Enough, Already!

Rain, rain, please take flight!

The Hudson's already past record height.

Champlain's flooded,

Dams overflow,

Where can all this water go?

Rte. 29 bridge at Schuylerville

A riverside park in Schuylerville

No ball games today! Probably not tomorrow, either.

A raging Fish Creek pours into a full-to-overflowing Hudson River.

Fish Creek at Stafford's Bridge. Nothing stops the rowing crews!

Rock Garden, Woodland Sprites

I went over to the Hudson at Moreau today, hoping to find the river relaxed enough for me to paddle in it, but no, it was still way too rowdy, still flooding the banks and roaring over all the gates of the Spier Falls Dam. Ah, well. Another day. In the meantime, I enjoyed exploring the boulders across the road from the dam, whose nooks and crannies, dampened by tiny rills and springs, were a veritable rock garden, alive with many different plants. Here, the snowy blooms of Early Saxifrage and cushions of bright green moss decorate the craggy rocks.

Another kind of moss with translucent leaves clings to a crease in the rocks, forming a base for a mini-garden that includes a few sprigs of bedstraw, as well as saxifrage.

This islet of Early Saxifrage is accompanied by a moss hedgehog.

We have so many species of bedstraw, I can't keep them straight, nor can I find most of them in my Newcomb's. All share the same trait of leaves circling the stem, as they do on this bright-green bedstraw with sturdy stalks. Can anyone tell me the species?

Round-leaved Gooseberry inhabits these rocks, as well. I shall have to return to see if I can find some ripe berries, but birds usually eat them before they are ripe enough for my taste.

I next drove to the end of Potter Road to find my way through the woods to the river. Descending the trail, I was enchanted by how all the Striped Maple buds had opened into what looked like clouds of fairies, dressed in pink and spreading bright-green wings to the light.

Ah, there are so many ways the world finds to be beautiful! We don't need a magic wand to find enchantment in the forest.

A Bouquet of Violets

Violets here! Violets there! Violets everywhere! Who doesn't love violets (aside from grass-lawn fanatics)? No matter which species they are, they are all beautiful. As their name suggests, the ones we are most likely to see in most places are Common Blue Violets, like these that were covering a bank in the Yaddo Garden yesterday.

Common Blue Violets used to go by the scientific name of Viola papilionacea, but recent taxonomic research has reclassified them as V. sororia, a species now also shared by two other violets, the Broad-leaved Wood Violet and the Wooly Blue. I first found a Wooly Blue Violet last spring, and I was most excited, believing I had discovered a new flower for my life list. And in truth, I did, no matter what the taxonomists say. See how this looks at first glance just like the Common Blue?

Well, a closer inspection reveals some very wooly stems (and wooly leaves, too, which aren't visible in this photo). Ordinary Common Blues have smooth stems and leaves.

At first, I thought I may have found a Northern Blue Violet (V. septentrionalis), another species with wooly stems and leaves, but a peek at my violet's petals revealed that its lower petal was smooth, not hairy like those of the Northern Blue. So Wooly it was, instead. V. sororia. Same species as the Common Blue, but to me it will always be a different violet.

Near where I found that Wooly Blue were these beautiful Canada Violets (V. canadensis), which I could identify from afar by the purple color of the buds and the snowy white faces of the open flowers. A closer inspection would reveal that leaves and flowers share the same stems, another characteristic of this "stemmed" species. The blues I mentioned above have only basal leaves, with flowers on a separate stalk.

Another distinguishing feature of V. canadensis is its deep yellow center.

Also, the backs of those pristine white blooms are almost always tinged with purple.

Here's another white violet, and I'm not sure which species it is: Northern White (V. pallens) or Sweet White (V. blanda). Both are basal-leaved, small, white, and fragrant.

The two species share so many traits in common that I usually tell them apart by habitat and bloom time, with V. pallens liking wetter spots and usually blooming several weeks earlier than V. blanda. But this spring, with so many flowers blooming all at once, the timing clue doesn't hold true. And habitats overlap. These were growing out on a big lawn. A kind of damp big lawn. Are those upper petals bent backward (another trait of V. blanda)? Oh Jeez, I can't tell! All I know is, it's one or the other. And lovely!

Here's another one of those "stemmed" violets, Downy Yellow Violet (V. pubescens), just coming into bloom now in the Skidmore Woods.

As its name implies, its stem is hairy, as are the undersides of its leaves. There is a smooth variety of this violet, one that used to have a species of its own (V. pensylvanica), but is now considered a variety rather than a separate species. Its new name is V. pubescens var. scabriuscula. Oof! Quite a mouthful for such a pretty little flower.

I know I posted a photo of these Long-spurred Violets a few days ago, but they are so very pretty, with their deep-purple centers and perky spurs, I wanted to see them again. Besides, I didn't give their scientific name last time. It's V. rostrata. Same as it's always been.

