A Happy Birthday Camping Adventure!

September 8 is the birthday of the darling young woman who first made me a deliriously happy grandma, my granddaughter Elizabeth Balter.  (That's Lizzy on the left in the photo above.) From the day she was born, I could not wait to take her camping and introduce her to the wonders of nature, and when she was five, I did take her camping on an island in the Hudson River. This year, my now-grown-up Lizzy told me she wanted to do that again, to wake up on her birthday surrounded by nature on the banks of the Hudson River, this time with her dear wife, Amanda Nee. Could I help make that happen? Yes, I sure could! Here are a few photos of the happy pair and their lovable dog Goose, after I helped them find their campsite and we paddled a bit together on this gorgeous stretch of the Hudson River, where forested mountains fall straight down to the water's edge and lovely little islands dot the river. 

 Their wooded campsite is accessible only from the water and surrounded by miles of wild forest. A small tumbling creek borders the site and in rainier summers adds its constant music to the pleasures of camping here.  Since this land is within the boundaries of Moreau Lake State Park, Lizzy had to reserve this campsite and obtain a permit from the park to leave her car in the parking lot of the launch site where she and Amanda took off to cross the river to their camp. Designated as a "primitive campsite," the only amenity here is a fire ring and some flat cleared land on which to pitch a tent.

After arranging their camp, Lizzy and Amanda set off to explore this section of the Hudson River.  Their "very good dog" Goose behaved himself perfectly, sitting quietly between his two mamas, enjoying the  adventure in his own doggy way, without threatening to upset the canoe.

Along this stretch of the Hudson between the Spier Falls and Sherman Island dams, the river's current is slowed, and thickly forested mountains fall directly to the water's edge. Both banks of the river here are now part of Moreau Lake State Park.  With no private homes or boathouses lining the banks, the area looks about the same as it must have before Europeans arrived on this continent.  (Of course, neither dam existed then to widen the river, but the mountains most likely appeared much the same.)

I escorted the pair past my favorite little island, where I have often picnicked and swum from its rocky shore.  Such tiny islands are home to the many beautiful native shrubs and wildflowers that first intrigued me more than 30 years ago, inspiring me to learn their names, and eventually, the names of all wildflowers I encountered, wherever I encountered them.

As I left Lizzy and Amanda to their camping adventures, I urged the two to paddle close to the riverbanks, so lovely now with wildflowers like these tiny white asters and the yellow-bloomed Sneezeweed leaning over the water.

This time of year, the riverbanks are especially gorgeous, since one of our most beautiful native wildflowers, Closed Gentians, are thriving there in great abundance.

Silky Dogwood shrubs also added to the beauty of the banks,  their branches heavy with clusters of royal-blue fruits.

So Happy Birthday, dear Lizzy!  I hope this adventure turned out to be as amazing as the one you remembered from all those years ago.  Your Grandma is absolutely delighted that you asked me to help you to make it happen this week.  Just as she was when you were a wee little girl of five years old!

Plenty of Fabulous Finds Along Two Powerlines!

It can be difficult to think of powerline right-of-ways as treasuries of rare and beautiful native plants, especially when the power companies periodically spray them with herbicides and kill all the plants under the wires.  But I feel truly fortunate to know of some powerlines that are indeed such botanical treasuries.  And I'm even more fortunate, because I have certain friends who know which powerlines harbor the rarest and most interesting native plants and are happy to lead me to them.  Such was the case this past week, when skilled botanist Skye Vanderlaan led my friends Sue Pierce and Ruth Brooks and me to a virtually hidden powerline to see a plant we never dreamed we would ever find, the elusive Climbing Fern (Lygodium palmatum), an Endangered species in New York State.

We had to walk some distance along the road to reach this powerline, happy our way led along a forest that offered some botanical beauty of its own.

Many native sunflowers brightened the dark woods.  It is often difficult to tell our several native sunflower species apart, but we think these tall beauties were Pale-leaved Sunflowers (Helianthus strumosus), due to its leaves being pale on the undersides and its stems possessing a bloom that could be rubbed off.

We were quite stunned to find such an abundant patch of the gorgeous Closed Gentians (Gentiana clausa) beautifying a roadside ditch.

 

When we reached the powerline we were seeking, I was awfully glad that Skye knew exactly where he was leading us. We plunged into this woody mess after him, pushing aside the giant ferns, shoving our way through shrubbery,  and stumbling over downed tree trunks.  Thankfully, it appears it had been a long time since the power company had killed all vegetation beneath the overhead lines.  Or perhaps this wooded area was far enough to the side of the clearcut to escape that devastation.

