"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
The habitat this featured orchid was found was quite interesting – a wet, fen-like area with many pea-gravel rivulets to walk down. All this was set under a thick overstory that allowed little light on the cloudy day Casey and I visited. Often forced to hunch as we searched for other plants, lighting for photography was challenging, but we got what we came for.
As you can see below, this is a dainty and sweet orchid that has a large primary leaf and a secondary, bract-like leaf.
-OZB
After looking for a few years, I finally found a patch of black trumpets this year in Jefferson County, MO. They are reported to be one of the finest wild mushrooms and I agree – they (I picked and ate the ones pictured here) are definitely in my top three!
A few weeks ago Ev, Yvonne, Dave and I traveled south to try and find the first state record of the Brown Booby that was on the Current River just outside of Doniphan. Unfortunately, we were a day late and missed the bird. However, through the patient and educated eyes of Yvonne, we found several insects that made the trip worthwhile.
One of these that I was able to get some photos of was this striking great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans). This is one of the largest of the skimmers and while not necessarily rare, it isn’t one you’ll come across very often in the St. Louis area.
We made a stop in Carter County before heading home to look for orchids. The orchids were a no-show, but Yvonne found her target species of the day – this gemmed satyr (Cyllopsis gemma) that we all had nice looks and photo opportunities with.
Although we missed out on our prized Booby, I’d say the Booby Prizes were well worth our time.
-OZB
June 2023 Update
In June of 2023, Casey, Pete, Miguel and I headed back to the same location in hopes of finding and photographing the adults of this species. Unfortunately, we were likely too late and could not find a single adult in flight. However, we looked over the site, looking closely at the Pedicularis canadensis to see if we might find females laying eggs. We had no luck with this and found no eggs nor larvae. Pete’s botanical eye did find a single Aureolaria grandiflora, where he found an egg mass. On closer inspection, I concluded that these were definitely butterfly eggs. A quick Google search confirmed that these were indeed checkerspot eggs! Now I need to photograph the beautiful adults and the absolutely stunning chrysalis of this species in order to capture every life stage of this fantastic creature.
Thinking on this further, on what has been described of this species (read more below), this makes perfect sense. We were not likely to find larvae on P. canadensis, nor find the females depositing eggs. Eggs are typically deposited on A. grandiflora, whereupon the larvae feed until the end of the season, moving on to finish this stage in the spring where the feed on P. canadensis.
End of June 2023 update.
Early April, 2020, Casey and I head to the southwest corner of the state looking for multiple subjects. Our primary target of this trip was to check for caterpillars of a rare subspecies of the Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton ozarkae). This subspecies occurs primarily in the Arkansas Ozarks, but can be found in extreme southern Missouri.
The main distinction that separates this purported subspecies is habitat and host plant preference. The primary habitat for E. phaeton phaeton is marshy wetlands, while E. phaeton ozarkea prefers oak woodlands. The primary host plant for E. phaeton phaeton are the turtleheads (Chelone sp.) while E. phaeton ozarkea primarily uses false foxglove (Aureolaria grandiflora). These animals will overwinter as caterpillars and then will often find new host plant species the following year – as shown in these photographs, they are using lousewort (Pedicularis canadensis). They will then pupate in May to June of their second year.
Browsing the literature, there seems to be some who question the legitimacy of the subspecific status of of E. phaeton ozarkae. Is this simply a case of an opportunistic generalist finding new ways to make a living in varying habitats, or is there a concrete genetic distinction between these two? From what I’ve been able to tell, there does not seem to be a consensus. If you are aware of any newer literature that might shed light here, please let me know.
-OZB
Just a few that I’ve processed that I wanted to share from this past spring.
Did you know…? Trilliums are a favored spring food by white-tailed deer. An overabundance of deer, as is found across most of the eastern United States forests, can have detrimental impacts to trillium populations. In some regions these plants and many other plant species are extirpated from certain forests except within deer exclusion fences.
One of the first wildflowers that really caught my attention. Miami mist can often be found in large colonies. Unless you stop to take a close look, it may not be obvious what you are missing.
