Tag Archive | Wildflowers
One of New York’s Rarest Plants
When I worked in Connetquot River State Park Preserve in New York, I was charged with the monitoring its rare plants and animals. Each spring I traveled a little over a mile into the preserve to look for the rare coastal blue violet. The park had the only population of this violet in all of […]
The White Violets
Yes, some violets are white and there are many species of white violets, several of them I am featuring here. There are a few characteristics that distinguish violets from one another. In addition to blossom color, there are differences in the shape of the leaves, variability in the texture of the leaves (some have fine […]
Roses are Red, Violets are…
It is spring in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, a perfect time to find violets of many different species. During a recent visit to my daughter’s house in Maryland, I was amazed at how ubiquitous the common blue violet was in her neighborhood. Lawns were dotted with the blue blossoms of the common blue violet. These […]
The “Warm-blooded” Plant
It is March and the wetlands in the northeast U.S. are still frozen. The landscape is gray with leafless trees and shrubs. The ground is covered with decaying leaves, pockets of ice and in some places snow. Yet for as bleak as this environment looks, the first sign of spring appears. Flower heads of […]
The Delaware Skipper
While photographing a wild aster a Delaware skipper landed on a flower, much to my delight. Like butterflies and moths, skippers are in the lepidoptera family of insects. There are many species of skippers; most of them are small and usually dull colors of orange-brown and tan. Most skippers resemble a F-22 Raptor jet fighter. […]
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