Stalking the Zig-zag Aster

Yes, I know, I've been neglecting this blog of late.  I go out to the woods nearly every day, but to tell the truth, the woods are kind of boring to blog about right now.  Most of the flowers have finished blooming, and those that still hold flowers on top have lower leaves that are shriveled and blackened, due to this past summer's drought.   The birds are silent, the butterflies scarce, and despite a few days of rain the past week, the fungi are few and far between.  There's not much new to report.  So that's why I felt a bit of excitement when the folks at the New York Flora Association asked me to obtain herbarium specimens for two particular asters -- the Zig-zag and the New England Asters -- that haven't been recorded for Saratoga County.  Now when I head to the woods and the roadsides, I feel like I'm on a mission.

I didn't have to search long or far to find New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), since its deep purple flowers announce its presence along nearly every roadside in Saratoga County.  No other aster native to these parts has flowers this vividly colored.  I found this big fluffy bunch along a path in the Skidmore Woods.

 This large patch of lavender asters was growing in a drainage ditch along a local highway, where I stomped on my brakes, swerved to a stop, and leapt from my car to check their identity.  The size and color of the flowers, their branching habit of growth, and their moist thicket location indicated they just might be the sought-after Zig-zag Goldenrod (Symphyotrichum prenanthoides).

Long narrow leaves that clasp the stem were another feature that fit the description of Zig-zag Aster,  but a closer inspection revealed that the shape of the leaves was not quite right, nor was the obvious hairiness the entire length of the purplish stalk.  These must be Purple-stemmed Asters, I concluded.  So my hunt for Zig-zag Asters will continue.

The bit of rain we've had lately has not produced the abundance of fungi we usually find in the fall, but it did cause a few of these tiny Marasmius capillaris mushrooms to open their little pleated caps on wiry black stalks.  This species of woodland mushroom will fruit only after periods of wet and will shrivel and disappear during dry spells, only to promptly reappear after the next rainfall.

This group of large white mushrooms was easy to spot in the green lawn surrounding the entrance to Skidmore College.

There wasn't much to distinguish these mushrooms until I picked one and turned it over.  Then I could see the veil remnants on the stem and the pink unattached gills that led me to believe that this was a clump of Meadow Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris).   I understand that they are good to eat, but I did not learn their identity until I had returned home without them, so I missed my chance to taste them.

I should know better than to ever say that the woods are boring.  There's always something interesting going on.  Here was a whole fallen tree trunk, well rotted and absolutely writhing with thousands and thousands of ants, some winged and some wingless.  They were pouring out of holes in the wood and scurrying across the surface, stopping from time to time to bump heads with each other, the winged ones accumulating in dense layers at certain high points along the trunk.   I later learned that the sexually mature winged ants (both males and females) were being pushed out of the original colony by the wingless workers, that they would now mate, the females would fly off to attempt to establish new colonies, and the males would then die.  Wow!  High drama on a fallen log!

High color now in the Sassafras leaves.  I think no other tree has leaves that turn so many glorious shades at once.  Predictions are that most of our autumn foliage will be muted this year, so go find a Sassafras tree and indulge your senses.

The hunt for asters took me right into a patch of Tick Trefoil, which tried to use me as its seed-distribution vehicle.  I discovered a flea comb  was quite efficient at stripping the stick-tights from my pants.

A Seaside Holiday

I had quite a pleasant change of scene this week, spending a few days in the charming seaside village of Rockport, Massachusetts.  My friend Sue, who has vacationed there for many years, convinced my husband and me to join her there for a few days this year, and she made a wonderful well-informed guide, introducing us to a sampling of the area's many attractions.

We were blessed with warm weather and still waters the entire four days, plus one whole brilliantly sunny day for enjoying the stunning azure hues of sea and sky.

Our hotel overlooked a small sandy beach where the breakers rolled in, so we could fall asleep each night to the sound of a gentle surf.  Here's the view from our balcony.

Sue took me to Halibut Point State Park, just a short drive up the coast from the village, where we walked around an old granite quarry filled with fresh water as clear and blue as sapphires.

We then followed trails that took us down to the surf-pounded shore, where colorful seaweeds and limpets clung to the rocks.

At low tide, we spied these Eider Ducks resting on the seaweed-covered rocks.

Of course, we had to botanize wherever we walked.  The coastal rocks were home to several flower species we don't find at home, including Downy and Seaside goldenrods.  We do find Stiff Asters occasionally in Saratoga Coumty, but here on the coast they were the most common species, generously adorning the granite boulders with their lovely lavender blooms.

The driest areas with the thinnest soils were covered with masses of Orange Grass, a tiny species of St. Johnswort that thrives in just such harsh conditions.

