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Recent trips


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#1 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 06:46 PM

I've been out collecting bugs, and saw a few nice plants on the way. Here goes:

Long Pond Slough
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Here's some buttercup (Ranunculus spp.) and what I believe is an aquatic knotweed (Polygonum spp.).
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A better shot of the buttercup:
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A nice stand of swamp dock (Rumex verticillatus):
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A close up of the dock's blooms:
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#2 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 06:49 PM

The prize of the trip: featherfoil (Hottonia inflata). Here is a patch of it among the buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) and various Lemnaceae:
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The flowering portion of the plant:
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This shot shows the submersed foliage a little better. There is a long stem covered with this finely divided foliag, somewhat like Myriophyllum.
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And here's a small Sagittaria (I think) poking up through the duckweed (Lemna minor) and water meal (Wolffia brasiliensis); there may be some duckmeat (Spirodela polyrhiza) in there as well.
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Edited by Newt, 23 April 2008 - 06:55 PM.


#3 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 07:07 PM

I also visited a local stream. This stream issues from a cave surrounded by woodland, and is generally perrennial but some sections of it run dry in nastier summers (like last summer).

Here's the stream:
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And the cave:
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There are some pools in the bedrock near the stream mouth; these are flowthrough pools, but the inlet and outlet are beneath the bedrock:
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A few of these had southern red-bellied dace (Phoxinus erythrogaster).

Nothing to speak of with regards to aquatic plants, but there were plenty of terrestrial wildflowers. We're in the second wave of spring-blooming flowers here. I know, this is an aquatic plant board, but I still thought I'd share a little riparian vegetation:

Nodding wakerobin (Trillium flexipes) and false rue anenome (Enemion biternatum):
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One of our native chickweeds (Stellaria sp.):
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A hollowed tree root served as a little woodland stonecrop (Sedum ternatum) garden:
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Plenty more, but I'll spare you.

Edited by Newt, 23 April 2008 - 07:09 PM.


#4 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 10:00 PM

Don't spare anything on my account!!! :)

That featherfoil is awesome. Man I'm stoked to start botanizing. Twinleaf is just now blooming in the garden, so it's just about time to get out!

Cool stuff!

Todd

#5 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 11:10 PM

Thanks, Todd! Well, you twisted my arm...

Scorpionweed (Phacelia bipinnatifida):
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A very pinkish Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata):
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Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans):
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Spring Saxifrage (Saxifraga virginiensis):
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False Solomon's Seal (Smilacina racemosa):
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#6 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 11:14 PM

A couple types of violets; I think the first one is Viola striata, and the other is plain old V. sororia:

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Some sort of toothwort (I don't think it's Dentaria laciniosa, but who knows?), mixed in with Jacob's Ladder and some Large-leafed Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum macrophyllum), not yet blooming:

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Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum)!

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#7 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 23 April 2008 - 11:20 PM

A few things just cropping up:

Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense):
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This stuff that I always think is a Lactuca for some inexplicable reason:
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This other stuff I see every spring and always think I should know what it is, but can't ever seem to come up with the name (mixed with Sedum ternatum here):
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Oh, and some mosses, just to show I'm not an angiosperm chauvinist:

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And this lovely little 'garden', complete with iris, in the lee of a big old sycamore:
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Edited by Newt, 23 April 2008 - 11:20 PM.


#8 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:14 AM

Wow, fantastic shots! And great descriptions! Don't you just love springtime...

#9 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:15 AM

Love the plant photos. I wish I knew terrestrial plants better.

#10 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:39 AM

Thanks, y'all!

I've been trying to improve my botanical ID skills, but it's a slow process. There are just so many of them; more than a thousand species of plants are recorded from my home county alone, and its harder to split them up into convenient groups like you can with vertebrates or bugs. Mosses in particular are a total mystery to me; I can recognize Sphagnum on sight, but otherwise.... Even a small group like trees is difficult; do you know how many @*$%! oaks there are, and how variable they are? Plus they hybridize.

