Walk at Charleston Falls, June 10, 2014

It is now June 15 and I am just getting around to posting.  I have a new small camera, a Canon, which has different features than my Fuji which I dropped once too often.  I am frustrated with learning how it works but I'll be fine once I understand a few more things.

I was pleased to see Smooth Ruellia (Ruellia strepens).  I usually think of it as Wild Petunia.  I never find more than one here and there.  The flower looks a lot like a garden petunia.  But I discovered by way of the wonderful Internet that it isn't in the same family.  Ohio's wild petunia is an Acanthaceae  and garden petunias are Solaneceae.  The garden petunias were introduced from South America.

In Maryland, what we call wild or smooth petunia , is called rustling wild petunia.  It is on their endangered list.  It is threatened in Michigan where it is called smooth ruellia and also threatened in Pennsylvania where people call it limestone petunia.

This flower  is found as far north as Lake Erie, as far west as Kansas and as far east as New Jersey as well as throughout the southeast.

The picture below was taken at Cedar Pond.  It is one of the two Red-winged blackbird nests found by friends from the UK on Saturday, June 7.