Anybody Seen My Focus?: Summer On A Fort Yargo State Park Trail: Section B To The Dam, August 5th (Part 1)

August 5th. 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 that, unfortunately, it had lost; the Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule) Orchids had bloomed, and some Green Adder’s-mouth (Malaxis unifolia) Orchids had bloomed and two were setting seeds. The slime molds appeared to be finished for the season. For the moment, some wildflowers we still blooming but there was a lull between seasons.

There were few wildflowers blooming out in the open section of the trail. In the woods, the...

St. Andrew’s Cross (Hypericum hypericioides) plants were still blooming.

A new addition were the Kudzu (Pueraria montana) vines that had started to bloom. Often, the first sign that they were blooming was the appearance of flowers that had fallen from the high vines onto the trail. Vines near the edge of the woods were now blooming. Their flower heads were usually…

hidden under the leaves so it wasn’t obvious that the vines were blooming. I pushed leaves aside to…

get a good look at the flowers. They have a pea-like flower that may be a deep maroon, although the earliest blooms are often a pale pink. The standard (largest) calyx has a flash of either white or…

yellow that contrasts with the maroon. It’s a pity that that the vines are highly invasive; the individual flowers are quite pretty.

The Witch’s Butter (Tremella mesenterica) that dried after recent rains was still visible on the fallen branch.

Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata) had begun to bloom again for their main flowering season.

The Bicolor Lespedeza (Lespedeza bicolor) shrubs were still blooming; the flowers were deep pink again.

As on the previous walk, there weren’t any slime mold fruiting bodies at either of the two logs I visited on the way to the dam, so I stopped by the…

Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) tree, where the fruit was still healthy in spite of the fact that the surrounding leaves had been eaten.

The weather had been very hot and there weren’t many flowers blooming. This...

Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) was flying from one to another fallen Kudzu flower in search of nectar.

Down at the end of the dam, the…

Lanceleaf Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) were still providing color but the flowers were looking a little the worse for wear. In contrast, the…

Bigroot Morning Glory (Ipomoea pandurata) vines, in the shade at the edge of the woods, had gotten their ‘second wind’ and were blooming again.

The seed capsules on the Hairy Angelica (Angelica venenosa) didn’t appear to have changed over the previous two weeks; they still looked very healthy.

The previous week, most of the seed capsules on the New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) had ripened but were still attached to the bushes. On this week, most had been catapulted from their ‘holders.’

From here, I walked…