Spring Walk At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, May 18th, 2015 (Part 2)

May 18th. (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.

I walked around the Fishing Area…

At least one of the Elliott’s Blueberry (Vaccinium elliottii) plants was ripe.

The Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum) was in full bloom.

Damselflies were hunting in several places in the Fishing Area:

a male Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis); and a…

Blue-tipped Dancer (Argia tibialis).

The Carolina Wild Petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis) now had purple flowers. (Unfortunately, the park staff has since sprayed that Poison Ivy that was growing around this plant. This plant may be lost.)

Scrabbling on a pine tree trunk betrayed a…

female Eastern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus). Females may have pale blue badges similar to males.

As I walked towards the Rock Garden, I spotted an unusual sight…

A pair of Five-lined Skinks (Eumeces [Plestiiodon] fasciatus) together on a large bolder at the edge of the lake.

On a fallen log at the beginning of the ‘Rock Garden,’ I found a…

slime mold. This slime mold is called either the Dog Vomit or Scrambled Egg Slime Mold (Fuligo septica). This slime mold had completed its spore-forming stage. (A week or so later, all that remained as a ‘stain’ on the log were I had found the mold.) 

Slime molds are fascinating. Their classification is complicated but their behaviors are similar. Simply, they have two forms: a mobile stage in which aggregates of cells, called a plasmodium, move across the ground and a second spore-bearing stage in which the cells form structures of different shapes and colors. A time-lapse video of a slime mold may be viewed here.

From the Rock Garden, I walked on…

the main trail down to the Old Fort, where I found a couple of pairs of…

Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) socializing on the lake.

On the way back along the main trail to the Fishing area, I checked on the…

galls on the Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) saplings. Whatever had been in them had burrowed its way out and only the shells of the galls remained.

I found yet another…

Scrambled Egg slime mold on a log near the Fishing Area parking lot. This plasmodium had divided before the cells entered the spore-forming stage.

From the trail, I spotted another…

ruellia flower. I thought it was another Carolina Wild Petunia and almost ignored it since it was located in another Poison Ivy patch. I did walk over and found, to my delight that it was a…

Stalked Wild Petunia (Ruellia pedunculata), a species I hadn’t seen before.

I stopped to rest at a table in the Fishing Area before I continued back along the trail. I startled an…

Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) that had found a pine cone and wasn’t going to share it with me.

I continued along the trail and, just as I entered the last wooded section, found a single…

Racemed Milkwort (Polygala polygama) plant in bloom.

Another rewarding walk. It’s interesting that there is always something interesting to see along this trail. This day was no exception.

Identification resource:  

- Messiah College: Fuligo septica 

Related posts:  

- Spring Walk At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, May 18th, 2015 (Part 1)

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