Anybody Seen My Focus?: Spring Walk At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, June 8th, 2015 (Part 2)

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Spring Walk At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, June 8th, 2015 (Part 2)

June 8th. (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 been trying to walk it weekly and document the wildflowers 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. A few late spring/summer wildflowers are blooming now.

The flower buds were still developing on the Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) bushes by the bridge and along the lake shore in the Fishing Area.

In the Fishing Area I found a single Pencil Flower (Stylosanthes biflora) In bloom. Just one.

More Carolina Wild Petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis) plants were blooming in the Fishing Area.

Another Dog’s Vomit/Scrambled Egg (Fuligo septica) slime mold had started to fruit on a fallen log near the…

‘Rock Garden’ woods.

The Perfoliate Bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata) seed capsule was still developing.

I found another Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa) vine with seed capsules in the Rock Garden woods.

Berries were developing on blackberry canes at the water’s edge. I think the birds eat these berries even before they are ripe. I’ve only seen one blackberry that was starting to darken.

On the leaf litter near the Perfoliate Bellwort plant, I found this twig with Oak Apple Galls from last year.

I didn’t expect to see any slime molds along the trail from the Rock Garden to the Old Fort, but there were some small patches of Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa) on a couple of logs in the shade. I checked the logs for other slime mold fruiting bodies but couldn’t find any. Further along the…

trail, I found another mysterious fungus.

All that existed on this log were a couple of patches of a polypore fungus with no cap and the pores facing upwards. It took me a while to realize that this log had been rolled over from its original position to expose the fungus which had been pointing downward in the logs original position. This had killed the fungus unfortunately. It was surprising that the fungal structure was in such good shape for having been exposed to the elements.