I really need to work on my photography skills too. These shots could be so much better. But in lieu of that, I've at least been working on my barefoot naturalizing:

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That's right; all these photos were taken by a barefooted man! :D

#11 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:43 AM

Forgot to mention - the plant in the photo above the mosses is twoleaved miterwort, aka twoleaf bishop's cap (Mitella diphylla). Nice find.

And I love the photo of the mayapples. They look like trees!

#12 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:48 AM

Thanks! I don't guess I ever knew that; I don't know why I thought I should remember its name.

#13 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:50 AM

My guess is that you think you should know it because it is rather memorable- those twin leaves really shout out! (but it's not twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) - very different flower.

edit:

Oh, and for tree ID, a very good book recently came out by Kay Kirkman "Native Trees of the Southeast". Good summer AND winter keys, photos, descriptions, habitat and other nifty info on each species. She's a good plant ecologist, too.

#14 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:55 AM

I'll have to check that one out. There's nothing more frustrating than being able to ID most of the trees you see. I was happy when I only knew a couple of them, but now I have to know them all!

#15 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 11:55 AM

Even a small group like trees is difficult; do you know how many @*$%! oaks there are, and how variable they are? Plus they hybridize.



I've been trying to ID oaks using the Peterson's guide. I gave up.

#16 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 12:12 PM

I've been trying to ID oaks using the Peterson's guide. I gave up.


Oaks can be particularly frustrating; even I have a hard time sometimes. Kay's book is excellent for these (as well as everything else) in my opinion. I can't open to the oak section right now to comment more, since I brought it home for pleasure reading. (Shoot - we don't have a smiley icon with nerd glasses.)

#17 Guest_farmertodd_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 12:52 PM

So you're sure that wasn't a goldenseal bishops cap hybrid Laura? ;) lol

Was out fishin this morning, saw both Ohio trout-lilies, cut-leaved toothwort, virginia waterleaf in foliage, wild ginger emmerging at the most intact site. The other sites I saw this morning have BAD deer browse issues. 6' leaf line with only garlic mustard, wingstem and some nasty looking mint on the ground (all stuff they WILL NOT eat).

Twinleaf and bloodroot are blooming in my woodland garden with a toadshade trillium (sessile leaved) on the accelerated program this year lol. The wild lupine younglings I transplanted last year from a rescue site looks like it's gonna bloom this year too. I think I got all the soil constiuents with it... Time to scarify some seeds! I'm pretty sure I've cracked that plant from a rescue, stabilization and rehabilitation stand point. Leave the shovels at home, you gotta use your fingers!

Taking pictures, I think, is the best way to learn the plants. Organize them into folders with the common family names. You'll get a ton of mileage out of that down the road.

Todd

#18 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 24 April 2008 - 02:31 PM

Nice stuff, Todd. Our cutleaf toothwort and bloodroot have pretty much all gone to seed already.

I've been working on my photo ID library, for insects and fungi as well as plants. But there's still way too much in my "unidentified" folders.

#19 Guest_Mysteryman_*

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Posted 25 April 2008 - 08:12 AM

Wow. I've never seen so much Trillium in one place. I've never even conceived it. Down here it's pretty rare, you see.
I did find a nice patch of Bloodroot last week though. I love those. My favorite piece of local swamp is chock full of Viola. I'm thinking about planting some ginseng in that area; it looks like a perfect spot.

#20 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 25 April 2008 - 09:52 AM

I think most Trillium species are a bit calciphilic, and if we have anything in abundance up here it's limestone. Our local red-flowered trilliums, Little Sweet Betsie (T. cuneatum), Bloody Butcher (T. recurvatum), and Toadshade (T. sessile), are more common than the white T. flexipes, but they do not form such spectacular drifts; they tend to be more scattered.

If you want to see a trillium-chocked paradise, though, some of the sheltered coves in the Blue Ridge and Cumberland Plateau are just amazing.




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