Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Naked-flowered Tick Trefoil

Naked-flowered Tick Trefoil (Desmodium nudiflorum). Nice color! Soft to intense pink blossoms with a unique shape that makes me think of Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Tick Trefoils are just beginning to bloom around my cabin.

The pea-like flowers are on stems that have no leaves and there, you’ve got the name Naked-flowered Tick Trefoil. In the United States it’s native to 34 states, and in much of eastern Canada.

The seeds of Tick Trefoils, called loments, have been known to me since childhood as hitchhikers. They stick all over hiking pants and animal’s fur. Spreading its population here and there.

Bees collect pollen from the flowers. The leaves are eaten by some skipper, butterfly, and moth caterpillars. And there’s that Crow T. Robot again.

Common Mullein

Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is native to Europe, northern Africa, and Asia. It’s a biennial that shows up in most of North America. In Canada, Common Mullein is found in all the southern provinces. In the US, it occurs in all the contiguous states and Alaska and Hawaii.

Seeds of Common Mullein remain viable for decades while each plant can produce anywhere from 180,000 to 240,000 seeds. Dispersal of the seeds requires the seed capsules which remain attached to the stem to be moved either by the wind or an animal. Most of the seeds remain very close to its parent plant.

The flowering spike of the Common Mullein which ranges in size from approximately 6 to 24 inches makes me think of corn on the cob. Each of the flowers when open is about 3/4 inch across. The flowers open randomly and stay open just one day. Though Common Mullein tries very hard to irritate me by showing up in my gardens, it’s not difficult to get rid of. Just put a shovel to the ground and let it know it’s not welcome. Very simple.

Indigo Lactarius

Mushrooms intrigue me, particularly the ones that emerge in surprising colors. This one certainly fills that stipulation. Indigo Lactarius (Lactarius indigo).

Mycorrhizal, or having a symbiotic relationship, with pines and oaks. Indigo Lactarius will grow in a large group or a small group, or alone in summer and fall.

Found in North America from the northeast to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, East Asia and in middle of my lane.

Echinacea

What a weekend. It’s been quite dry but I know to be careful what I wish for. Friday evening brought a storm with high winds, lightning and thunder happening nearly at the same time, and the rain. A decent amount of rain but it came down in just 10 or 15 minutes. Much too quickly. And a tree came down across the road. An important Spanish class and unable to get there. No power for 6 hours. Thank goodness for generators. Another storm came through on Saturday. A bit more rain. Wind, but it was gentle compared to Friday’s. Lightning and thunder that was gentle too, if that is possible. Just a tiny bit of rain today, Sunday, leaving me with Echinacea, or the common name of Purple Coneflower, sprinkled in rain drops. Look very closely, don’t miss the little details, rain drops and beauty.

Silver-spotted Skipper Revisited

With a wingspan of 1.75 to 2.5 inches the Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) is the largest of the skippers. But being the largest of the skippers doesn’t make it LARGE compared to some moths and butterflies.

The Silver-spotted Skipper is certainly the skipper that I see most often as I check out the trails here on my mountain and enjoy my gardens. As my Dad would say, they seem to be ubiquitous! As adults they use their long tongues or proboscices to slurp up the nectar of blue, red, pink, and purple flowers, and minerals of mud, and even animal feces.

A Silver-spotted Skipper caterpillar.

The primary host plant of Silver-spotter Skippers is the Black Locust Tree. Others are plants in the legume (Fabaceae) family.

Impressive false orange eye spots!

The young caterpillar creates a “tent” folded in a leaf of its host plant where it spends days, venturing out at night to feed on leaves of the host plant. The host plant, often a Black Locust or Bush Clover, or False Indigo. Older caterpillars will move on to create a larger “tent” for themselves using more than one leaf.

Smooth False Foxglove

To some degree Smooth False Foxglove (Aureolaria laevigata) is a parasite, depending a bit on its host plant, the mighty Oak Tree. It can be referred to as a partial plant parasite, a semiparasite, or a hemiparasite. This means, it is not entirely dependent upon the roots of an Oak Tree for all its sustenance. This plant has chlorophyll and performs photosynthesis. It’s sort of a parasite. But not entirely.

This is in contrast to plants that are entirely parasitic – holoparasites. A holoparasite does not perform photosynthesis and depends exclusively on their host plant for nourishment. This native to eastern North America, Smooth False Foxglove uses roots called haustoria to connect to the roots of its host Oak Tree to absorb sugars and proteins. Along with its host Oak Tree, Smooth False Foxglove flourishes.

Katydids

An August night. Open windows. Insects making lovely sounds in the inky darkness. A precious friend of mine told me that when her children were young they believed the night sounds of summer were the stars singing.

Those sounds in the night in reality are Katydids (Tettigoniidae). Cool green insects. In North America there are about 255 species of Katydids.

Most Katydids are noctunal and those sounds you hear in the night are their mating calls. This sound is made by rubbing a hind leg on one wing. They have flat patches on their legs that act as ears which allow them to hear the sounds that are made during the night.

Like moths, leave on your porch light and Katydids will be attracted to the bright light.

Katydids have the perfect camouflage for leaf-eaters, looking just like the leaves they are eating. They’ll also eat flowers, dead insects, insect eggs, or aphids that are slow enough to be caught by the Katydids. But I will always remember the thought of those beautiful stars on a warm summer night singing like a chorus of Katydids!

Ironweed

Got a spot in the woods? If you do, I hope you have this plant somewhere close by. An amazing color and a beautiful flower. Ironweed. Quite possibly New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), but then again it might be Upland Ironweed (Vernonia glauca), or Tall Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea). These three species all reside in Virginia and to add to the confusion they hybridize. So I won’t go out on the proverbial limb and try to identify which species my photos contain. They are Ironweed!

This photo above is an Ironweed, lakeside at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, in Richmond, Virginia. In less formal settings you’ll find them in ditches, edges of ponds, moist meadows and stream banks. But they are also quite happy on drier mountain slopes that get full or partial shade, as my gardens can attest. If you have Black Walnut trees around, Ironweed is tolerant of the juglone that those trees present as a challenge to gardeners.

In looking very closely at the blooms of Ironweed, I immediately think of itty bitty bighorn sheep, looking out through the intense magenta petals of the disk flowers. Those curlycue, white, “sheepsheads” that I see are actually the split stigmas of each individual flower.

A host plant of the American Lady Butterfly, Ironweed also attracts many species of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. I love having these flowers here in my gardens, both as gifts to me from dear family, and volunteers.