I suppose some would say I enjoy playing with my food! I love to set up still lifes with all the colors that come out of the garden. As summer is drawing to a close, the garden provides so many objects for me to arrange in still lifes for me to make into art!
Garden Just Outside The Kitchen
Red, yellow, burgundy, large, small, striped, solid. Tomatoes in so many shades of lusciousness! Green, red, yellow, orange bell peppers. Jalepeño, poblano, Anaheim, ancho, habanero, all destined for the picante salsa that comes out of the canner. Another ART!
Farmer’s Market
A feast for the eyes, the farmer’s market fills the gaps. Things that aren’t grown in the garden just outside the kitchen. Surprises. Vegetables I’ve never seen before. Fruits I’ve never heard of.
Chilly Days Ahead
Though autumn is ahead of us, and temperatures are dropping we’ll stay warm with our ART from the garden!
Each day as I start out on my hike there is anticipation. What new things will I find? Summer is drawing to a close and with it, the days, which earlier this season had been extremely wet, are now quite dry. The waterfall which I pass along the way is a mere trickle compared to the rushing torrent it had once been. But still there is that anticipation. What new insect will surprise me. What new flower will startle me with its sparkle of color?
Leaves Of The Clasping Aster
Yesterday’s New Thrills
As my hike was nearing an end yesterday, as I approached my last mile, I was thinking that perhaps there would be few new “discoveries” for this season. After all how many new flowers can come about, this late in the growing season? Silly me! No sooner had those thoughts crossed my mind, when I spied an unusual color up on the side of the road, at the top of a cut that VDOT had made for water runoff. A lovely soft, grape color. What I found was a new plant! A Clasping Aster that gets its name from the fashion in which the rough textured leaves surround the stems. If you look closely at the photo above, I think you’ll be able to see what I’m talking about.
Clasping Aster, Symphyotrichum patens
Sunshine Yellow Centers
Had I captured these photos when the flowers were just a bit earlier in their development their centers would have been a bright yellow, much like a daisy with purple petals. Along with the grape-purple petals, these blooms differ from the other asters that are so plentiful up here, in that they are a good bit larger. These blooms are about 1.25 inches across.
Gemmed Satyr, Cyllopsis gemma
But Wait, There’s More!
This was yesterday, when I was thinking there would be no more surprises, right? Well, just a little bit further down the road there was a butterfly skittering around trying his best to get my attention. He was trying with all his might to get my attention but he wasn’t all that cooperative as a model. Despite that, I managed to capture him in pixels and I didn’t realize what I had captured until I got back to my studio.
Gemmed Satyr, Cyllopsis gemma
New Butterfly
This fellow is a Gemmed Satyr, who gets his name because of the sparkly eye-spots on his hindwings which look like gems stones. The book that I found this fellow in, Butterflies Through Binoculars, says that this butterfly is, “small and inconspicuous.” How very true until you take a photograph of him and look carefully at the picture! New to me, and mighty cool!
The brilliant yellow of Goldenrod is such a cheer for any day in late summer. There are more that 50 species of Goldenrod in North America. That’s a daunting number for someone who is a compulsive classifier. One of these days I will tackle, figuring out which of the 50 species I have here on my mountain!
Common Ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia
Hayfever’s Cause
Though many people think that Goldenrod is responsible for their sneezing, and worse, during the hayfever season, it is Ragweed’s pollen that is the nasty culprit. Perhaps it is understandable. Ragweed takes a backseat when it comes to being noticed. There it sits along all those roadsides, being totally inconspicuous, in green flower — blending in with all the other greens, while the more beautiful Goldenrod stands out with it’s shimmering yellow.
Goldenrod, species to be determined
Pollinators
There are definitely benefits to having Ragweed around. I see many pollinators enjoying the benefits of having it on the mountain as I hike. The flower of the Ragweed is so minuscule that one would have to use a hand lens to enjoy its structure and beauty but it is there for the insects of the world to enjoy. Meanwhile I will enjoy the striking yellow of the Goldenrod, one of the natives that I have in my garden, thanks to Mother Nature’s distribution system, also known as volunteering!
I got my first up close look at this brilliant yellow Wingstem while checking out a wonderful field of Sunflowers that my yoga teacher had planted at her studio. There were so many Sunflower “faces” looking toward the sun, but the Wingstem caught my eye, in a wild patch of various plants, calling out for my attention. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but took lots of photographs.
The “Wings”
The flowers of the Wingstem originate where the leaves meet the stem and flow into the “wings” on the stem.
The Leaves
The leaves of the Wingstem are rough in texture, and pointed at both ends.
What Butterflies Will Seek The Wingstem?
I’m seeing most of these flowers in the lower elevations, but being the seed gatherer that I am, I have one plant blooming in my front yard! I’m hoping I’ll get more, for the Silvery Checkerspot butterflies that use the Wingstem as a host plant and for nectaring.
Several days ago I came upon a very tall flowering plant that took me by surprise. It made me think of a plant that I often see with yellow flowers that is quite common in power line rights of way. This one, though, was definitely periwinkle blue! What in the world was this plant. As is my usual course of action, I took lots of photographs. This plant, the only one like it in the area, was very tall, well over 6 feet tall, and I had to bend it over to get a good look at the flowers. I was quite struck by the flower. It was so very similar to the flower of the Chicory plant.
Blue Lettuce, Lactuca floridana
A New Flower – To Me
This new flower, which I had never seen before was Blue Lettuce, Lactuca floridana. Since that first sighting I’ve seen it a few times at higher elevations, on plants that are more easily photographed, not nearly as tall.
