Anybody Seen My Focus?: Summer At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, July 13th, 2015 (Part 2)

July 13th. (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 trail from the cliff to the Fishing Area usually doesn’t have many points of interest but on this walk, I spotted one of my favorite mushrooms, an…

Ornate-stalked Bolete (Retiboletus ornatipes). I spent some time sitting in the leaf litter photographing this mushroom; I’ll post them separately.

I did find another nice specimen of the Nakedflower Ticktrefoil (Desmodium nudiflorum) flowering beside the trail. And now I could see the…

leaves. They were on a ‘separate’ stalk, about a foot long, that appeared not to be associated with the bloom stalk; there were two to three inches between these stalks at the surface of the leaf litter.

Looking back along the lake just south of the Fishing Area.

A Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta) was perched on a dead branch; periodically, it would take off and circle around in search of prey before returning to this same perch.

From the bridge to the Fishing Area, I saw a young Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta scripta) on a floating log to enjoy the morning sun.

Fruit are developing on the Buttonbushes (Cephalanthus occidentalis). I’ve never seen these mature before either so I’m following them with some interest. I think this is going to be a slow process.

A Carolina Wild Petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis) was still blooming. These plants have been blooming in the shady area near the point for a surprisingly long time.

In the ‘Rock Garden,’ the seed capsules on the Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa) were doing well.

The Resurrection Fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides) on a tree trunk in the Rock Garden, leafy the week previously, had dried yet again.

A seed capsule on an Eastern Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) was hiding behind the leaves; it also looked quite healthy.

I was surprised when I got to the Perfoliate Bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata).

The plant had shriveled and the seed capsule also looked dry. There was no sign that the capsule had split along the side, which is what I had suspected. When I lifted the leaf up, I could see that the…

bottom had ‘fallen’ out of the capsule and most of the seeds had fallen onto the ground.

When I got back to the main trail, I found the…

Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor) flower stalks that I had located the week previously. The buds were still pressed against the stalk. Still a week or so before the flowers would be open.

The Swamp Rosemallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) was still blooming but, already,

seed capsules were forming.

Indian Woodoats (Chasmanthium latifolium) were becoming a common sight along the trail through the…

woods.

I found a couple of…

Cranefly Orchid flower stalks at the base of a tree by the trail. Cranefly orchids have been blooming here for many years and I can use this spot to assess the status of these orchids if I can’t find them in other locations.