Seeking Bog Meadow's Shade

I confess I've been neglecting this blog. I am feeling every one of my 83 years this summer, especially when the temps approach the high 90s, with humidity to match.  And my knee, while better, still hurts.  And my couch often calls to me for an afternoon nap more persuasively than the Great Outdoors does for an afternoon walk.  At last, the days are cooler now.  But I still seek the shade.  And what better shade than the cool dark swamp along Bog Meadowbrook Nature Trail? There's even a lovely boardwalk there that allows me to walk where the shade is deepest (as is the mud, should I step off the boards). So that's where I went this past week.

I did have a goal: to see if the stately Swamp Thistles (Cirsium muticum) were blooming now.  And they sure were!  Many plants have sprung up this summer, but not right next to the boardwalk, so I had to get my shoes muddy heading into the wooded wetland where they grew.  Are these our tallest native thistle?  They do tower way over my head, so I have to bend the stalk to look more closely at the flowers. (Ouch!  The stems have no thorns, but the leaves are very prickly!)

Swamp Thistle flowers are well worth a prickle or two to look at closely!  Not just for the colorful blooms, but also to see the involucres as ornamental as Ukrainian Easter eggs.  A close look also reveals the fine webby hairs on those involucres.

Here's a closer look at those white-striped green bracts and the cottony webbing among them.  This webbing is the most distinctive feature of this species of thistle, offering a positive clue to its identification.

Could this be a Long-horned Thistle Bee (Melissoides desponsus), which is known to feed on the thistles that bloom in late summer? Its "horns" were buried so deeply into the flowerhead I could not see if they were longer than usual. But when I looked on Google for descriptions of that particular bee, it was described as having a hairless abdomen. So this must be another species of big bee that also likes to feed on Swamp Thistle.  I'll call it a "Fuzzy-butt Thistle Bee."

This swampy area is also home to three different species of Equisetum: E. arvense (Field Horsetail), E. sylvaticum (Wood Horsetail), and E. scirpoides (Dwarf Horsetail).  But the only one I could find this day without crawling in the mud was the Wood Horsetail, a particularly attractive one, with its lacy appearance. That laciness is thanks to the compound branching of its slender lateral branches.

A particularly gorgeous denizen of this swamp is the Great Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) with its tall spikes of royal-blue flowers. 

A close look at Great Lobelia's florets reveals this native wildflower's distinctive pollination strategy.  Note how the curving stamen arches up through the split upper lip of the flower, with the pollen-laden anther poised for action.  When an insect lands on the lower lip, its weight forces the stamen to spring down and deposit pollen on the nectar-sipping visitor, which it will carry off to spread to neighboring blooms. Sometimes I am simply astounded by the strategies of organisms that are said to be without intelligence!

When I saw this Common Boneset plant (Eupatorium perfoliatum), I was less drawn to its flowers than I was to the small pale-blue butterfly that was so busy among the florets it actually stayed still for the picture-taking. I wish it had opened its wings, for that might have helped me discern its species. The closest I can come to an ID is the Summer Spring Azure (Celastrina neglecta), which has similar wing markings and wings that are pale underneath.  

OK, what else was blooming in this swamp?  Here was a handsome plant of Northern Horsebalm (Collinsonia canadensis) with some of its small yellow flowers blooming. Although this plant is in the Mint Family, it smells more lemony than minty.  In fact, it smells so much like the insect repellent Citronella, I sometimes crush some of the flower stems and rub them on my ears and neck when the mosquitoes are biting. It does help.

Here's a closer look at the Horsebalm's odd little flowers:

The damp soil in this part of the Bog Meadowbrook Nature Trail has helped to keep some of our native ferns looking fresh and green despite our hot dry summer.  A large patch of Maidenhair Fern was a clue that the soil it grew in was at least somewhat calcareous.

The most common of our native ferns along this trail is Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), sharing its woodland habitat with lots of Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis).

Ferns are not always easy for amateurs like me to identify, but Cinnamon Fern has these ID clinchers I call "cinnamon buns": tiny fuzzy balls that grow where the pinnae meet the stalk. Earlier in the summer, these fuzzy balls are whiter, but by this time of year, they actually are tinted the color of cinnamon!

The single most prolific plant this time of year along this trail is Hog Peanut (Amphicarpa bracteata).  Masses and masses of it line the main woodland trail.  This plant actually does have edible one-seeded  pods that are produced by petal-less flowers that grow on or near the ground at the base of the plants.  I have tasted them, and they'd probably taste better roasted and salted, but you could survive on them if you had to.

Hog Peanuts has other flowers, too, pretty little purple and white ones that dangle from the vines.  These flowers also produce seeds, but in long, bean-like pods that contain several seeds.  These seeds are also edible, but not nearly as palatable as the ones that grow at the base of the plant.

I was ready to turn back and head home to that comfy couch, but I remembered a patch of orchids called Downy Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera pubescens) that once grew another quarter-mile or so along the trail.  Knowing how fickle these orchids can be about showing up in the same spot each year, I had to talk myself into going to look for them.  And LO!  I found ONE!  One in bloom, anyway.  Near where in other years I'd found 10 or more. But hey, an orchid's an orchid! And I could see the distinctively patterned basal leaves of several more plants that hadn't flowered this year.  Maybe next year?

Here's a closer look at the small white florets that crown the Downy Rattlesnake Plantain's flower stalk. Most looked a bit past their prime. The bases of the florets did look kind of fuzzy.  Is that why this orchid got the "downy" (pubescent) part of its name? 

And now I could head for home.