One evening, we drove over to nearby Gloucester for dinner, allowing ourselves extra time to stroll around the harbor, where these colorful dories were docked.

We had a little rain and we had a little fog, not enough to spoil our brief vacation, but just enough to add to the misty seaside atmospherics.

Beautiful!

A Blaze of Glory

Did I hear that right?  We might have a FROST this week?!  I sure hope not, since some of the most brilliant of the season's flowers are blooming now, and I haven't yet had my fill of their beauty.  So when my friend Sue invited me to join her on a walk through a goldenrod meadow in Queensbury today, I didn't have to think twice.  There may not be many more chances to see what's in bloom.

This meadow has wide mowed paths through acres and acres of goldenrods and asters alive with the hopping and flying and fluttering and buzzing and trilling of thousands of insects, including the exquisite Monarch Butterfly, whose lovely orange wings are a perfect complement to the blooms of New England Asters.

The air was filled with the long drawn-out trills of Tree Crickets, which I never expected to lay my eyes on, since their jade-green bodies are well camouflaged among all the fading leaves of the trailside plants.  But of course, I was with Sue, who has the most incredible eyesight, and she found this one.  It was quite a task to keep the cricket in focus, since it kept crawling around to the underside of the leaf.

Sue also spied this gorgeous Argiope spider suspended on its web.   You'd think this spider would be easy to see, with that brilliant yellow and black pattern on her back, but it only helped to hide her from view among all the goldenrods.

I had no trouble at all discerning this emerald Leopard Frog, who leapt from the path to a puddle, then turned to look at us with those incredible golden eyes.

At the back of the meadow, a trail led into a dark damp woods, where we encountered billowing clouds of hungry mosquitoes.  Their tortures kept us moving through the woods at a faster pace than we normally keep, despite the temptations of many colorful fungi just begging to have their pictures taken.  I did stop long enough to photograph this unusual arrangement of Blue Stain and Lemon Drop fungi sharing a rotting log.  Of course, my camera refused to focus again and again, as the mosquitoes made their way down my ears and onto my eyelids.  Oh bag it, I said as I clicked one last shot that turned out to be almost OK.   Part of the challenge, in addition to it being very dark and shady, was that the smallest of those Lemon Drops were about as big as the head of a pin.

Fleeing our tormenters, we hurried back to our car and drove to another wonderful spot not far away, along the Warren County Bike Path.  Here in a weedy ditch by a busy road we found the first Fringed Gentians of the season.  One of the last flowers to bloom before frost, they represent the flower season coming to a close in a blaze of glory.  It's hard to imagine a more radiant blue, or a flower head more generous in its display of gorgeous color.

The asters are doing their bit to add to the season's final glory, with colors ranging from deepest purple to lavender to palest blue to snowy white.  While many of the white-flowered asters are a bit scraggly in appearance, the Heath Aster tightly clusters its small white flowers into quite showy bunches.

Many Bidens species have flowers that are quite inconspicuous, some having no petals at all, or very small ones.  We often know we've encountered them only because of the barbed seeds ("beggar ticks") embedded in our clothing after we've passed unknowing through a patch of them.   A notable exception is Bidens cernua, or Nodding Bur Marigold, which is just now coming into bloom in many roadside ditches and other low damp spots, where it puts on quite a show.

I know that when the Gentians and Bidens come into bloom, I have turned to the final page of my annual flower journal.  There won't be many species left to go hunting for.  I haven't yet found Oxeye or Jerusalem Artichoke, but it won't be long.  Witch Hazel will be unfurling its yellow ribbons along the river soon, but I won't see the brilliant blue Monkshood in my garden until October.  Then that will be it for the flowers.  Aren't we blessed that Mother Nature saves some of her best for last?

A Quick Trip Through the Denton Sanctuary

A beautiful sunny warm day today, but I got a late start, so where could I visit close to home that I hadn't been to before?  Friends had told me about Denton Wildlife Sanctuary, just across the Hudson from Schuylerville, so that's where I went today.  It's a very nice preserve with miles of trails, mostly oak woods with streams and some swampy spots, plus some open areas with what looks like shale outcroppings underfoot.  This could make for an interesting mix of wildflowers, so I will have to return next spring.

Very few flowers are blooming now in the woods, but the mushrooms sure were sprouting up like, well, like mushrooms.  What really caught my eye today were these crowded clumps of golden mushrooms, lots and lots of them all over the place.

