Swamp milkweed

While walking on the Holly Farm Land Bank Land in Polpis Harbor today,  I chanced upon this swamp milkweed,  asclepias incarnata,  one of the three types of milkweed that grow on Nantucket.  The common milkweed,  asclepias syriaca,  is the host to the monarch butterflies which are so gaily flitting about these past three weeks,  and blooms earlier. The third variety is the wavy-leaved milkweed,  asclepias amplexicaulis.  

It always excites me to see a new species, so I was already happy.  Then, a hummingbird clearwing, hemaris thysbe,  alighted on the milkweed.   My daily dose of awe!

A pink variety of clethra alnifolia 
on the Polpis Harbor road

Summer's climax?

Josh and I hiked Norwood Farm on Saturday, July 31, in order to inhale the scent of the sweet pepper, clethra alnifolia, now in full bloom. The richness of the scent and the milky blooms contrasted with the now brown grasses. Few wildflowers were blooming except for the St. Andrew's Cross (hypericum stragulum) as a yellow carpet in spots. The tupelo have begun to turn that rich cordovan, mulberry, deep red that signals the end of summer. A couple of very early goldenrod had opened on the moor roads. 

The ponds are full of water-lilies and swamp willow-herb (decodon verticillatus) , with a few pickerel weeds at the edges. They are very low. I didn't even file an ebird because the birds were the usual towhees, robins, jays and crows. I did hear a downy woodpecker.

I see Monarch butterflies daily in the yard at bluff's edge.

Sweet Pepper,
Clethra Alnifolia

An early goldenrod

Black cherries?

The "Norwood" Oak

Almanac Pond is low, July 31

Sunrise, August 1

American Germander at Clark's Cove,
teucrium canadense

Teucrium canadense

Pearly Everlasting at Head of the Plains,
August 1,  many stands.
Anaphalis margaritacea



  

Summer Rambles

High summer means the Queen Anne's Lace and chicory on the road-sides and bike-path-sides. Sickle-leaved asters on the moor roads.  Toothed White-topped asters on the sides of the moor roads and wood nymphs dashing about.  

On Friday, July 23,  a group of us took a walk with Kelly Omand,  botanist of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, starting from the Barn at Sanford Farm,  through the old Weaver property.  The farm had a  whaling TryWorks  in the yard---filled with cement.  We saw wood lilies,  early pink and white Joe Pye weed (eutrochium),  pearly everlasting, hollies and black cherries (along with the usuals)

Pearly Everlasting,
anaphalis margaritacea

Painted Lady Butterfly,
Vanessa cardui

Native mint

Joe Pye weed, 
eutrochium dubium

Wood Lily,  Lilium Philadelphicum

Coastal Joe-Pye Weed, white variant
eutrochium dubium

OnSaturday, July 24,  Josh and I kayaked Polpis Harbor out to the Meadows and Island Creek.  I saw my first whimbrels of the year.  

On Sunday,  July 25,  I hiked out to Pout Ponds in the break in between (and during)  the rain.  The wild indigo is now going to seed.  I stopped in at Jewel Pond on the way home,  and saw the pickerel weed and floating hearts.

Pickerelweed,
pontederia cordata

Little floating heart,
nymphoides cordata

Pipewort, eriocaulon aquaticum

Eastern wild indigo,Baptisia Tinctoria

Jewel Pond

Sickle-leaved aster with blueberry

Toothed, white-topped aster,
sericocarpus asteroides

Orchid hunting

I became consumed by the desire to see an orchid I have not seen on Nantucket.  David Policansky posted a picture of a White-fringed orchid, Platanthera blephariglottis, on Facebook. It was in a "special, secret" place that you can only get to by walking over glass and through poison ivy.  I'm in!

I wheedled Kelly Omand, botanist of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation,  to take me there.  I cannot reveal the spot,  but it did involve deer paths,  poison ivy and broken glass.

What a triumph!  The thrill of the new!  I love it.  

I walked into the Sconset Post Office afterward and saw Susan Lacouture Bacle.  I showed here the picture,  all proud and puffed up.  "Oh,"  she said,  "I used to see them at the XXX YYY."  

I am still loving it!

Bog club moss, lycopodiella,
with drum head  milkwort

  

Wood Lily Time

Lilium philadelphium

Elsa was not the only storm to hit Nantucket.  Our three sons, their wives and three grandchildren 5 and under visited for a week.  Fantastic fun,  but limited #NantucketWild.  

I hiked Squam Farm and Squam Swamp on Monday, July 19,  and was treated to my first wood lilies of the year, an Eastern Wood-Pewee singing,  and the "early bird"  Great Crested Flycatcher catching a worm.

 

Tropical Storm Elsa: A Walk in the Woods

       

Indian Pipes, Monotropa uniflora

            Squam Swamp is a wonderful wood, deep and wet and filled with ferns.  It seems primal, likely to host fairies in its  mossy stumps. Today’s walk during Tropical Storm Elsa gave hints of the late summer and fall to come.  The first red leaves were on the path along with swamp azalea blooms,  and  the mushrooms seemed more late summer than high summer.  But there were still some late daisies in sunny spots.

I was seeking Indian Pipes , monotropa uniflora, which I’ve seen here in July in the past.  I found it between posts 12 and 14. It is also  called Ghost Pipes.

The mushrooms made it seem more like fall:  from  golden chanterelles to the deadly amanita ( eastern North American Destroying Angel.)The eastern platterfull mushroom (megacollybia rodmanii) and jellied coral fungus rounded out the shrooms.

Golden Chantarelles

Cantarellus cibarius

Deadly Amanita

Amanita Bisporigera, Destroying Angel

Megacollybia rodmanii
Eastern American Platterful Mushroom

Milestone Bog

 

July 8:  One whole section of Milestone bog is hosting hundreds of swamp candles,  lysimachia terristris.  Take the main path and turn left into the bog at the stand of pines.  Magnificent to see huge stands of flowers in the bogs, both Milestone and  Windswept,  as they move away from cranberry production.

The early flowers of "sickle-leaved aster," pityopsis falcata, are along the paths,  but the meadowsweet, spirea tomentosa,  is yet to flower.  The stands of aletris, colicroot,  are still visible in the meadows.

Sickle-leaved golden aster,
pityopsis falcata

Meadowsweet, spirea tomentosa