August 2, 2020...The Mystic Lilies are in bloom

On July 29, I looked out the dining room window and saw five Mystic Lily stalks.  Later, when I went outside I found more.

I call them Mystic Lilies because that is what Tom's dad called them.  He gave me a dozen bulbs shortly after we moved in this house over fifty years ago.  The bulbs multiplied, I gave some to friends and still they multiplied.  Just the kind of flower I like.  Plant them and they will take care of themselves.

On July 31, the first blooms appeared.

They grow tall, taller than the birdbath.

Just this year I learned their Latin name, Lycoris squamigera.  They are in the amaryllis family.

In the spring, the leaves come up, straplike leaves, densely packed, and over a foot high.  They die back and completely disappear.  But spirit-like, the flowers rise in late July or early August.

There are a lot of common names for them, Resurrection Lilies, Surprise Lilies, Naked Ladies.  Take your pick.  I will always call them Mystic Lilies.

The Rain Garden at Charleston Falls, July 13, 2019

I sat down to write this and realized I hadn't taken notes or pictures of everything to tell this story.  When I saw the prairie plants flowering in the Rain Garden near the entrance to the trails at Charleston Falls, all I thought about were the blooms.

I know Rain Gardens, whether planted in a a natural depression or in a dug out depression, are meant to drain water and are usually wet only seasonally or after heavy rains.  The flowers that grow on tall grass prairies are adapted to land which is wet in spring and dry in the summer so prairie plants and Rain Gardens complement one another.

A section of the Rain Garden at Charleston Falls.  The rock covered dip to the left of the photo slopes down from the paved gathering place for groups.

And in the depression, I saw....

the round flower heads of Rattlesnake Master and Queen of the Prairie.  The yellow Black-eyed Susans, (Rudbeckia hirta) are on the higher ground of the rest of the planted prairie.

I usually have to go to Garbry Big Woods Preserve to see the Rattlesnake Master and to Aullwood Audubon Center to see the Queen of the Prairie.   Seeing the two plants made my walk one to remember and I hadn't taken a step into the peaceful woods.

Closeup of the Rattlesnake Master, (Eryngium) ...

Each bud will open exposing a tiny flower.

A closer look at the Queen of the Prairie (Filipendula rubra) ...

A Walk with Pat at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary...May 7, 2018...Part 2

Pat has sharp eyes, sharper than mine.  She was the reason we saw most of the following things during the walk.

"Doesn't that Trillium have four petals?"  she asked.  It did.  It had curiously different arrangement of sepals and leaves, also.

We walked on.

She found several small Crayfish Chimneys.  These chimneys are much daintier than the ones we find in the swamp at Brukner Nature Center.

She likes bright-colored fungi.  You will have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see the fungi she spotted.

Two more Fungi, a little easier to see.  They were beside the boardwalk.

A pollinator, a tiny Ladybug.  Below is a cropped photo.

Ta Da....

This is what Pat found that excited me the most.  As we walked, I told Pat about the few times Tom and I have seen adult male Five-lined skinks displaying their red throat patches for females on the boardwalk.  No, she didn't find a displaying adult.  Even I would have noticed him.  But  she found something neither Tom or I had ever seen....

This little fellow was about the size of a Red-backed Salamander which are common at Brukner.

He moved really fast.  This was the most in focus photo I got as he scurried off to find cover elsewhere.

When I got home, I searched on the Internet for Five-lined Skinks, wondering if this was a young one.  I knew as the adult males had red on their heads and this little fellow had a tinge of red around his face.  On the Internet I learned that Five-lined Skinks live from two to six years so an immature might be the size of a Red-backed Salamander.

I also learned that one way that Skinks vary from salamanders is that they have claws.  And because the critter was so slow and wary of leaving the crack in the log, the hind foot on it was in focus.

Looks to me like he has claws.  I'm going to say he is an immature Five-lined Skink.  So, so pleased with myself.  Hope no one pops my balloon!

A Walk with Pat at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary, May 7, 2018...A Great Walk...Part One

Pat and I met for lunch at Cracker Barrel and then drove to Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary to look at the wildflowers.  I picked the day, a beautiful one.  The Temperature was in the sixties.  

This is why we went...Large-flowered Trillium throughout the entire park with Wild Blue Phlox mingled in.

The Drooping Trillium were blooming, too.

And so were the Sessile Trillium.  

