Blue Skies, Smilin' on Trees

Remember what a blue sky looks like? Mighty pretty, that's what, with a bright sun shining down on a Red Maple tree heavy with rosy keys. And casting shadows of Canada Mayflower down on the forest floor. A whole day without rain! Imagine that!

Tramping a VERY Damp Woods

Sheesh! Another rainy day! Hey, that's enough, already! Oh well, it didn't matter, since I was going to get wet, anyway. I was off to Bog Meadow Nature Trail to obtain for the state herbarium a specimen of Buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata), a wetland plant that has not been recorded as growing in Saratoga County, but which grows quite abundantly in a watery spot along this trail. I could not reach any of the plants from solid ground, so I had to wade out into knee-deep muck to obtain my specimen.

The flowers I collected today were so wet from the rain, their furry hairs were all slicked down. Here's a photo I took of Buckbean blossoms on a drier day, which better shows that remarkable furriness.

Sloshing back to my car in sopping wet shoes, I couldn't resist stopping to admire some of the flowers along the trail -- especially since the rain had stopped momentarily and a bit of sun lit up these yellow-green blossoms of Clintonia.

It was too wet to lie down in the grass today, which is the only way to see into the nodding flowers of Water Avens. No matter, though, since their wine-red sepals are showier than their pale petals.

I did, however, get down low to peer under some big Mayapple leaves to see the showy white flower hiding there.

I was disappointed to find the flowers of Star-flowered Solomon Seal completely shredded by today's downpours. I had to go into my photo files to remember how really lovely these starry clusters are.

Here's a critter who (unlike me) doesn't mind at all if it rains every day for weeks on end. If he wants, he can always take shelter under the giant leaves of False Hellebore.

After I hurried home to start pressing my Buckbean before it wilted, the sun came out and the sky showed a bit of blue between raggedy black clouds. Then another downpour slammed into my car as I was driving toward Ballston Spa to visit the Pink Lady's Slippers at Woods Hollow. I'm happy to report, though, that the slashing rain did not seem to damage any of the hundreds of these bright pink orchids that were blooming everywhere under the pines.

These Lupines, too, came through the storms with flying colors. These are tough plants, thriving in sandy soils that could support few other plants. The only other plant sharing this open clearing with these masses of Lupines was Sweet Fern, known to be an indicator of poor soils.

Another species that thrives in these barren sand plains is Pitch Pine, which today was resplendent with golden flowers.

Here's a closer look at that Pitch Pine flower cluster, the upper structure well on its way to becoming new needles. All those chubby grub-like things are the pollen-producers, the part of the pine that brings misery to allergy sufferers each spring.

I'm lucky. I have no allergies. So I can look on these pretty pine flowers with unmitigated delight. Maybe allergy sufferers look on all this the rain with delight, as it washes all that pollen out of the air. (Only to replace one allergen with another: mold!)

Calcareous Talus? Where is it?

What's a calcareous talus slope? Well, it should be a steep slope where blocks of limestone or dolomite have broken off and tumbled down a mountainside. According to documents in the Moreau Lake State Park's Master Plan, there's a stretch of these rather rare kind of geological formations on the Warren County side of the Hudson downstream from Lake Luzerne, just before the river takes a sharp bend to the northeast to head toward Glens Falls. That's where Sue and Evelyn and I went today to explore the woodlands that grow on just this kind of substrate. But we aren't quite sure we found it.

To be sure, there were chunks of rock lying in heaps on a steep wooded slope, but the rocks looked like granite, not limestone, and most of them looked as if they had broken in place, like the ones in this photo, rather than having tumbled down a mountainside. Also, we found here some Pink Lady's Slippers, which prefer acidic soils, not limey ones. Maybe we were in the wrong place.

But never mind. It sure was a beautiful place, with ferns of many kinds proliferating under stands of White Pine.

We followed a trail that led into a woods that was almost completely Hemlocks. Here, Hemlock pollen had dusted the forest floor with a pale yellow cast, revealing the sheet webs of ground-dwelling spiders. They looked like a litter of doilies laid out in the woods.

I peered down into the hole of one, expecting to see its owner at home, and I wasn't disappointed. As soon as I touched the edge of the web, this little spider darted forth and took up its stance on the surface of its web. (You might have to click this photo to see it, since the spider, too, is dusted with yellow pollen and blends right in.)

A Hemlock woods can be dark and creepy, especially when you come face-to-face with monstrous burls like this one.

After a while, we moved from the dense dark Hemlocks into the greener, airier light of a mixed hardwood forest. We found stone walls where a road had long ago been cleared, and we also discovered sure evidence of once-upon-a-time human habitation. Near by this old foundation were the remains of what once was a well.

We found many fungi, including this grey-and-white stuff circling the base of a rotting stump. Of course, there is nothing that looks like this in any of my mushroom books.

I did find Brown Cup Fungus in my books, though. As well as along our trail today.

But here was THE FIND of the day: Showy Orchis. Such a lovely little plant. But hardly "showy." Evelyn recognized the leaves first, then searched until she spied a few in bloom. Well, here was some evidence of calcareous substrate at last, since Showy Orchis will only grow in a limey woods.

As we rounded the bend of the river and found a road that led us out of the woods and back toward our car, we came upon these giant anthills, crowned with Hay-scented Ferns.

On either side of the road, stretches of bedrock and heaps of boulders were covered with many different kinds of mosses, lichens, and liverworts. Lucky for Sue and me, we had an expert teacher in the person of Evelyn along.

