Summer Azure

August 10, 2025

Another butterfly in a popular spot, at the Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens). Yesterday’s was a medium sized butterfly, a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta). This one is on the small side, a Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta), measuring in at about 1 inch.

It’s ventral or underside, as you see in this picture, is a pale gray with small dark markings. The dorsal or upper side is powdery blue, the female being paler or sometimes the same pale gray as the ventral side. The female also has a dark gray or black band around the outer edges of its dorsal side.

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Ready To Enjoy Blooms Of Apple Mint

August 9, 2025

A Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), thinking about checking out the nectar of Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens) blooms.

Red Admiral adults don’t eat, but only drink. Seeking out the moisture of flower nectar, tree sap, rotting fruit, bird droppings, and wet soil to get minerals and electrolytes.

Plants in the nettle family (Urticaceae) are most often chosen as host plants for Red Admiral larvae.

A medium sized butterfly, they have a wingspan of 1.75 to 3 inches.

I often wonder why its name is not Orange Admiral.

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Just Right For A Dollhouse

August 8, 2025

Inflated Lobelia (Lobelia inflata), a plant with minuscule flowers, just right for a dollhouse. They’re 1/4 to 3/8 inch wide in colors of blue-violet, lavender or white. Native to eastern North America. Popping up in random places here on the mountain.

There is something called a calyx at the base of many flowers. It is the outer layer, a protective layer that is usually green.

This, in the case of the Inflated Lobelia, is where the seeds grow, inflating that calyx, shown in the picture above. And this inspires the word “inflated” in the common name. Those seeds, like the flowers, are minuscule and weigh hardly anything. Easily distributed by the wind.

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Common Evening Primrose

August 7, 2025

I’m seeing this biennial, herbaceous plant, now in many places along my dirt road coming up the mountain. It’s Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), which grows quite tall, sometimes to 6 feet.

The Evening Primrose flowers look nearly identical to Sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) but that plant blooms in the spring, while Common Evening Primrose blooms later in the summer. And the height is different in Sundrops as well, that plant might grow to a height of just 3 feet.

Common Evening Primrose opens its flowers in the evening and they stay open through the night, closing by noon. While Sundrops bloom only during the day. Both plants have yellow flowers with four petals, each petal being heart shaped.

These two plants used to confuse me, but now I’ve got it straight.

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Northeastern Hammertail

August 6, 2025

Northeastern Hammertail (Efferia aestuans), in the Robber Fly, Asilidae family, modeling for me on the hood of my truck. They measure in at between 11/16 and 7/8 of an inch.

These are predatory insects, even going after insects larger than themselves. They will perch on vegetation to fly out and catch their meals in mid-air. They’re not picky and will eat things such as flies, bees, butterflies, moths, and dragonflies.

They’re said to be one of the most common Robber Flies to land on humans, but don’t worry, treat them gently and they won’t harm you!

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Butterfly Pea

August 5, 2025

Butterfly Pea (Clitoria mariana), a herbaceous, perennial vine up to three or four feet long. Though it is a vine, it generally stays close to the ground. Usually the plant has only one flower but on occasion it will have two or three blooms. Leaves are alternate, and trifoliate (divided into three leaflets). A member of the Pea (Fabaceae) family.

It’s native to the eastern (New York to Florida), southern (clear to Texas), and central United States (including Missouri and Iowa) west to New Mexico and Arizona, stretching into northern Mexico.

I had no idea this plant existed until I stumbled upon it while hiking. What a beautiful surprise.

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Snakeroot

August 4, 2025

White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima).

Like many plants that grow around us, this is a plant that is poisonous, containing tremetol. If you don’t know the plants in your gardens and in the woods around you, really really well, don’t eat them.

This Snakeroot can grow to 5 feet tall with single or many stemmed clumps, from the middle to the end of summer. The leaves are serrated, some grow to 6 inches long. They’re opposite, growing a distance apart up or down the stem, at a 90-degree angle from the pair before or after.

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At The Post Office

August 3, 2025

Just no telling when Mother Nature will allow her children to make an appearance. Even at a walkway leading to the Post Office. A seed made its way to a crack between the sidewalk and curb. The seed germinated and managed to live to produce a bloom of a rose-colored Zinnia (Zinnia).

Just can’t hold Mother Nature back.

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