When we reached the plants we were seeking, we could hardly believe how abundantly the Climbing Ferns were spread across the forest floor.  We had to be very careful not to step on them.  And if not for Skye leading us there and pointing out the plants, would we ever have recognized them? They appeared most un-fern-like, and they were more sprawling than climbing.  And unlike most other ferns I know of, they did not grow in clusters of fronds.  In fact, I have since read that each climbing vine of this fern is a single frond. The palmate leaves are actually the pinnules. The stem, or rachis as it is called in ferns, twines around supporting branches in a vine-like fashion, unfurling  pinnules as it goes. And these fronds can grow as long as 15 feet.

Although most of the Climbing Fern fronds we saw were vining along the ground, we did find a few that actually climbed up on supportive branches.

I was curious about how the pinnules grew in two different shapes, both of them palmate but one of them with long "fingers," and the other with stubbier ones.  Are the longer pinnules the spore-bearing fertile ones, and the stubbier ones the sterile?

We were lucky to find a few fronds that bore fertile pinnules at the tip, smaller and more delicate in appearance than the stubbier sterile pinnules.

Thank you, Skye, for leading us to see this truly rare plant so obviously happy in its niche of a habitat.

You might think that after such a botanical find, we would call it day.  Hah!  The day was still young and a second fascinating powerline lay nearby.  And this one was less shady forest and more sunny meadow, so a whole different class of plants awaited our exploration. Parts of this clearcut's habitat was dry and sandy, other parts damp with muddy puddles. Botanical variety abounded!

Although many lengths of this clearcut were rife with invasives like Purple Loosestrife, some of our most competitive native plants held their own against non-native invasion.  Masses of Tall Goldenrod held their ground, and Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), just by its size alone, as well as its fecundity, proved itself to be not only a strong but also  a quite beautiful defender of its native territory.

Sturdy Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) was not enormously abundant at this site, but it looked so happy here, I doubt it would readily cede its foothold to any non-native invader.

Our native Slender Gerardia (Agalinis tenuifolia) has such a delicate lacy beauty it might appear to be a pushover from sturdier-seeming invasives.  But its habit of filling every square millimeter of dampish soil along the path with masses of purple flowers would never grant any space at all to any pushy newcomers.

I love Slender Gerardia's pretty little freckled face.

We also found a large patch of Short-toothed Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), now mostly post-blooming but recognizable by its frosty-looking leaves (and also previously verified as to species by a professional botanist).  Because this species is rated as Threatened in New York State, we were delighted to find it so abundant at this site.

And how could we NOT be delighted to find this glorious native, the New England Aster (Symphyotricum novae-angliae)?  Thankfully, this lovely aster is not at all a rare plant, and it grows prolifically along this powerline, in this vivid purple color as well as a deep rose and a pale pink. And the show has just begun!

 Here was quite a surprise!  Among our most gorgeous native wildflowers, the Fringed Gentian (Gentianopis crinita) usually waits until later in September to grace us with its remarkable beauty.  As the tight buds reveal, lots more beauty is yet to come.

And here was another surprise!  As well as a botanical puzzle.  The slender, white-flowered native orchid our botanists are here  examining, called Ladies' Tresses, was once known to all of them as Nodding Ladies' Tresses.  But that single species has recently been divided into at least three other species, and the traits that distinguish the species are rather subtle.  Even to professionals' eyes. So considerable studying is happening here.

Eventually, consensus was reached:  This was the Sphinx Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes incurva), determined by the sharp curve of the lower petals of the florets as well as by other details too obscure for me to observe.  It also is more fragrant than some other Spiranthes species. A beautiful native orchid, and we found well over a dozen at this site in perfect bloom.

Both Ruth and Skye are passionate "bryophiles," meaning that they are fascinated by mosses, lichens, and liverworts, and are always on the lookout for them, able to detect specimens hardly large enough to be espied from a standing distance.  Hence, they spend considerable time down in the dirt.

This hugely enlarged photo is the species of liverwort they were examining.  I believe they called it a Riccia species, but they may have to look at pieces of it under a microscope to be sure of its specific name. If I ever do learn its name, I'll come back to post its name.

At least I could see this plant with my naked eye from a standing height, and Skye informed me that its name was Selaginella apoda, a fern ally (not a moss) that goes by the vernacular name Meadow Spikemoss.  Its lovely green color and tiny leaves make this a popular terrarium plant that can be purchased from nurseries.  But this one was cultivated by Mother Nature alone. And it was not for sale.

