Mountain laurel
Over here we’ve got Texas mountain laurel. At the Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts, on June 12th I finally got to see the mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia, I’d heard about for years. Names to the contrary, neither of the mountain laurels is in the laurel family: the Texas one is a legume, while Kalmia belongs to the Ericaceae, or heather family.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Great ground cover at Ovens Natural Park
It wasn’t only the rocks and seaweed that warranted attention at Ovens Natural Park in Nova Scotia on June 4th. Just slightly inland from the shore I discovered first one plant and then another that had enough extra shelter to form a ground cover. The colony with white wildflowers is Cornus canadensis, known as creeping dogwood or bunchberry.
The ground cover with yellow wildflowers is silverweed, either Argentina pacifica or Argentina anserina.
Even when the terrain wasn’t flat and sheltered enough for silverweed to form a colony, here and there I found an isolated plant staking claim to a precarious existence among the rocks right at the shore.
Thanks to Ana at Ovens Natural Park for identifying these wildflowers.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Ovens Natural Park
On June 4th, after Blue Rocks had only two hours earlier finished providing my second sustained encounter with Nova Scotia’s seacoast, Ovens Natural Park gave me a chance to spend two more hours engaging with the coast.
Below is a closer view of that visually yummy rockweed (probably Fucus vesiculosus, according to staff member Ana):
Oh, those upturned rock layers:
And look at this seaweed on what I take to be granite or something akin to granite:
Imagine replacing the symbol in “I ❤ You” with a closeup of this seaweed. Okay, so maybe the only person who’d ever want to do that is a phycologist or somebody cozying up to one.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
No flowers, buds, plants, grasses, trees, seeds, or bugs
Doesn’t this flowing water at the base of a small waterfall in Great Hills Park on July 18, 2014, look like ice?
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
A drooping rain-lily
Because Austin had gotten some recent rain and I’d seen a few stray rain-lilies around town, on the morning of July 11th I went to an undeveloped lot on Balcones Woods Dr. where I’ve come to rely on finding rain-lilies and copper-lilies. While I found not a single one of the latter, I did find a scattering of the former.
In particular, I noticed one rain-lily (Cooperia pedunculata) that was bent over and configured in a way I don’t recall ever seeing before. That was good news, because after two decades of photographing rain-lilies I’m always wondering if I can find a new way to portray them.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Looking up at Hopewell Rocks
You’ve already seen picturesque rocks and peeling tree trunks from Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, on June 7th. At one point I looked up from the shore there and saw this prismatic band running across the clouds.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
More than rocks at Hopewell Rocks
As impressive as the rock formations are at New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks, on the trail down from the parking lot to the shore I had to stop and photograph some trees with peeling bark, presumably birches.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