Pat and I spent three hours walking the boardwalk loop.  There was so much to see.  (This loop can be walked at a steady pass in about twenty minutes.)  We stopped and sat at the convenient benches to savor the day...the soft breeze, the comfortable temperatures, the beautiful sights (and to rest our knees and legs.)

Here are some of the flowers we saw.  (More than just these were blooming.) 

The Spring Beauties were scattered throughout the entire woods but because they are tiny, they are not as showy as the trillium.

Blue violets...(and yellow ones, too.)

Goldenseal

Jack-in-the-Pulpit...

The last of the Large-flowered Bellwort for the season

Rue Anemone....

Solomon's Seal...

Buds on the Solomon's Plume (also called False Solomon's Seal)...

Sweet Cicely...Most of the flowers were not quite open but we especially liked this one which was growing up between the boards of the boardwalk.

A few Blue Cohosh flowers remained...

Though many Wild Ginger buds were not open yet, we found this flower.

The Wild Geraniums were scattered here and there.  We had to keep our eyes open. 

Pat even found a Dandelion.  Fortunately the area is too wet for dandelions to thrive.

I've decided to leave our other discoveries for the next post.  This post is getting too long.  Hope you have time to check out Part 2 which I am starting to write as soon as I post this one.

Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary...Spring is Here...April 23, 2018

On Monday,  Tom and I met our friends, Max and Pat, for lunch.  It has been months since the four of us have met so we talked non-stop for an hour and a half.  Afterward Max headed home in his truck and Pat, in her sedan,  followed us to Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary.  It was her first visit to Garbry this year.

When we arrived in the parking lot, Tom had some bad news for us.  Rain was on the way. He opted to stay in the van because he didn't want to risk getting the van door and power chair electronics wet.

Pat and I decided to take a walk to the first bench which is probably a hundred yards into the sanctuary.  We didn't walk far enough to find the Dutchmen's Breeches but we saw a lot of flowers anyway.  Every five minutes I checked my cell phone weather app.  One of those times it was handy to have the phone.

Spring beauties were sprinkled everywhere.

The Cutleaf toothwort has grown tall, at least tall for a spring ephemeral.

And then we saw the yellow of the Trout lilies (also known as Adder's tongue or Dogtooth violets.)  Tom and I were here last week and we saw the leaves and the stems emerging but no buds.

And then, I found a Rue Anemone. I didn't even see the leaves of Rue Anemone last week.

Also, first time blooms for me to see this week were those of the Sessile Trillium.  Last week the buds were swelling.

We looked hard and found a few Purple Cress.

First Pat, and then I started seeing Bloodroot.  She said she has been looking for them in other woods but hadn't found any.  Some plants were blooming.  Others were past blooming and had dropped their petals.

Throughout the woods, leaves were opening on the Ohio Buckeye saplings and trees.

We were both surprised to see Large-flowered Trillium with white showing at the tips of their buds.  Usually, they bloom a little later than the earliest ephemerals.   The blooming patterns are a little different this year.  We had cold spells later then usual this year and all the flowers are coming in quick succession.

Mayapples were in various stages of emerging.

By then we had reached the first bench.  The Radar on the Weather App looked ominous.  We could feel rain in the air.  We decided we had pushed our luck far enough.

We started back, at first walking a little faster but then we had to stop.  Pat said, "What is that yellow out there?"

Aha!.. The Bellworts have begun blooming.

And then she found something else interesting.  I like to walk with Pat.  She has eyes that see quicker than mine do.  I doubt that I would have seen these Blue Cohosh blooms if she had not been with me.

I did find the next flower.  A bright Blue phlox is a lot easier to see than the Blue Cohosh.  Also we had been watching for a bloom because we were seeing lots of Blue Phlox  plants with buds still closed.

The wind was stronger as we emerged from the woods.

As we walked back toward the van, we saw a plant and neither of us knew what it was.

I labeled it as What Is It.  (I have discovered our software doesn't accept a question mark as part of a photo label.)  Anyway, I posted it on Ohio Wildflowers and asked if someone could help  with the ID.  There were other members who didn't know what it was either but there were some who did know.  Its common name is Hairy Bittercress. (Cardamine hirsuta).  It can be an invasive species in lawns because its ripe pods  shoot out the seeds which means it spreads easily. Since it seems to like sunny areas the woods should be safe .

We walked about forty minutes which turned out to be a good thing.  Tom had driven only a few miles toward home when rain began to fall.