St. Regis River Access Plants - Part 1

I decided to take the dogs for a quick hike at the St. Regis River boat launch site in Santa Clara, NY. It's a short, easy hike and I can count on finding lots of spectacularly colored Cardinal Flowers at this time of year. To my surprise, there were so many wildflowers in bloom that I came home with a camera full of photos. So I've separated the dog pictures from the plant pictures. The beginning of the hike featured lots of Goldenrod:

And lots of Common Milkweed:

And, like most waste places, lots of Spotted Knapweed:

The sandy soil also supported Reindeer Lichen and Wild Strawberries. Those red spots you see behind the strawberry plants were not berries, but red leaves:

Tree Club Moss (Princess Pine). At least I think that's what kind it was:

There was lots of Meadowsweet growing everywhere at the dry, sandy beginning of the hike:

And Meadowsweet also grew along the riverbank, where the soil was probably richer and moister:

Black-Eyed Susans abounded but I somehow only got this one photo. It was next to a Scotch Pine:

Common St. Johnswort, like some of the other wildflowers, seems to be everywhere right now. It must be a good year for it:

The Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana, was producing fruit but I didn't taste it. I probably should have:

More Chokecherry. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

The Pink Ladyslipper Trail 2017 - Part 3

I was hiking with the dogs on a sort of a trail in Brasher State Park which last year had an abundance of Pink Ladyslippers. I was disappointed at first, but began to find the wild orchids in bloom as we proceeded into the forest:

The dogs didn't care about such things, but concentrated on running, playing, sniffing and peeing:

And it was a lovely place for happy dogs to run:

 

 Another Pink Ladyslipper, next to a Red Pine cone. Like Wild Strawberries, the Ladyslippers seem to thrive in this sandy soil covered with dead pine needles:

We turned around and began heading back to the car:


Did Seamus think he was hiding behind a sapling?

I was happy, albeit getting lots of mosquito bites (you can see three of them on my head):

 And just when I thought there'd be no more, I found another Pink Ladyslipper:

We took a slight detour, hoping to find more flowers:

Clover, Fergus and Daphne were sniffing something fascinating:

We were almost back to the car when I noticed this Chokecherry:

 

And there was our car, just ahead. We piled into the car and I rolled the windows down so the mosquitoes would be blown out as we drove away: