Anybody Seen My Focus?: Summer At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, August 25th, 2015 (Part 2)

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Summer At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, August 25th, 2015 (Part 2)

August 25th. (Continued from…). I started to walk again at Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, Georgia. One of my favorite walks is from the Group Shelter A to the Old Fort and back.This is a rewarding walk for viewing wildflowers and I’ve This is a rewarding walk for viewing wildflowers and I’ve been walking it every week and documenting the wildflowers that I see.

The route, which I described here, here, and here.

The early spring wildflowers have finished blooming; it’s time to watch the developing fruit. Summer wildflowers were still blooming but it was time to turn attention to the fungi in the woods.

Just before I reached the first bridge on this trail, I found another cluster of ‘Honeycomb’ Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. porioides) on the log on which I had first found them. These were developing and it’s easier to appreciate their structure.

A Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis) butterfly was enjoying the sunshine on the bridge.

The seed capsules were still developing on the Pipsissewa (Chimaphila maculata) just past the bridge.

Further along the trail, the seed capsules on the Eastern Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) was completely ripe. These capsules may remain attached to the plant into the winter. It will be interesting to see how long this capsule hangs on.

The seeds in the Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa) were visible though the seed capsule but they weren’t ripe.

The seed capsules on the witchhazel (Hamamelis sp.) were unchanged; the…

flower buds were also unchanged, as were the…

seed capsules on the Mountain Azalea (Rhododendron canescens).

The second Eastern Sweetshrub fruit had turned brown finally.

A surprising sight. A Dog’s Vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica) plasmodium had been in the process of moving across the top of an old stump and had mostly formed the fruiting structures. The trailing end (on the right-hand side) was still in the plasmodial stage. (Unfortunately, the tail end of the plasmodium didn’t form fruiting structures; I think it dried before it could do so.)

I found some Chocolate Tube (Stemonitis sp.) slime mold fruiting bodies on the side of the stump near the ground. (I rotated the image for easier viewing)>

Between the cliff and the Fishing Area, I found another Shaggy Stalked Bolete (Heimioporus betula). The cap on this one was a more characteristic red color that still had some of the glossy sheen that would be uniform on the cap in a younger specimen. The red color under the shaggy surface on the stem is much more apparent than it had been on the specimen I had found near the beginning of the trail.

I was treated to yet another Red-spotted Purple butterfly before I reached the Fishing Area.

The fruit on the Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) were unchanged from the previous week. I wondered how long it would take for these to mature.

Some Bushy Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia) were blooming and producing fruit at the edge of the shallow water in the Fishing Area.

At the north end of the Fishing Area, mushrooms were starting to grow. I couldn’t identify these this year; they are probably a Hypholoma sp. Perhaps, next year, I’ll be able to identify the species.