Chicory, Chicorium intybus
Compare The Two
I’ve photographed the two flowers, so that you can use my hands as a means of measuring. The Chicory flower is nearly 1.5 inches. The Blue Lettuce flower is a good bit less than 1 inch. The Chicory flowers grow in groups of 1 to 3, while the Blue Lettuce flowers grow in clusters of 15 to 34. The Chicory plant grows from 1 to 4 feet tall. The Blue Lettuce plant will grow to be from 2 to 7 feet tall.
Leaves Of The Chicory Plant
The Leaves Are Different Too
The leaves of the Chicory plant are narrow and can be dandelion like, while the leaves of the Blue Lettuce plant are wider and 3 to 12 inches long.
Leaves Of The Blue Lettuce Plant
Another Periwinkle Blue!
So now I’ve added another periwinkle blue flower to my inventory of flowers here on the mountain. I’m always glad to find new and beautiful things!
I was out extra early this morning for my hike. That’s a mighty good idea during the summer, since there are rain showers or thunderstorms so often in the afternoons. This summer that has certainly been the case. It has been much more rainy than a normal summer, and I’ve gotten good and drenched a couple times!
I can’t say what a normal summer of mushrooms is, since this is only the first summer I’ve been keeping an eye on Mother Nature up here, but it really seems like we’ve got quite a plethora of these amazing things. I’ve been amazed at the variation of color in the mushrooms. Seems like every color of the rainbow is represented.
A few days ago, I came upon a new color, one that I had never seen in a mushroom before — turquoise! I took photos and came home to find that I had not gotten the focus just right. Another trip up the mountain brought the same results. These mushrooms are very tiny – about 1/4 inch across and focusing is a challenge but today, success! Yay!
As you can see in the photo captions, these mushrooms are Blue-green Wood Stain Mushrooms, Chlorociboria aeruginascens. The book I often use for mushroom identification, Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians, by William C. Roody, says that actually finding the fruiting body (or what we call the mushroom) is a bit unusual. What is normally seen is just the stained wood, as in the picture above. Interesting! And another beautiful mushroom color!
Okay, I must admit, my number one priority in taking photographs is the visual impact. It can be the creepiest critter around, but if it is gorgeous to look at — with no thought of what it is, it will become a pict for me! I suppose that in this case, many of you will mumble under your breath, “There goes Brenda again. Another really creepy bug!” But look at that wonderful brilliant screaming yellow! The color of the Corvette Stingray that is my dream car!
Screaming Yellow At 2000 Feet
I’m always on the lookout for the unusual, or the usual that everyone else overlooks. I think this might fill the bill. Way up the mountain – adjacent to one of my favorite little slopes, where I found multitudes of Wild Columbine early this summer, where I am finding Cinnabar Chanterelles, where there are Woodland Sunflowers growing in profusion; this is where I found this impressive streak of yellow.
Milkweed And Oleander Lookout!
These tiny things are Oleander Aphids, Aphis nerii. They also attack Milkweed. This is what they are on, so far up the mountain. Wouldn’t you know, they are not native. Apparently they arrived on this continent, along with their namesake, Oleander. Both the Oleander and the Oleander Aphid are from the Mediterranean region. I hope there is something up there that is hungry for Aphids!
I love to photograph the Chicory plant, Cichorium intybus, when it is in bloom. Its periwinkle blue coloring is such a cheery sight! Today, as I hiked up the mountain, I didn’t intend to capture this particular flower in pixels but I took a peek and there was a spider looking back at me! So I couldn’t resist getting a photo! This guy is a White-banded Crab Spider, Misumenoides formosipes. He’s got a magic trick up his sleeve too. Given a couple days, he’s capable of changing color to better blend in with his surroundings. Wonder if I’ll find him on the same flower tomorrow. I’ll have to check in on him!
Recently some friends and I have been marveling over the beauty of the color periwinkle. Yesterday, as I hiked my mushroom covered mountain, I came upon a mushroom of that very color. What a thrill! Who would have thought there would be a periwinkle mushroom? Okay, okay, this color is perhaps leaning just a *tiny* bit toward the purple side but I’m still calling it periwinkle!
Indigo Lactarius — Gill View
Another blue mushroom
In my mushroom picture taking past, I had run into another blue mushroom and I thought perhaps it might be the same species. My first task was to find those photos. I have a wonderful system of filing photographs by whatever keyword I might choose. Unfortunately I have to assign a keyword for the system to *work*, and I had not assigned any keywords for that blue mushroom. So, to my more than 40,000 picts (the ones that are digitized) I went, searching for old blue. It was years ago, but I had no idea exactly when. In the 2006 grouping I came up with it. An Indigo Lactarius, Lactarius indigo (Schwein.) Fr., and not the same species as my newfound periwinkle mushroom.
Indigo Lactarius — Top View
Research
My brain requires that I find the name of everything that I run into, on my hikes. Since my periwinkle mushroom was not an Indigo Lactarius, this meant that I *had* to dig out my books, look up mushroom websites and figure it out. At first I was discouraged and didn’t think I’d figure it out but I came upon a wonderful site with loads of good photographs and that helped provide my answer. My periwinkle mushroom that I discovered yesterday is a Viscid Violet Cortinarius, Corinarius iodes Berk. & M.A. Curtis.
Viscid Violet Cortinarius — Top View
Mystery solved!
Hooray, my research paid off! I love a mystery, but I need to have the mystery solved too. In the case of my colorful blue mushroooms, my mystery has been solved!
