Random Notes From a Sweltering Nature Nut

The unrelenting sweltering heat this summer has certainly dampened my enthusiasm for heading outdoors.  When I'm already sweating at my breakfast table because the house never cools off at night, I'd rather go back to my air-conditioned bedroom than out the door. But once in a while, my nature obsession overrides my aversion to heat exhaustion, and I do get out.  So just for the record, here are a few brief reports of where I've been and what I've seen since last I posted here on my blog.

(By the way, since I can't keep up with the changing botanical taxonomy, I'm mostly using the familiar vernacular names I know for plants.  The current scientific names can easily be googled if you need to know them.)

July 18, The Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park 

Yes, the sun was blazing down on the Scout Camp Parcel of this nature preserve in nearby Wilton, but a small number of Thursday Naturalist friends braved the heat to take in the beauty of mid-summer meadow flowers.  We also hoped to catch sight of some Karner Blue Butterflies, a federally endangered species that has found a very happy home at this preserve, thanks to extensive botanical management.

The Butterfly Milkweed was in full blazing-orange beauty!

Abundant swaths of Wild Bergamot cast a purple haze across vast tracts of the meadows.

Spotted Horsemint hides its purple-spotted yellow flowers below arching pink bracts that are just as beautiful as any flower.

We had to look close to appreciate the beauty of Wild Lettuce's wee little yellow flowers.

 

And LO!  A few Karner Blue Butterflies remained of this year's second hatching to surprise us with small flashes of blue as they flitted among the Blackberries.

July 27,  The Woods Hollow Nature Preserve, Milton, NY

This nature preserve offers a remarkable diversity of habitats, from sun-baked sandplain to open wet meadow to pine-scented forest to woodland pond, each with its distinct botanical (and insect!) inhabitants. I was delighted to share this outing with my friends Ruth Brooks (pictured here) and Sue Pierce.

I believe Ruth was looking through her loupe to examine the tiny flowers of the Winged Pigweed, a tough tumbleweed plant, native to the Central Plains but now a regular inhabitant of our drier, sandier Northeastern habitats.  The specimens we found sprouting up here were still small, but already in bloom.  Eventually, each plant will form a basketball-size orb atop a single stalk that will break off when the seeds are ripe, and the whole inflorescence will go rolling away, spurred by the wind, dropping its seeds as it rolls.

Here's a closer look at the developing winged seedpods, each one with a ruffle surrounding its center.

And here is another sandplain denizen,  a Stinkbug-killer Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus).  My photo doesn't reveal it well, but this female solitary wasp is returning to her nursery den (the hole in the sand below her), carrying her paralyzed stinkbug prey.  We were so privileged to witness her entire operation, of stuffing the stinkbug down the hole she had excavated, entering the hole to lay her egg(s?) on the still-living bug, then emerging to kick sand into the hole to seal it off, leaving no visible trace of her handiwork.  When her eggs hatch, the larvae will feed on the stinkbug and then pupate within the den, to emerge at a later date. Here's a link to an article with much more information about this fascinating wasp.  Sue was able to video this wasp from digging her hole to arriving with prey to refilling her hole, and she posted her video on Facebook.

We next made a circuit around the preserve's pond, pausing to admire the beautiful clumps of Joe Pye Weed that were blooming along the shore.

Abundant patches of Dalibarda flowers (also known as Dewdrops) were carpeting the shady forest floor with bright-white flowers and dark-green ruffly leaves.

One of the most surprising finds at Woods Hollow is the presence of Yellow Bartonia growing on the damp banks of the pond.  I usually associate this plant with acidic bogs and fens, but there are indeed  parts of this pond's shore that support several other denizens of such habitats, Round-leaf Sundew and Leatherleaf shrubs, for example.  If we had not had Sue's super eyesight to reveal all the Bartonia blooming here this day, I'm sure we would have missed most of it.  It is a very small flower!