I thought that celandine poppies were pretty common after visiting the large beds at Shaw Nature Reserve’s wildflower garden. I have now come to understand that they are generally pretty hard to find in Missouri forests. The name celandine comes from the Greek word for ‘swallow’, referring to the plant’s early blooming with the first arrival of the birds in spring.
-OZB
Thought I was getting racy? These photos were taken at Weldon Springs CA this past spring when Dave, Miguel and I were hoping to score some photos of newly arriving birds. The birding was slow this day, if I remember correctly, but here is a fantastic example of why it is always worth while to get out as early as possible.
While standing on a low-water crossing the guys and I noticed a mass coming upstream towards us. It didn’t take long to discover that a beaver was on its way and would have to get by us to reach its destination farther upstream. We all shot away with our long lenses until this guy got closer than our minimum focal distances. It hesitated a bit and hurried back downstream as Miguel moved to get in a different position, but eventually climbed up the crossing and moved to the other side. He was so close to us during its crossing that Dave could have potentially petted him if he had wanted to.
This Stinkor was found in a nearby field later that same morning. The eyesight of both species is pretty awful. If you come across these guys, there is no need to be concerned. Simply move slowly and as silently as possible and you will likely have plenty of time to observe them without being noticed. I have had several close encounters with skunks and have never felt threatened with being sprayed.
-OZB
The NEOWISE Comet, whose actual name is C/2020 F3, was a pleasant surprise for the astronomical community who await such events as a newly discovered comet. First discovered in late March, the comet grew steadily brighter, eventually becoming the brightest comet to be seen in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. According to the experts, this comet had an orbital period of about 4,400 years prior to making its latest trip through the inner solar system. It will now be another 6,700 years before beings on earth will be able to see it again.
I have long had a very strong interest in astronomy and astrophotography and the current pandemic has allowed me to do quite a bit of studying on both topics. Hopefully soon I can get the practice in this area that I desperately need. Although it has some issues, I was relatively pleased at capturing the closeup of the comet pictured above.
Although I had a star-tracking mount that would have been perfect for this situation, I had not yet used it so I did not make this the first time. This image was “untracked” using a full-frame camera and a 200 mm lens. It is comprised of 20 “light” images (the actual photos of the comet) taken at 3.2 seconds per exposure. The aperture was f/2.8 and the ISO/gain was 6400. I combined these images with 10 “dark” frames for noise reduction purposes.
The processing here could be better and I might give it another try sometime. But, both tails of the comet are visible and I think the background stars came out alright as well.
After awhile the comet began to dive towards the horizon with the remnant glow from twilight. I happened to show up at Lee’s Bluff on the same night as accomplished Missouri nightscape photographer, Dan Zarlenga, and so we both turned our tripods around to the south and found this lovely scene. Here, the Milky Way has recently risen above a nice foreground of trees. Again, I wish I would have been a bit more prepared with a plan, but I guess this isn’t too bad.
-OZB
I was thrilled to be able to photograph this stunner of an orchid this past spring. Thanks to Casey Galvin who turned me on to this tiny population in Shannon County, MO.
The Showy Lady’s Slipper is currently ranked as S2/S3 in Missouri, meaning this species is imperiled/vulnerable. We carefully tread around these guys and hide their specific locations as this is a species that may still be poached for horticulture purposes.
Today I am sharing some photos of plants in bloom taken in a fen in Shannon County, MO. These plants were blooming in June and the combination of high temps, direct sunlight and high humidity made for challenging conditions to photograph indeed. The first subject is Pogonia ophioglossoides, the snakemouth orchid or rose pogonia. These were blooming in abundance at the fen but finding one in the peak of its beauty was the challenge.
As fantastic as it was, I found being in these fens to be quite stressful. First of all, you are typically forced to work in dangerous heat indexes. My friend, David Seidensticker and I made a visit to these fens during our birthday weekend and dreaded leaving the sanctuary of what little shade we could find and use as a base of our operations. If you visit these locations in the summer, be prepared by drinking as much water as you can before you get there and bring plenty of water with you. You really need to constantly drink as you are sweating profusely, losing water at nearly the same rate you can take it in.
