Anybody Seen My Focus?: Spring Is In The Air: Fort Yargo State Park, Section B To The Dam, May 8th (Part 2)

May 8th. (Continued from… ) When I visited Fort Yargo State Park in mid-February, there were few signs of Spring. The only wildflower plants that were obvious were the leaves of Cranefly Orchids (Tipularia discolor) that I found in many places.

The route… I’ve described it here, here, here, and here This walk doesn’t have the variety of wildflowers as my other walk from the Group A Shelter to the Old Fort but it does have some gems. One of the Smallflower (Asimina parviflora) had developed fruit, the Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) Orchids had been blooming for a week or so and some Green Adder’s-mouth (Malaxis unifolia) Orchids were beginning to bloom.

The trail heading down from the dam.

The older of two cigar-shaped galls on a small oak tree. I’ve been following these for some time but haven’t been able to identify them.

The ‘younger’ of the two galls. The ‘bump’ on this gall is new; I wonder if something would emerge from this gall soon.

The Woolsower Gall is beginning to shrink as it dries up.

As I reached the point on the trail where I would go down onto the beach if the lake level was low, I saw some…

pink and brown lumps on a fallen log. I went down to take a closer look.

A closer look at a couple of the lumps. At first I thought it was a fungus of some sort but then I saw…

‘threads’ stretching from the lumps to the log, and became suspicious that it was a slime mold. The threads would be the final cells of the mobile plasmodial stage in the life cycle of the mold. These fruiting bodies were about 1-1/2 inches in diameter and medium-to-low convex. I think these are the Dog's Vomit/Scrambled Egg (Fuligo septica) slime mold although their colors are unusual. This must have been a very large plasmodium. I’d love to see this slime mold on the move.

Ebony Spleenworts (Asplenium platyneuron) grow along this section of the trail.

A relatively open section of woods that lets a lot of light in, although it is still shady.

My next stop was the Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) Orchid patch where I’d also found four Green Adder’s-mouth (Malaxis uniflora) Orchid. The lady’s slippers had finished blooming. The Green Adder’s-mouth Orchids were just starting to bloom.