A Walk at Charleston Falls with Tom...July 23, 2019

Tom and I loaded up Tom's old power chair and headed off to look at flowers.  His new chair is   wonderful but it is not as powerful as the old one.  Since Charleston Falls has hills, power is important.

We saw butterflies at the new entrance to the trail. Tom took photos.  Our first thought was that they were Pearl Crescents...

But then Tom enlarged the photo and we could see that they were Silvery Checkerspots.

Then we moved a few steps further and he got to see the Rain Garden for the first time.

The Queen of the Prairie that I saw had finished blooming but Tom spotted a Cardinal Flower and the Rattlesnake Master..

and a lavender blue one that we think is a Monkeyflower.  I didn't know until I was looking through my wildflower field guides at home that I should have checked for a square stem.

We were off to a good start.

Tom stopped to take a photo of the falls through the trees.

We turned off toward the Octagon Prairie...

Tom with his camera...

Me with my camera.

Tom stopped to take a few close-ups of Gray-headed Coneflowers...

He looked at the other side of the trail and said,  "Look, there is a Viceroy butterfly."

I took these pictures.

And Tom took this one.

Deptford Pinks are an alien species but I have never seen more than a couple plants in any one spot.  They don't appear to endanger the native species.  They are tiny.  I never knew they were spotted with white until I took a photo of one and enlarged the photo.