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Towns Co. - Mountain Seeps Spring 2025 Visits |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2025) |
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Towns Co. - Mountain Seeps Spring 2025 Visits |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2025) |
| 1 - My first visit of 2025 was in mid May, as I stopped on my return from another site to see if American Columbo might be blooming. |
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| American Columbo (Frasera caroliniensis) As I've mentioned in my Columbo albums, this plant endures as a large basal rosette for up to 20 years before bolting as a large flowering stem 3 to 8 feet tall for a single season, then dying. |
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| Upper tip of an American Columbo plant |
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| Columbo flowers |
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| Columbo flowers Note the fringed nectar pad in the middle of each corolla lobe. |
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| Eastern Gray Beardtongue (Penstemon canescens) The flowers were just starting to open. |
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| Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium sp.) |
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| 2 - Nine days later... (May 23, 2025) I stopped to monitor Georgia's only known population of Platanthera herbiola. I've been monitoring these since 2018, and in that time the population has grown from 2 plants to 15 this year. There were only two flowering stalks, however, as at least two others had been browsed. |
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| Southern Tubercled Rein Orchid (Platanthera herbiola), one of only two flowering stalks this year. |
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| Southern Tubercled Rein Orchid (Platanthera herbiola), the second of only two flowering stalks this year. |
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| 3 - June 10, 2025 Along with a GA-DNR rep, I assisted two professors from Wilmington College in Ohio, collecting tissue (leaf) samples of Darlington's Glade Spurge (Euphorbia purpurea) for DNA testing. They are collecting samples from a number of populations in the Eastern US; this is the only known occurrence in Georgia. I didn't take any pics of the Glade Spurge, as it bloomed several months ago, but took pics of a few other species as I showed them around. |
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| Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), with flower buds at the top of the stalk. |
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| Leather Flower, aka Vase Vine (Clematis viorna) |
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| Grass Pink (Calopogon tuberosus) |
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| Fritillaries on Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) |
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| 4 - June 12, 2025 My cameras lead a pretty hard life, accompanying me through all kinds of terrain, tunnels, vegetation, weather, etc. I finally had to retire my last workhorse after it sustained some water damage. I ordered a new camera, lens, and some other accessories on a Tuesday evening at 5:30, and it was delivered just after 4:00 pm on Wednesday! I configured it to my liking and went out to begin getting familiar with it. A few "practice" pics follow: |
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| Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) |
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| More Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) |
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| One of the Sundrops (Oenothera species) |
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| A pair of Clematis viorna flowers |
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| A Great Spangled Fritillary and a Pearl Crescent on Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) |
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| Grass Pinks (Calopogon tuberosus) |
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| Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) |
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| Silver Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) on Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). |
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| Leather Flower, aka Vase Vine (Clematis viorna) |
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| Silver Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) on Clematis viorna. |