Pickerelweed flowers

Damselflies often hang out around bodies of water. That was true of the one you saw last time, and you could even say it was true of this pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata, that I found nearby at the edge of a pond on the Mueller prairie restoration on August 30. The yellow-orange in the background was from a pickerelweed leaf that had become discolored; in fact I’ve noticed that the leaves of several plants that live at the water’s edge have a tendency to turn warm colors, as you can see from photographs in which I’ve shown a yellowing leaf of a bulrush and a cattail.

Today marks the first appearance in these pages for Pontederia cordata, which grows natively not only in many parts of the United States but also as far north as Canada and as far south as Argentina; no piker, this pickerelweed.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman