That which we call a rose

It may be the case that that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet, but changing out the sense of smell for that of sight, here’s an already faded native rose that I made a non-traditional portrait of at Illinois Beach State Park on June 7th.

As for which species this was, Melissa Pierson wrote: “There are 3 species of native roses that grow along the beach and the river: Rosa blanda, R. carolina, and R. palustris. They all bloom there at about the same time, and their habitats intermingle, and they are very difficult to differentiate, but my guess would be that we saw R. blanda.”

That said, I hope you won’t find this portrait bland.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Verdant Volo views, vertical and horizontal

The vertical picture shows Lysimachia thyrsiflora, known as tufted loosestrife or swamp loosestrife,

The horizontal picture shows a curlingly dry leaf fallen onto the duckweed-covered surface of some water in the Volo Bog State Natural Area in Lake County, Illinois, on June 7. The first photograph comes from the same session.

One result of rain

One result of the week of rainy weather we’ve had in Austin is that a new crop of rain-lilies, Cooperia drummondii, has emerged. Here’s one that I photographed in Great Hills Park yesterday.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Dunes Creek

Most people go to Indiana Dunes State Park to see the dunes and the beach along Lake Michigan. That’s why I went there on June 17, but I also couldn’t help noticing and being intrigued by the colors of Dunes Creek close to where it empties into Lake Michigan. I’ve read that the warm colors are due to tannins released by black oak leaves that fall into the creek and decay there.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Given enough time

Given enough time and enough freedom from human interaction, the Indiana Dunes gradually cover themselves with vegetation, including trees, as you can see in these views from West Beach at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on June 18. The image below shows how a pond that had formed in a hollow between two dunes supports rich vegetation around its fringes.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Euphorbia corollata

At Illinois Beach State Park on June 9th I found a flowering spurge plant, Euphorbia corollata. The species name is Latin for ‘having a small crown,’ and Melissa Pierson, who identified the species for me, noted that “when a little further along the little white flowers form a crown above the stem. Abundant at Illinois Beach, I don’t find it anywhere else.” Today’s photograph is a downward-looking view at one of those small white crowns, which was about a quarter of an inch across (6mm).

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Sparse and not sparse

On that last visit to Illinois Beach State Park on June 14th I found this flowering spike of Lobelia spicata. Compared to the pale-spiked lobelia in the photograph at the Illinois Wildflowers site, this one seems sparse, but that’s the way it was. Not at all sparse there that day (or any other) were the pebbles on the shore of Lake Michigan.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Last visit to Illinois Beach State Park

Two months ago today, when we made our last visit to Illinois Beach State Park, we explored an area farther north than where we’d stayed at the Illinois Beach Resort. The highlight this time was a small stretch where the waves coming westward on Lake Michigan crashed against the shore and shot straight up. The water surged so quickly that as a photographer I adopted a strategy of setting the camera to a high shutter speed (in this case 1/2000 of a second) and taking lots of pictures in the hope that at least a few would capture the action. This one gives you a pretty good feel for what was happening.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Retention

While most of the prairie site in far northeast Austin that I mentioned yesterday has become a construction zone, I’m still hopeful that the northern end of the strip, which includes a retention pond, will remain undeveloped because it’s so wet. The photograph above shows a few water-primrose plants (Ludwigia octovalvis) flowering along the eastern edge of the pond on July 16.

If you’d like a close look at this kind of flower, you can have one from a few years ago.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

More loss

The previous post’s white bluebells were growing behind a subdivision on a strip of land that I knew tended to collect water in several places and that I therefore took to be immune from development. I was wrong. When I visited on June 16th I was saddened to find that most of that strip of land had become a construction site for more houses. 2016 was barely half over, and already I’d lost more properties to development than in any previous year since 1999, when I began paying attention to such things.

As a retrospective tribute to that piece of prairie, here are two upward-looking pictures I took there on June 24, 2011. The one above shows a pennant dragonfly and the one below a sunflower, both with cumulus clouds.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman