Mud-Plantain Lives Up To Its Name

Family commitments have kept me away from my blog this past week, and new ones will do so for the week to come.  But I did have a little island of time today to explore outdoors on this absolutely perfect summer day.  So what should I do?  I looked back at my entries for this week last year and found that now was the time to go looking for Grass-leaved Mud-plantain, also called Water Stargrass (Heteranthera dubia).   To find it last year, I canoed on Fish Creek for quite a ways from my put-in near Victory Mills, only to discover I could access this flower's site from a bridge I could easily drive to.   So I drove to that bridge today, and looking down from the road, I could see bright spots of yellow starring the grassy mudflats below.  Could that really be my Mud-plantain?  It's supposed to grow out in the water.

Well, low water this year has left many water plants stranded on shore, so down I scrambled to see if those spots of yellow were the flower I was looking for.  This should be easy, I thought to myself.  I can just walk up to them and take their picture without struggling to hold my canoe against the current.

Uh. . .  it wasn't so easy, after all.   One step onto that mudflat and I sunk to my shins.

It was quite a struggle to work my feet free as both of them sunk deeper into the mud.   But I finally did and made my way back to firmer ground.

And I even managed to get the photo I wanted.  Yep, these were Grass-leaved Mud-plantain, all right.
To see a more representative photo of this flower in its typical watery habitat, click HERE to visit my blog post from last year when the water was high.

Other plants occupying that muddy bank included this red-stemmed Water Purslane, with little green four-parted flowers growing in the leaf axils.

False Pimpernel also covered the mud, with little blue flowers a bit bigger and prettier than those of Water Purslane.

After struggling to wash some of the mud from my feet, I climbed back up the bank and drove home by the scenic route,  marveling at the glorious vistas of mountains rising beyond the Hudson River off to the east.  I believe the highest peak in the distance is Mt. Equinox in Manchester, Vermont.

One more treat awaited me on my way home, the radiant blue flowers of Great Lobelia, growing in a roadside ditch.

I really treasure these beautiful plants, and I fear they're not long for this world.  Each year the road-maintenance crews mow more and more of them down.  I found only three plants standing this year, where in other years I found dozens.  I would dig them up and plant them at home, but my soil is too dry for them to thrive.  Maybe I should make a sign and plant it where these grow:  Please Do Not Mow the Lobelias.

Steamy Day, a Few Rewards

Usually, a day-long rain like the one we had yesterday signals a change in the weather. But not this time -- unless what is meant by "change" is even muggier than ever before. Ugh! A truly horrible day it was to trudge through the woods, the very earth seeming to belch up heaves of sweltering heat with every step, clouds of biting insects circling my head, sticking to my sweaty face and gagging me as I snorted them in with each breath. As I said: ugh! So I guess I have truly descended into the very depths of nature nuttitude, since I just HAD to go to Bog Meadow today to check on those Downy Rattlesnake Plantains.

Longtime readers of this blog will remember my outrage at finding these orchids mowed down last year, just as a single stalk was about to bloom. Well, I'm happy to report that this particular patch of plants has rebounded with stunning vigor. I counted ten blooming stalks today where a year ago there was only one. Orchids are like that. Sometimes they seem to thrive on a bit of crisis.

Anyway, I was very, very happy to see them. Just look at this cute little blossom.

I know, I know, they're pretty small and not at all showy, so some folks might wonder what all my fuss was about. Sometimes I wonder, too. Especially as I sit here tonight scratching all my bug bites.

There were a few other rewards along the trail, such as this bright pink Swamp Milkweed bloom. My eyes were drawn to its beautiful color, and it looks like a bunch of flies were drawn to it, too. They'd better be careful, because sometimes flies get their legs trapped in milkweed flowers and they can't get free. (You can see a photo of just such a trapped fly if you check out my post for June 26, 2009.)

Those flies had better look out for the dragonflies, too, who love to eat other insects and who were darting all over the open water along the trail. A couple of them perched long enough for me to take their photos. I don't know their names, but maybe some of my readers do and will tell us. One was a rich velvety brown with yellow specks behind its violet eyes.

The other was a rich velvety red, with lacy black wings and coffee-colored eyes.

I was kind of surprised to see Flat Top Aster already in bloom. Hey, it's only July! There's a whole week left before August. But everything's blooming early this year.

The Virgin's Bower was also in bloom, but it seems to be right on schedule, according to my flower journals from previous years.

I had hoped that yesterday's rain would have brought us lots of mushrooms today, but this yellow jelly fungus was all I could find. I confess I didn't look very hard, since the heat and bugs were chasing me back to my air-conditioned car.

Once I got in my car and cooled off a bit, I worked up the stamina to go in search of another treasure, a big patch of Great Lobelia that for several years I'd found growing in a wet ditch along a nearby road. But when I arrived at where I remembered them growing, this is the sight that met my eyes: muddy ruts and heaps of dead grass instead of masses of radiant blue.

Dismayed, but not that surprised (there seems to be some horrid compulsion toward tidiness among most folks), I pulled over anyway. Maybe some plants had escaped the mower's blade and were hiding further back in the woods. And so they were! Oh joy!

Here's a closer look at one of those lovely blue flowers. See how the stamen arcs up through a slit in the upper petal and positions itself in readiness to plunge down on the back of the pollinator that lands on the lip below?

Such cleverness! Such beauty! How on earth could that mower bring himself to cut it down? I'll bet he never even saw it. Or thought it was just some common weed that might creep into his monoculture of a lawn. How I wish it would creep into mine! I actually planted some I obtained from a wildflower nursery, but my ground is too dry to suit the needs of this plant. I had always hoped to be able to find it safe along this roadside. Guess I'd better find the person who mows this spot and put in a plea for Great Lobelia's life.