Thursday, June 28, 2012

superheroes in pink capes, purple grass, etc.

I will be out of town next week – hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with an old friend – and I’m working like a crazed bunny to get everything I can wrapped up at work before I go. This afternoon, I staggered away from my desk, my head and body seemingly disconnected from one another, my spirit nowhere to be found. The perfect remedy: break out the hiking boots (gotta remind my feet about the hiking boots!), grab the point-and-shoot, and go for a four mile jaunt down dirt roads.
I found plenty of entertainment. It is just amazing how many more species there are to admire, just a half mile to two miles from the house. But I started with the locals. Remember those sleepy pink moths? They’re still around.
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“Don’t worry, little lady.”
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“I’ll save you.”
‘The aptly named primrose moth,’ I am informed. (Schinia Florida)
By the pole barn, where we store firewood, grass that has yet to encounter the lawn mower is in bloom.
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Timothy grass, as yet not quite in bloom, with a visitor.
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Later on, a mile away, the timothy grass was in full bloom. 
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quack grass.
OK, now we’re venturing out away from my typical haunts of late.
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Bittersweet nightshade, many of them already in full-on berry mode. These berries will turn yellow, then orange, then red. A veritable rainbow – as if the flower itself weren’t gorgeous ENOUGH.
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Herb robert (yes, that’s its name) – I thought the sparkly velvet flowers were done for the season, but I’m pleased to see I was wrong.

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Some kind of mutant, gargantuan dandelion-style flower. Sadly, they had ALL already closed up shop, so I don’t know what color the petals (well, rays, technically) are – still, though, I ought to be able to ID it. So far, no luck.
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These seed clusters were the size of my fist.

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Here’s a new one for me: bladder campion (Silene cucubalus). Later on this summer, I’ll show its cousin, white campion. It grows right next to our mailbox.

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Common st. johnswort – which also tends to grow near our mailbox, but I haven’t seen it yet this year.

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barberpole sedge. Bonus: see the spider? I didn’t when I took the picture!
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Partridgeberry – a ground cover, with red berries in the fall. I laughed when I saw how the insides are fuzzy. Kevin said maybe it’s naturally-occurring velcro.
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trillium seed. joy!

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red baneberry is possessed of a certain in-your-face charm, no?

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this is common comfrey.

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a whole hillside of day lilies.
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brand-new to me: motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca).
The hiking boots feel good. That’s a relief.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

don’t mind me, says the spider.

We’ll begin with a warm-up: it’s going to get very yellow-and-orange here, so let’s ease our way in with a buttercup.
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Black-eyed susans frequently have little white spiders living on them. Not til yesterday did I finally see one on our big girl.
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hello!
This afternoon, the spider had a visitor.
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At first I thought this Other Thing was caught in a tiny web, but I could see its tiny proboscis extended, testing out the flowers.
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I wonder if the spider is holding out its legs to mimic its visitor’s body language. “Don’t mind me” it hums, under its breath, waiting for the perfect moment to take a bite. The nice folks at bugguide.net will probably sort me out in no time.
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This bug-free susan offers excellent squinty-eyed close-ups. 
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ahhhhh…clearly I’m obsessed.
Nearby, on a common evening primrose, I noticed these pink moths.
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What the…? No idea what they’re doing. I think they’re napping.
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One of them was still buried in there today. The other one was on leaf nearby.
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Some ant on milkweed action.
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Forget-me-nots going to seed.
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The obligatory hawkweed!

Monday, June 25, 2012

from orange supernova to silver fireworks

Here’s a sort of time-lapse sequence of a hawkweed flower closing up shop and going to seed. This is from a cluster of flowers near our front door – all pictures taken within a few seconds of one another, of separate flowers. But you can pretend you’re watching the same flower, over a few days. I won’t stop you.

0. Prelude: in case you forgot which one is hawkweed.

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It’s this fiesta.

1. the petals (technically ‘rays’) close over the whole pistil/stamen apparatus.

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2. the sepals (hairy green bits) tighten up. the rays start drying up.

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2. …and drying up…

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3. …and drying up, until they start to separate from the rest of the plant.

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4. ideally, they fall off.

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5. magic ensues.

6. one day, POOF, it all explodes open and we have a fireworks display.

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…and here’s where that dried-up bit didn’t fall off all the way – you can see it, a bit out of focus, at the lower right.

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In other news, it was a big day for little sis – the second-in-line in the cluster of black-eyed susans I’ve been visiting every day.

yesterday:

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today:

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Sunday, June 24, 2012

a) words are overrated b) except pie-hole. that’s a good word.

Today’s mostly about the pictures.

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This is our old stand-by – the flowers continue to emerge, from the outside in.

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dreamy, dreamy, dreamy…

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The surface of a single queen anne’s lace.

 

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wild rose.

ahhh, and now for tall anemone, aka thimbleweed.

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flower #1

 

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flower #2, a tiny bit further along. can you tell? stamens are drying up.

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flower #3 – even further along.

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flower #3 from a different perspective. These guys don’t invest much in color, do they.

 

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false solomon’s seal berries are ripening.

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this little bugger appears to be a kind of bedstraw. those flowers are what, 1/16” across, tops?

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moneywort. interesting name.

today’s mysteries: white stuff, and then some pink stuff that looks like it might be related.

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still researching these guys.

next up, butter-and-eggs:

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and flowering quack grass…

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last but not least, the ever-present purple-flowering raspberry.

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I only saw there was a bug in here once I got the picture up on my laptop. (I was playing with the point-and-shoot today, which doesn’t have a view finder – it’s a great little camera for shoving in weird places and then being surprised at the results.)

question of the day: is there such a thing as too much strawberry rhubarb pie? your thoughts, please.