queen three
after leaving the nature preserve with the whorled pogonia and pink ladyslippers I headed to a nature park/visitor's center where there is a nice clump of showy orchis or galearis spectabilis. this clump had been seen a while back and when people had returned to see if the plant would flower, they were shocked to see that deer had chewed the plant down! naturally, thoughts turned to venison kebabs, but since no hunting was allowed in this area (alas) calmer minds prevailed and came up with a wire cage to protect the orchids from deer predation. deer in upstate ny are very effective at mowing down anything edible in their path, and leaving lots of deer ticks behind. if you want something untouched, you either have to place dogs around it, fence it or spray nasty/stinky chemicals on it repeatedly to disgust them away. this often only works for the short term, until they discover that the stinky thing is tasty, then they cover their noses and...
so, the budding botanists barricaded the bright blooms and the byproducts were beautiful!
attractive path into the lime hollow nature preserve (just miles away from my first home!)
showy orchis clump with chicken wire cage staked down around the plants
these flowers really are beautiful, but they are hard to get a nice picture of because the flowers are nodding, or face downwards slightly. I was surprised when I edited these pics at how 'dirty' they were from bugs and pest chewing. that said, this is the most sturdy clump of showy orchis I've seen in new york state! i've seen quite a few others in new york and vermont, but all much smaller plants
clump view from above
a red eft that was very concerned about being caught out in the open, and did not want to pose for a picture!
on the way back to my car, a very nice colony of colt's foot gone to seed. I wanted to take a few more pictures, but the road shoulder was literally only inches wide, and cars weren't overly concerned about pedestrian safety
again, the flowers were in heavy shade, and since they were guarded by quite a few nasty mosquitos, I was on the move quite a bit (picture quality isn't the best)