Bloomlist for Aug. 1, 2019

    This week's bloomlist for Wildflower Island is at the end of the post, and Bonnie's pictures
    can be found HERE. Peterson names are used for consistency wherever possible, and comments
    and clarifications are welcome in the comments section.

It's that time of the year, again, and here's the first one on the of the season (and on the Island): Early Goldenrod (Solidago juncea). It's identified not only by its general shape — plumelike — but by the tiny leaflets in the axils of the toothless upper leaves. No hairs.

A new one for me (but not for Mary, whose familiarity with the Island goes back decades) is the Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia), which cropped up in the swamp at no.33. I'm kind of fascinated by the wide sepals and squarish pods, both noted in the Peterson description. There are two good examples of sepals no petals (which have fallen off) in the bottom left of the picture below, and you can see the square seedpod in the center of the picture, to the left of the yellow bloom.

We spent a fair amount of time with the Joe-Pyes today, but I'm only satisfied with some of our conclusions. The Spotted Joe-Pye-weed (Eutrochium maculatum), in Bonnie's picture on the left and no. 27 on the map, is easy: it has black marks on the stem (screenshot on the right from GoBotany). Supposedly, the cluster of this variety is rather flatter than the others.

Here's Bonnie's picture of the other kind we saw, which has a smooth glaucous stem with none of those dark striations. There's one of them at no.28 on the map and in amongst the Herb-Roberts near the upper parking lot. The cluster at the top of this one is more domed. What we were unwilling to do was cut the stem of one of these tall plants to see whether the inside is Hollow JPW (fistulosum) or not, which would lead us more in the direction of Sweet JPW (E. purpureum), but not necessarily ...



With the Goldenrods come the Asters, and the first one we've seen this season might be the Wavy-leaved Aster (Symphyotrichum undulatum), whose leaves have flanged petioles or "dilate into lobes clasping the stem," as Peterson says (see the examples in the right side of the picture below). Some of the leaves have a wavy edge, and some have more toothing than others. I originally thought this might be Lowrie's Aster (S. lowrieanum), but the leaves of the Lowrie's are supposed to be greasy. These are definitely not.

On the left of the Bird Blind boardwalk is a grass that I thought last week was the inflorescence of the Rice Cutgrass (Leersia oryzoides). The Cutgrass is there and continues to be very scratchy, but it's not in bloom. It is totally intermixed with a very smooth grass that is in bloom as you can see in the picture left, but which I can't identify. Just a few feet further on, Bonnie got a cool close-up of the prickly stem of the Halberd-leaved Tearthumb (below).

Lastly, a reminder that you can sign up for Rick Bunting's daily spectacular photos of flora and fauna using the link in the right sidebar. I'm including here a couple of his recent shots of insect camouflages. He swears there's a caterpillar in each one of these blooms:

AMAZING.

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