Back in My Blackjack!

Back in my Blackjack at last! This is what I've been waiting for all summer, as week by week, the pain from February's knee-replacement surgery receded and my strength and flexibility slowly returned.  Even when I am in perfect condition, it takes some strategy and strength to get in and out of this lightweight solo Hornbeck canoe, so I count it a wonderful victory that I had no trouble at all.  My friends Sue Pierce, in her own carbon-fiber Blackjack, and Ruth Brooks, in her Hornbeck kevlar canoe, came with me to rescue me should I take a spill.  But all that I needed from them was the great pleasure of their company as we paddled on glorious Lens Lake, a bogmat-islanded mountain lake in western Warren County. What a marvelous location for returning to paddling pleasures!

Since this was my first special day on the water this year, I got to choose which part of the lake to explore first, and we quickly made our way to a quiet, shallow, shrub-bordered backwater, where fallen logs serve as nurseries for many different wetland plants.

The Round-leaved Sundews (Drosera rotundifolia) that thrived on this mossy log held flower stalks very nearly in bloom with their tiny white flowers.

On another fallen log, the Spatulate Sundews (Drosera intermedia) sparkled with sticky drops of crystal-clear fluid,  tempting insects to come try a taste of that fluid. When the insects land, they get stuck fast in those sticky drops while the plant's pads close around them, preparing to digest their prey to provide nutrients for themselves.  Notice that neither sundew possesses green leaves that would provide nutrients via photosynthesis.

One shady bank of this backwater was completely carpeted with Large Cranberry plants (Vaccinium macrocarpon), with myriad white blooms spangling the leafy green bank.  I immediately thought of my dear friend Evelyn Greene, who first introduced me to Lens Lake when she brought me here back in November, 2011, to assist her in picking ripe cranberries.  Sad to report, this bumper crop of cranberries will remain out of Evelyn's grasp this fall, since she died this summer.  I will always bless her name for many reasons, but one of them will be for introducing me to this beautiful lake and its fascinating botanical wonders.

Here's a closer look at those cranberry flowers, with their sharply reflexed petals.

(Thinking of Evelyn, I went back into my blog archive and found the post from November, 2011, where Evelyn took me cranberry gathering here on Lens Lake.  One of more than 40 adventures that Evelyn Greene and I shared and I recorded on my blog.  All I have to do to re-live them is type her name into this blog's search bar, and off we go again! My blog readers could do that, too!)

We were struck by the vivid green pitchers and flowers of this Northern Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea) growing right at the water's edge.  Out on the bogmats, this plant is usually a vivid red, flowers and pitchers both.  Perhaps the deep shade of this quiet bay influences this plant to remain this shade of green.

I thought this interplay of fat green pitchers and dainty white flowers of Swamp Dewberry (Rubus hispidus) looked especially beautiful.

The shores of Lens Lake are thickly wooded with various shrubs, including Leatherleaf, Sweet Gale, Mountain Holly, Labrador Tea, and Sheep Laurel.  Only the Sheep Laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) was blooming this day, but oh, with such beautiful bright-pink blooms! 

We next headed out to the open waters of the lake to explore the many bogmats out there. What a gorgeously colorful mix, from the red and gold Sphagnum Moss, bright-yellow Horned Bladderworts (Utricularia cornuta), and Tawny Cottongrass tufts (Eriophorum virginicum) dancing in the breeze.

This appears to be a very good year for the Horned Bladderwort, with masses of its yellow blooms crowding the bogmats.

It is also a very good year for Yellow-eyed Grass (Xyris sp.), for we found many and generous clumps of it sprouting along the bogmats' edges.  We usually have to search for a few spindly individuals of it.  Not this year!

On the other hand, the pretty pink blooms of Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides) were really scarce, and those we did find appeared to be past their prime. Perhaps the super-hot weather this summer was not to their liking, since this little orchid is a denizen of northern cold-water bogs.

The lake's surface was also studded with blooms, including those of Yellow Pond Lilies (Nuphar variegata) and Fragrant Water Lilies (Nymphaea odorata).

The pink-satin flowers of Watershield (Brasenia schreberi) stood tall among the floating mass of their oval green leaves.

Perhaps it might be hard to think of these little white threads wrapping this slender stalk as a flower, but  it is a reproductive organ of the sedge called Water Bulrush (Schoenoplectus subterminalis).

The Water Bulrush also goes by several vernacular names, such as Flowing Rush and Mermaid's Hair, names that represent the way its very fine leaves flow and sway in moving water:

And here was some green stuff growing completely submerged in shallow water near the shore.  Looks like it might be some kind of seaweed, but it's really an animal! Or, to be more exact, a colony of animals called Freshwater Sponge (Spongilla lacustris). Despite its green color and seaweed-like appearance, a lake sponge is a simple filter-feeding animal, possessing many cells but lacking a mouth or a brain or muscles or heart or any ability to move, once it becomes attached to a submerged rock or fallen limb. 

The Freshwater Sponge somewhat resembles a green plant because of the green algae that inhabit it in a symbiotic relationship.  The algae help the sponge utilize available food, while the sponge supplies the algae with a place to live. Despite its slimy appearance in this photograph, it really had a gritty feel, from its structures composed of calcium or silica. I am often completely dumbfounded by all the many different forms that living creatures can assume!

And I'm awfully glad that my healing knee has allowed me once again to paddle my little canoe on such fascinating places as Lens Lake, where I can encounter such wonders as I found on or in or around its  lovely waters there today.