Okay, our domestic duties were calling us home by now, after this marvelous day of many botanical delights. Hurrying along the path, I had not intended to stop to photograph these Boneset flowers (Eupatorium perfoliatum), but this large black bug caught my eye.  It was as big as a bumblebee, but it was a fly instead, a tachinid fly that feeds on the nectar and pollen of flowers and thus serves as an important pollinator.  Tachinids are also the most important of the parasitic flies, for their maggots provide biological control of many pest insects, boring into the bodies of their hosts and consuming them from the inside as the maggots grow.  Very helpful, of course, but rather violent behavior for such a cute insect I call a "Bristle Butt!"

A Riverside Rocky Ramble

My friends Sue and Tom and I could not have hoped for a more beautiful day last Saturday to venture up to the Warren County hamlet of Riparius, a community of small seasonal cottages along the east bank of the Hudson River.  Most of these cottages were built as a Methodist summer camp many years ago, and many of the current residents are descendants of the original founders of the community.  Although non-Methodists are now permitted to purchase cottages here, the community still holds the ownership of the land the cottages stand on.  Lucky for us, we have a friend with access to one of those cottages, and even luckier for us, that friend, Chris Kreussling, is a Master Naturalist.  Who could ask for a better guide than a Master Naturalist to lead us in exploring such beautiful riverbanks as these?

As this photo reveals, the mighty Hudson looks more like a stony creek this far north.  And thanks to our recent hot dry summer, more expanses of the river's rocky bottom were exposed than usual this year. This pleased my friends, who were delighted by the abundance of insects creeping and crawling and fluttering about the riverside's damp rocks and puddles. This was true for Sue and Chris, especially, since insects hold a special attraction for them.

I like insects, too, but my poor eyesight renders many of them almost invisible unless they sit still and let me get close to them -- which is not very often! So I spent most of my time teetering among the boulders, looking for the late-summer flowers that call this habitat home.  Here are a few that I found:

Creeping Spearwort is a tiny buttercup that grows in damp sand or mud, and lots of its bright-yellow starry blooms were twinkling among the riverbank grasses.  It's not a rare plant, but I cannot count on finding it in the same place every year, and I think it's adorable.  It used to be called Ranunculus reptans, but its name now is  Ranunculus flammula var. reptans.  But it will always be Creeping Spearwort to me.

As its scientific name suggests, Water Smartweed (Persicaria amphibia) can grow either on damp shores or else in shallow water.  I found it ashore this day, its bright-pink flower cluster quite visible among the shoreline grasses.

The single most abundant wildflowers were these tiny white asters  -- Calico Aster [Symphyotricum lateriflorum]? -- sprouting up everywhere among the riverside boulders.

I didn't have to search among the boulders to find this Canada Burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis), since it stood tall on slender stems, its white fluffy clusters waving in the breeze.

These big bright-yellow blooms of Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) couldn't hide from me either, being among the showiest of all the riverside blooms.

Well, that Sneezeweed did have quite a rival for showiness -- although not for abundance -- in the few specimens of vividly red Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardenalis) I found growing here.  It certainly was not at all difficult to see them!

I did have to bend down close, though, to ascertain that these small blue flowers were indeed Kalm's Lobelia (Lobelia kalmii).

The shyest of all the flowers I found was this single bloom of Marsh Bellflower (Campanula aparinoides), its flower no more than a quarter-inch across and of a blue that was almost as pale as the air.

Here was a patch of lime-green ferns standing vertical among the shoreline.  Their color, stature, dark stalks and riparian habitat suggested Marsh Fern to me (Thelypteris palustris).

A close look at the fern's distinctive sori did look like photos I have seen of the sori (spore packets) of Marsh Fern.

My recovering knee eventually began to complain about teetering from boulder to boulder close to the water, so I moved back from shore to walk on the grassy lawns in front of the cottages.   That's how I happened across a cluster of folks all focused on something crawling on the ground.  Of course, I had to investigate.  And what an amazing caterpillar they had found!  They had no idea its species, nor did I, so I called to my pals still looking for bugs down close to the water.  If anyone would know this caterpillar's name, they would! And so they came to have a look.  And they didn't know, either! Not even Chris, who's quite an expert on insects. So Tom (standing) sent a photo of it off to iNaturalist and promptly got an answer: an Imperial Moth caterpillar (Eacles imperialis).

And what a big beautiful caterpillar it was!  None of us had ever seen either the moth or this larva before.

