two miniature species of St. John's Wort appeared at this damp section, including this Canada St. John's Wort, distinguished by very slender leaves and scarlet flower buds.

The flowers of Dwarf St. John's Wort are equally small, but its leaves are more broadly oval and its flower buds are green.

And oh boy, was THIS a treat!  A healthy population of Tubercled Orchids was thriving here as well, which was not so surprising, since I have never found this native orchid except in wet meadows.  Most of the plants here had fading flowers, but I did find this one whose pale-yellow florets were still intact enough to display the little protuberance ("tubercle") on the lower lip that suggested this native orchid's vernacular name. 

All these delightful floral finds sure made every drop of sweat worth the shedding, on this sweltering day.  But then, we had been equally delighted when we first explored this same powerline in the fall of 2022, discovering abundant numbers of Fringed Gentians here, along with gorgeous New England Asters in several colors, and fascinating species of liverworts and mosses.  Now that we've discovered how rich this powerline is in remarkable plants, we should be sure to visit it at several other times during the growing season.

And of course, not all of our finds this day were floral.  For sure, we detected many birds and insects we would have loved to photograph -- if only they had held still for the picture-taking! But at least these two critters did:

If there is any more beautiful beetle than a Dogbane Beetle, so shiny and colorful, I don't know what it is.  I would say it outshines even rubies and emeralds. And it's alive!

And here was an insect I'd never seen or even heard of, a Velvet Ant, scurrying across the sandy path, but not scurrying so fast I couldn't snap a photo clear enough to reveal its remarkably furry abdomen. Apparently, this is really a wasp, not an ant, and with a stinger, too, that can deliver quite a wallop (earning some species of this creature the name "cow killer"). I'm glad I didn't try to slow its scurrying by impeding its progress with my hand!