I just wish I could remember their long Latin names. Very few mosses, lichens, or liverworts have common names. But at least I now can see how they differ, one from another, even when I can't remember their names. But I'm learning. Thanks, Evelyn.

Cute as a Bug on a Bud

Sure, flowers are my favorites, out in the woods. But lots of bugs are pretty, too. These are two that held still enough for the picture-taking this week.

A baby-sized Daddy Long-legs was hanging out on a Wild Strawberry blossom.

This onyx-and-gilt Calligrapha Beetle was wandering around on a willow.

I wish you could have seen the flash of red from its wings as it flew.

A Happy Birthday Weekend

Had a busy birthday weekend with family and friends, lots of fun and good food but no time to blog. I did take one photo, of my daughter Jane's family (and my son Phil, too) as we climbed on the rocks above Rockwell Falls in Lake Luzerne. We'd gone up to have lunch at the Upriver Cafe (formerly Papa's) overlooking the Hudson River, which still rages but is well below flood stage now. Really good food there, do stop and give this new enterprise your business.

Besides celebrating my birthday yesterday (I turned 69), I also welcomed my 100th blog follower, John Greenwood, who writes a wonderful blog of his own, Raining Iguanas, which is well worth a visit. As are all the blogs I follow, now listed in the right-hand column of this page.

OK, time to get ready to go out to explore some new woods and waterways. Stay tuned for further adventures.

Flower Hunt Yields Hidden Treasure

We actually had a few hours today with no rain! My friend Sue and I made the most of this brief dry spell to go flower hunting along the Warren County Bike Path near Glen Lake. Sue, who lives nearby in Queensbury, had been checking the swelling buds on these Yellow Lady's Slippers all week, and today we found them in glorious full bloom. And lots of them. What a treat! Here's a perfect pair, just waiting for that Lady to Slip on her feet.

We even found twin flowers on a single stalk -- VERY unusual!

The bike trail near Glen Lake is a real hot spot for Nodding Trillium, a flower that is disappearing from parts of its range, according to the New York Flora Association, which last year put out a call to search for them. Well, we found lots of them. And as this photo demonstrates, they aren't that easy to find, with their flowers hiding under their leaves, and the whole plant hiding under other vegetation.

It's worth the effort to get down on the ground and peer up at the hidden flower, with its lavender stamens and curlicue styles.

Those two were the rarest flowers we found today, but we also encountered many other plants to delight us, even though they may have been as common as this grape vine, whose flower buds mimic the shape and color of the fruit yet to come.

When Staghorn Sumac first sprouts new leaves from its red-velvet stalks, it conveys an aspect of some exotic plant, seeming as out of place in this northern swamp as a tropical palm would be.

Striped Maple today was dangling its strings of dainty green flowers that swayed with the slightest breeze.

Such a pretty array of tiny mushrooms sprouted along a moss-covered log.

On my way home, I stopped off at Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in Wilton to look for Star Chickweed. One of our few native chickweeds and a rather uncommon one, this little white flower was sparsely blooming amid its masses of foliage along a high ridge. As with all chickweeds, each of its five petals is so deeply cleft, it seems to have ten petals, not five.

To the River, Through the Woods

My canoe's been strapped to my car for a week, but so far the Hudson is still too turbulent to risk paddling there. On the open river, that is. I was wondering if the backwaters behind Beaver Island might be quiet enough to enter, so between rain showers today, I hiked down through the Potter Road woods to check it out. Well, I found the water high, but not extraordinarily so. Next sunny day, I'll be back with my boat. In the meantime, I enjoyed exploring the shoreline here, all quiet bays, dark mossy woods, and rocky promontories. One promontory, which I call Bear's Bathtub, is still islanded by high water, but I found my way out there today by crossing a narrow plank bridge.

The bedrock out there is fertile ground for masses of Lowbush Blueberry, its pale greenish flowers decorated with pink bud scales.

Pale Corydalis was just opening its clusters of buds. Isn't it odd how such a vividly colored flower got named "pale" anything? Maybe it's because the lacy leaves have a silvery bloom.

Well now, what's this tree with the lime-colored bark and clusters of yellow flowers?

Why, it must be Sassafras! Its leaves were still too tiny for me to find any of the classic mitten shape, but a scrape of the bark released that diagnostic fruity root-beer fragrance. Pretty flowers! It also has beautiful dark-blue berries on hot-pink stems come fall. This is a tree we are lucky to have up here in northern New York, since it's really a southern tree. But it thrives along the river.

The lollipop colors of the leaves of this infant Chestnut Oak are almost too vivid to be believed. Wow!

Here's another Chestnut Oak that's old enough to grow flowers, but still flaunts the brilliant colors of its youth.

Less vividly colored, but daintily pretty in their own right were these baby Hemlock cones.

I continued my hike through the woods by clambering over moss-covered boulders.

Tucked in among the rocks were lots of Jack-in-the-Pulpits, plain green when viewed from human standing height, but vibrantly striped when observed from a toad's-eye-view.

At first, I thought some careless picnicker had dropped some orange peel in the woods. But no, it's a bright orange fungus. Could it be Orange Peel Fungus?

Foamflower and ferns. So lovely! And every damp springy area in the woods looked like this today.

These emerging sprouts of Shagbark Hickory leaves look like they've exploded from their burst-open, flame-red bud cover. What a sight to liven the damp, dark woods!

Canada Mayflower is just beginning to open its buds. I loved the contrast of this spring-green cluster of leaves curling around that craggy old stump.