Paddling an Adirondack Jewelchest

Setting out to explore the shoreline and bogmats at Lens Lake in the Adirondacks this week, I enjoyed this calming view, soothed by the cool colors of blue sky, blue water, and thickly forested green mountainsides.

But only a few pulls of my paddle sent me easing closely along the lush banks, where fallen logs were carpeted by vividly colored masses of ruby-red Round-leaved Sundew, each leaf set a-sparkle by droplets of insect-enticing fluid. This was just the first example today of the jewel-bright colors to be found on this lake that I think of as an "Adirondack Jewelchest."

Sprightly stalks of Spatulate-leaved Sundew occupied other fallen logs and were equally red and equally sparkling with diamond-drops.

I was disappointed not to find the shoreline shrubs of Sheep Laurel and Labrador Tea in bloom this visit, the previous weeks' sweltering heat having urged them into blooming weeks earlier than normal.  But abundant female shrubs of Mountain Holly were at their peak of colorful beauty, branches laden with bright-red berries.

The fruits of Mountain Holly are colored the most saturated red of any other fruit I'm aware of.

Tucked in beneath Sweet Gale and Lowbush Blueberry shrubs, this clump of Pitcher Plants was colored a remarkable lime green, both its pitcher-shaped leaves and bulbous flowers. I wondered if their presence here in a deeply shaded cove accounted for this cooler color, so different from the brighter reds and oranges and yellows these plants achieve out on the sun-baked bog mats that dot this lake.

I pushed my canoe through the shallow waters of this shady cove so that I could more closely admire this pretty clump of White Beaksedge.

And by peering among the thick shoreline foliage, I discovered a number of Green Wood Orchids poking up from mats of golden Sphagnum.

I next set out to join my friends Sue and Ruth as we threaded our way through the narrow channels that separate the many large bog mats that are a remarkable feature of this mountain-ringed lake.

I am always awed by the vivid colors of these bog mats, carpeted with both ruby-red and golden-yellow Sphagnum Moss and studded with other colorful flowering plants.

Out here where the sunlight is not impeded from reaching the mats, the Pitcher Plant leaves can acquire a deep shade of garnet red. 

Large clusters of Horned Bladderwort raise their bright-yellow blooms on slender stems.

Here's a closer look at those Horned Bladderwort flowers, sharing their Sphagnum-covered hummock with a variety of other bog- and fen-loving plants: an underlying mat of Spatulate Sundew, a few pinkish-leaved stalks of Marsh St. John's Wort, the small white stars of White Beaksedge, and the nearly invisible tiny flowerheads of Yellow-eyed Grass.

Here's a clearer look at the three-parted flowers of Yellow-eyed Grass emerging from their basal clusters of toothpick-fine leaves.

Tawny puffs of Cottongrass swayed in the breeze, rising on slender stems atop a hummock richly colored with red and gold sphagnum.

Here's a closer look at the fluffy tufts that indicate where the name Cottongrass must have come from.

We did not stay late enough in the afternoon to witness these small pink buds of Marsh St. John's Wort open into pink-satin flowers, but the purple-edged leaves and raspberry-red stalks offered some colorful beauty of their own. It has been my experience that it's futile to look for the open flowers much before 3 in the afternoon.  The deep-purple blooms in the background here are the flowerheads of Pickerelweed.

Here was another species of St. John's Wort, and I could not decide if this was Dwarf St. John's or Canada St. John's.  Sue took photos she later shared on iNaturalist, where the consensus seemed to be that this was neither of those species, but rather the one called Northern St. John's Wort (Hypericum boreale). I wasn't quite convinced, but maybe so, or maybe it's a hybrid.  This was not a common wildflower populating every bogmat, but just three or fours flowering stems at one location.

At least we had no doubts that these pale-yellow orbs blushed with pink were the unripe fruit of the ubiquitous cranberry vines sprawling everywhere across the sphagnum.  But was this a Large Cranberry or a Small Cranberry? Both species occur at this location.

More Spatulate Sundew and White Beaksedge decorate this hummock, across which also sprawled the snaky stems of Bog Lycopodium.

There are many interesting aquatic plants at Lens Lake, but the one that captured my attention today was this one, called Water Bulrush (Schoenoplectus subterminalis) or Flowing Bulrush, for the way its long hair-fine leaves do sway and flow with the current. Before I knew any of these names and because of the way it looked as it flowed, I had my own personal name for it, Mermaid's Hair.

This Flowing Bulrush also has a fascinating flowering stalk, a needle-fine vertical stalk protruding straight up from the water, with an inflorescence of tiny white curls that wrap the stem at a location midway along the stalk, not at the very end.  I bet this is how this bulrush acquired the specific name "subterminalis."

Of course, many Fragrant Waterlilies decorated the surface of the lake.  These flowers have an interesting biology, in that we almost never see one that is not perfectly fresh and beautiful.  As soon as the flower is pollinated, its retractable stem pulls the flower underwater to "plant" its fertilized ovary down in the mud. I hope this newly emerged damselfly (see its shed nymph skin below it) can manage to fly away before that happens to its Water Lily perch! Its mature colors won't emerge for a while, so I could not venture an ID as to species at this stage of its development.

Lots and lots of small white moths filled the air around us like snowflakes as we paddled through waterlily leaves, and damselflies and dragonflies wafted everywhere.  Few of the insects sat still enough for their portraits, but here was a male Frosted Whiteface Dragonfly.  He seemed like a real friendly guy, posing for photo after photo I took of him.