July 29,  A Powerline in the Palmertown Mountain Range

This photo of a big beautiful bloom of Pasture Thistle appeared in my Facebook Memories, encouraging me to brave a rather strenuous ascent up a mountainside to see these lovely flowers again.

Lucky for me, the day was overcast and occasionally sprinkling a few drops of cooling rain, so up I went.  Up and up and up.  I could see a glimpse of the Hudson River shining far below when I reached the high meadow where Pasture Thistle grows. 

Oh no!  Was I too late to find them in bloom this year?  My first sight of the plants was a Goldfinch dining on this Pasture Thistle gone to seed.

Ah, but a few were still in bloom! Looking a bit tired, however.  I think even they do not like this over-hot summer.

I searched and searched the few blooming thistles for the presence of a Long-horned Thistle Bee (Melissoides desponsus), which is known to prefer the big fragrant blooms of Pasture Thistle. I had found this bee on previous visits, which was when I took this photo below. But no bees at all, of any species, today.  I wonder if they all stayed home because of the threat of rain.

A second attraction this high meadow offers is the presence of four different species of Tick Trefoil, all in one place. The Showy Tick Trefoil and the Large-bracted Tick-Trefoil had already gone to seed, but a few of the plants of Panicled Tick Trefoil still held some pretty pinky-purple blooms.

Most of the patches of Round-leaved Tick Trefoil held no flowers among the spreading mats of its creeping leaves, but I felt lucky to find one patch still in bloom.

The most abundant blooms today were those of Wild Marjoram, not a native American wildflower, but certainly a beautiful one. And its aromatic leaves can be harvested and used as the culinary herb we know as Oregano.

This American Lady Butterfly was happy to sip the Wild Marjoram's nectar,  native wildflower or not.

The higher I climbed, the thinner became the soil over bare rock.  And this is just the habitat preferred by the tiny species of St. John's Wort known by the vernacular name Orange Grass. Its masses of strictly vertical slender green stems do resemble grass, and I've heard that, if crushed, the flowering stems do release an orange-like scent.  As has always been the case at this site, I found scads of Orange Grass plants, with not a one bearing an open flower.  Yellow buds and red pods, but no tiny yellow flowers. I believe I would have to arrive here no later than 10 am if I want to see them in bloom.

A few years ago, I picked a few budding stems to place in a vase at home.  By 10 the next morning, the buds had opened into these minute but adorable blooms.

August 1, The Saratoga Battlefield

Our Thursday Naturalist group gathered a bit earlier than usual this day, since our route to a shady vale along a creek would take us across sun-baked open meadow.  If we'd intended to beat the heat by hurrying across this open space, well, there's this speed of walking called "the botanical pace!" I forget what my friends had found to observe on this stump, but it did require close observation. And I had already headed off to find some shade.

I did pause in my hurrying to delight in the splendid colors of a mid-summer meadow abloom with Joe Pye Weed and Goldenrod. The Wild Bergamot had long gone to seed, so we were not tempted to stand still for long moments under the sun while watching the Hummingbird Moths sip the flowers' nectar.

And here was the treasure worth any swelter to find:  The Winged Monkey Flower, blooming abundantly along a small forest-shaded creek. Several years ago, Sue Pierce had discovered at this location the presence of this unusual species, rated as a Rare species in New York State and not yet vouchered as present in Saratoga County.  And none of our friends has encountered it anywhere else we have explored.

The flowers of the Winged Monkey Flower (Mimulus alatus) are usually this pale lavender, not the bright blue of the much more commonly encountered species of Monkey Flower (M. ringens).  Note, too, that in this rare species, the flowers are closely attached (sessile) to the stem, while the leaves are attached to the stem with long petioles that are obviously winged. This is just the opposite from the flower and leaf attachment in the more common species of Monkey Flower (see next photo).

Here's one of my photos of the much more common species of Monkey Flower (Mimulus ringens). Note the bright blue color, the long, non-winged flower stalks, and how the leaves are so closely attached to the stem they appear to surround it.