In addition to the off-the-chart heat index values, one must carefully select every footstep. This is not only due to the rare plants in bloom, but also because of the soil substrate that forms the base of these endangered fen ecosystems. These fens are comprised of two primary soil substrate types, marly soils and peat soils.
Marly soils are composed mostly of carbonates such as calcite and calcium or magnesium carbonate that precipitate out of ground water. These soils take thousands of years to develop and the typically high levels of magnesium create conditions that only the best adapted floras can survive.
Peat soils are comprised of partially decomposed plant materials that also build up over thousands of years. These soils can typically support more plant species and heavier vegetation loads. Care must be taken to avoid walking much on these soils as our footsteps will not only disturb the plants growing here, but will also act to compress the soil, expelling the gasses trapped and water-logging the root environments.
The best places to walk in these fen types are on the rivulets that run within these fens. Continuously flowing waters have moved most of the soils from these areas to leave a pea-gravel type substrate with gently moving water on top. Plants will still grow within these areas but finding a safe place to put your foot is typically pretty easy.
We found Spiranthes lucida growing at the edges of shallow peat soils next to these rivulets within the fen. Likely the easiest Spiranthes to identify in the state, this is the only Spiranthes species that blooms in spring, has a yellow lip and has an easy to identify growth habit with broad basal leaves that are present when the orchid is in bloom.
Calopogon tuberosus was just beginning to bloom in early June. This orchid is famous for its non-resupinate flowers, meaning that the flowers are not turned 180 degrees, as they are in most orchids. The lip of the flower is found on the upper side of the flower. This species also does not produce nectar or pollen as rewards for would-be pollinators, but uses visual subterfuge to entice insects to land. I found it interesting that Homoya, 1993, suggests that the reason C. tuberosa exists in space and flowering time with P. ophioglossoides (see above) is that the later does provide ample nectar rewards, thereby increasing the chances that a pollinator might land on the similarly colored C. tuberosa flowers.
Justicia americana is a gorgeous member of the Acanthaceae family that we found growing in early June. These plants were most likely to be found growing alone or in small groups along the gravel bottoms of the rivulets within the fen. They, like all of the plants shown here, are not strictly linked to fens per se, but fens do make a nice home for them.
This has just been a small look inside these glorious fens. I hope to continue visiting at other times of year to see other plants in bloom.
Thanks for the visit.
-OZB
REFERENCES
Much of the information from the above was taken from the following sources. I do recommend them both for learning more about the orchids that can be found in fens and anywhere in Missouri.
Homoya, M.A. Orchids of Indiana. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. 1993.
Summers, Bill. Missouir Orchids. Missouri Department of Conservation Natural History Series, No. 1. 1981.
I have had some opportunity lately to try for infrared landscapes with my converted Canon 5D mkii. There is still so much I want to try with this, but between summer laziness and a lack of time and opportunity, I get by with what I can. The image above was taken in an Illinois woodland.
I found this white oak in the same woodland and it screamed for the IR treatment. I’m still getting the hang of processing the images from the “supercolor IR conversion” of this camera. Although the basics are simple, I find the plethora of options one has in processing these files to be a bit intimidating. I’m trying to go a little more on the subtle side with these, but there’s a fine line between just enough and too much.
These final three images were taken at Hughes Mountain C.A. – a place that I find begs for the infrared photographic treatment. These were taken on one of the evenings of potential for extra color from the Sahara sandstorms. There was nothing extra for the sunset due to these storms other than increased haze, but the high clouds made for interesting skies in IR.
Finding green plants in the glade areas is important in getting the contrasts for an IR image. This hasn’t been a very wet summer but there was some green still left among the rocks. Optimally, it would be best to try in late spring to early summer to get this setting just right.
So these were some of my first serious attempts at IR landscapes with the newly converted camera. If you have any suggestions for improvement, particularly in the processing area, I would be grateful to listen.
-OZB
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 