According to information about this moth that I found on Google, it's no wonder we have not seen this caterpillar before, since "Eacles imperialis is not officially listed or protected by New York State, but it is considered rare or vulnerable within the state, with populations restricted to Long Island and the Albany Pine Bush. The species has experienced population declines in the northeastern United States due to habitat loss from logging, pesticide use, and the introduction of a parasitic fly, Compsilura concinnata. While the Long Island populations are thought to have expanded after wildfires in the 1990s, the Albany Pine Bush population is in decline and may be extirpated."  What a lucky find for us! And so far north of Albany!  And if I had not sought comfort for my aching knee, we'd never have come across it.

The Imperial Moth is quite large and beautiful.  Here's a photo I found of it on Google Images:

UPDATE: Thanks to Sue Pierce's investigations, the experts at BugGuide.net have confirmed the ID of this caterpillar as the larva of Eacles imperialis ssp. pini (the Canada Imperial Moth), which has a much more northern range than E. imperialis, consisting of northeastern US states into Canada. It is considered uncommon to rare and local within its range. Here's the link to the BugGuide page describing this subspecies.

We had seen another caterpillar on our walk along the river: the larva of a Hickory Tussock Moth (Lophocampa caryae).  Not nearly as rare at that Imperial Moth larva, but it, too, was quite a looker!

Skidmore Woods, Slim Pickings

I had just an hour or so recently to indulge in some nature therapy, so I headed out to my go-to nearby nature site, the North Woods at Skidmore College.  I wondered if any of the fruits on the Orange-fruited Horse Gentian (Triosteum aurantiacum) would be turning orange already. Here's what they should look like in early September:

But sad to report, I won't find them at ANY stage this year!  Here's the site, under a powerline, where a small patch of them always grew.  Looks like the power company was afraid the herbaceous plants that filled the open spaces under the powerlines might grow tall enough to interfere with the wires. (Pah!) So herbicide was sprayed to kill every native plant that once grew there:  Pale Sunflowers, Tall Goldenrod,  Mayapple, Large-bracted Tick Trefoil, and others including my sought-after Orange-fruited Horse Gentian. Sigh!

Guess what got spared from the poison, though?  This patch of the non-native weed called Far-eastern Smartweed (Persicaria extremiorientalis) growing in an adjacent parking area but under the same powerline. Native to Asia, this species was first collected in North America in New York City in 1961 and has since been documented from Maine to South Carolina and west to Ohio and is probably more widespread than that.  I first found it at this location five years ago, and I have yet to find it anywhere else I explore in Saratoga County. Only here, on the Skidmore College Campus, under a powerline. So far.

My thought when I first found these gigantic smartweeds at the edge of this thoroughly-disturbed-soil vacant lot was "Whoa! Who fed some Ladies' Thumb steroids?!"  They stood on stems up to my eyeballs and with slender pink flower clusters a good eight or ten inches long, and they DID look almost exactly like the much more diminutive smartweed called Ladies' Thumb.  They even had the darkish "thumbprint" on many of the huge leaves. Except the plants were humongous.   The New York Flora Association's Plant Atlas shows this species as documented for only five counties in the state, so far, all of them much farther south than Saratoga County. Uh oh! Looks like this plant is heading north.

 

Leaving the scene of such disappointment, I entered this woods that's renowned for its many interesting native plants, many of them quite rare. One of the rarest of those plants is Eastern Green Violet (Cubelium concolor), and when you see the acres of them that carpet the forest floor here, it's hard to believe that this species could be rated as rare.  It definitely is known to thrive in deep nutrient-rich soils often associated with calcareous bedrock, and that certainly describes the soil in the Skidmore woods.

As I walked among the thousands of Green Violets, I pondered how this plant could be so prolific here, considering that I found very few plants producing seed pods.  And those pods were solitary, growing at the top of the plant, not in the leaf axils along the  stalks, where the small greenish flowers earlier bloomed.

Each seedpod appeared to contain just a few small round seeds that looked like tiny peas in a pod.

Another wildflower that thrives in this calcareous soil is American Lopseed (Phryma leptostachya).  Its small pink flowers had long since produced the yellowish pointed seedpods that pressed downward against the slender stems, demonstrating how the vernacular name for this plant originated.

I could find few other flowering plants still in bloom, but Bottlebrush Grass (Elymus hystrix) was abundant in the shady woods, its yellowish spiky seedheads quite evident.

Taking a shortcut through the woods back to my car, I never would have seen this tiny spider, a female Spined Micrathena (Micrathena gracilis), if a ray of sunlight had not penetrated the shade of the woods to illuminate her little spiky shape astride an amazingly long strand of web strung between two trees.  The remarkable shape of her abdomen has suggested another of her vernacular names, Castleback Orbweaver.