In the Garden

I wasn't going to go out today. Sometimes I have to stay home and take care of things around the house. But then I got into a Facebook spat with some folks who were dancing on Bin Laden's grave. I suggested that returning evil for evil was not going to heal the wounds of 9/11, and that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis who had nothing to do with 9/11 was also a terrible crime. Well, one can just imagine how that was received! Among the kindest of the calumny heaped on my head was the query, What planet did I come from? Hmmm . . . . Well, I believe I honor my planet at least as well as most folks do, and I also believe in and worship the One who created it and loves every one of its inhabitants, not just the Americans. But I knew it was fruitless to continue the argument, so I shut down my computer and fled to the Yaddo wildflower garden.

As it turned out, this was my lucky day. The Twinleaf at Yaddo had opened its buds for its moment of bloom, and I was there to witness it. The slightest breath of breeze will dislodge the snowy petals of this rare flower, and tomorrow's rain will surely bring its season to a prompt close. This flower is a good reminder that life is brief and that we should live it well. I was happy to spend an hour in its company.

A Bounty of Beautiful Buds

Yes, the wildflowers are pretty. But this time of year, many trees and shrubs bear buds that could surely compete with flowers for interest or beauty. Here's just a sampling.

American Beech is now dropping its coppery bud scales to

reveal its crisply pleated leaves covered with baby-chick down.

American Bladdernut bears clusters of flower buds as fascinating

as the hollow bladders the bushes put forth in late summer.

Hobblebush leaves have been waiting all winter

to unveil the flower clusters hiding within.

Maple-leaved Viburnum leaves have a lock

on the prize for elegant, perfect symmetry.

Northern Prickly Ash grows the boy-buds and girl-buds on

separate shrubs. Above are the pistillate flowers (the girls) . . .

. . . and these are the staminate ones (the boys).

Norway Maple. Or so I believe, from what the leaf looked like when I

uncrumpled one. Are the bud covers on baby trees always this scarlet?

Shagbark Hickory. There's no mistaking this

giant bud wrapped in celadon and apricot silk.

Florabunda!

Now that the snow is finally gone, the wildflowers are making up for lost time and blooming in profusion.

Here's an acre of Large-flowered White Trillium at Skidmore Woods.

I know a bank where the violets grow wild at Yaddo.

The Flowers Are Coming Fast!

So many flowers, so little time! Because a cold and snowy spring delayed the onset of blooming, the wildflowers are now making up for lost time in this lovely warm weather. On Sundays, church duties keep me out of the woods until afternoon, so I had to really scurry to keep up with today's burst-into-bloomers, making a quick run to the Skidmore Woods before heading over to Ballston Spa to circle the pond at Woods Hollow Nature Preserve.

In alphabetical order, here are most of the flowers I found blooming today.

Birch catkins swaying in the breeze

Corn Speedwell, a tiny weed growing along the sidewalk near my home

Dwarf Ginseng, which will bloom for a week or so and then disappear completely

Early Meadow Rue, with staminate flowers dangling like windchimes .

Puffy pistillate flowers were growing on a separate plant nearby.

Goldthread, whose snowy sepals could be mistaken for petals

and whose yellow-jello petals look sort of like anthers

Large-flowered Bellwort usually blooms at least a week later than the

sessile-leaved kind, but this year the two opened their buds the same week.

Leatherleaf has found a boggy shore to its

liking

in one bay of the Woods Hollow pond.

Long-spurred Violet thrives in the Skidmore Woods.

It's pretty evident how it got its name.

Northern White Violet loves wet spots and usually blooms

a bit earlier than the similar Sweet White Violet.

Pellia epiphylla. Not many liverworts, even

common ones like this, have common names.

Shadblow, Serviceberry, Juneberry -- whichever name you

call this first flowering tree of spring, it couldn't be lovelier.

Small-flowered Crowfoot, whose tiny stars

often shine unseen because they are so small

Sweet Fern. These fluffy red female flowers bloom before the male flowers on its own plant do, relying on wind to carry pollen from neighboring plants with open male catkins.

Willow. What kind? Even botanists find this genus confusing.

I'd never seen one so beautifully yellow, and it was fragrant, too.

Not all my finds today were floral. The population of goldfish in the Woods Hollow pond has burgeoned over the years from what was probably just one fishbowl full at first. How startling to see their vivid orange slashing through the green reflections.

This Yellow-rumped Warbler was singing away right over my head, and I should have been able to get a perfect photo of it. I might have, too, if I hadn't just been shooting white flowers and had the camera's exposure shut way down. By the time I caught my error, the bird had flown away. That I managed to capture an image at all speaks volumes about the wonders of computer manipulation.