Hmm . . . .  These sure look familiar, with those scaly brownish stems below thick rings.  There were older clumps where the caps had spread out and deposited white spores on other caps clustered beneath them, another clue that these might be the very tasty Honey Mushrooms (Armillaria mellea).  I was tempted to pick a mess to bring home for further examination (and consumption), but I remembered reading a sign at the entrance to this preserve forbidding any collection.  So I restrained myself, although I did uproot this little clump to take a closer look at the undersides.  I couldn't be sure of my identification, since the Honey Mushroom I've known in the past was bigger and browner (because it was older), so I wouldn't have eaten these even if I'd been free to collect them.  One must always be absolutely sure.  I was almost sure, but not absolutely.

Here's another mushroom that caught my eye, not because it was so beautiful, but because of the way it had pushed up the moss as it sprouted and spread its cap.  That moss was actually rooted in the mushroom's flesh.

This toothed fungus was spread out like a crust on a dead brach.  It's possibly an Ochre Spreading Tooth (Steccherinum ochraceum), the closest match I could find in my mushroom books.

These beautiful asters were growing beside the highway where I'd parked my car, and I marveled at the large showy flowers, almost as vividly colored as New England Aster, but more toward the blue than purple.

Here's a closer look at that aster's leaves, very smooth and shiny and clasping the stem.  Asters are notoriously hard to differentiate, but if I had to put money on it, I'd say that this was Smooth Aster (Symphyotrichum laeve).  I'd also say that it was a beauty.

Away to Vermont, Home Again to Wilton

Yesterday was a lovely day for a drive through the verdant mountains of Vermont to Brattleboro, where we met family members for lunch at a restaurant called Marina, overlooking the confluence of the West and Connecticut Rivers. After lunch, we walked along the river where many boats were docked, and I stopped to marvel at this magnificent patch of Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum) growing along the shore.

Named for the way its lower leaves grow together to form a cup, this big, bright-yellow flower is one I will probably never see in the wild in Saratoga County. A native of the more central states, Cup Plant has now been introduced to eastern states, but it still hasn't made its way to any places close to my home.

Tall Ironweed has, though. As I mentioned in last Thursday's post, one specimen of this native of more southern and central states has found a foothold at Wilton Wildlife Preserve, where, towering above all surrounding plants, it waves its vivid magenta blooms to all passersby on the nearby road. This is a section of the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park that is called the Old Gick Farm, with a parking area directly off Rte 50.

I returned to the site today to collect a specimen that will document its occurrence in Saratoga County, and I was interested to note the presence of dry dead stalks surrounding the plant. This would indicate that the plant has been here at least since the previous year. It sure would be fun to know how it got here, since the nearest documented present population is hundreds of miles west of Wilton in Cattaraugus County, New York.

While wading through the tall weeds to reach the ironweed, I almost stepped on this little aster hiding in the grass. The flower itself was of a good size, but the whole plant stood only about a foot high.

This isn't one of the asters I immediately recognize, and neither could I find one just like it in my Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. I'm posting photos of some of the aster's features, hoping that maybe one of my readers may recognize it and tell me its name. So here are the bracts, dark-tipped and curling away from the involucre.

Both the broad tapered leaves and the single stalk are rough, the leaves covered with hairs and clasping the stalk so completely that they appear at first sight to be pierced by the stalk.

If anyone knows this aster, I hope you will share its name with us.

Update: Readers of the comments to this post will learn that Steve Young, chief botanist for the New York Natural Heritage Program, has suggested that this is Late Purple Aster (Symphyotrichum patens). After searching the web for photos and descriptions, I tend to agree with him, even though it's hardly late in the aster season, is it? I also discovered that there's no record of this aster growing in Saratoga County. I wonder if it sneaked into the county along with that ironweed?

Aside from that ironweed and aster (and perhaps a zillion goldenrods), the most abundant flowers to be found at the Wilton site today were Round-headed Bushclover (Lespedeza capitata), a native Pea-family plant. On the whole, this is rather a homely, coarse plant, but the pink-touched individual florets are quite pretty when observed up close.

This Gick Farm site consists largely of Pine-Oak Savannah, an open, sandy habitat that New York's Department of Environmental Conservation is maintaining with controlled burning and the planting of native grasses, certain grassland flowering plants, and such appropriate trees as Pitch Pine and various species of oak. I love oaks for all kinds of reasons, and one of those is how hospitable oaks seem to be to galls of all kinds and colors. I've seen lots of different galls on oaks before, but never this pink furry one. At first I thought it was a curled-up caterpillar.

On the same little oak, I found this other tiny gall, a perfect sphere with a red pimply surface.

Wow! Look at these! Yet another kind of oak gall, this one a lovely marbled red.

Aha! There's yet another gall, I thought, before I looked closely enough to see that that small red oval was instead a Ladybug.

I don't know the names of any of these galls, but I sure would like to learn them. Anybody know of a gall guide you could recommend?