New plant on the creek
September 13, 2009
As I stroll to the mail box every day to pick up the mail, I cross the tiny trickle of a creek which runs through the side of our property down to the lake. It roars, on a modest scale, in spring when the snow melts and never quite dries out in summer. In some parts it’s too wide to jump over, but only a few inches deep; in some spots you can stand with a foot on each side of a 2ft deep hole.
As I cross, I always glance both ways to see what’s going on and in summer to see if the deer have eaten the cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, which grows with its feet in the water in some places. This year, I’m afraid, they mostly have.
The lavender flowered perennial Mimulus ringens, a small piece of which I moved from a huge colony alongside another stream a few miles away, flowered for the first time this year then just a couple of days ago I was delighted to see a plant in flower that I’d never seen alongside our stream before.
Three plants of white turtlehead, Chelone glabra (above, click to enlarge), have turned up and, while the one in the shadiest spot was still in bud, two had opened their first flowers. And a turtlehead is exactly what each flower looks like, as you can see from the picture.
Two of the three plants are right on the edge of the little stream, the other in a boggy patch close by. I can only assume that the seeds were washed down from upstream somewhere but it’s strange that all three plants are within 20ft of each other and there are no more to be seen anywhere.
White turtlehead is not a rare plant, it grows all over eastern north America from as far south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to Newfoundland in the north. But it’s a treat to have it on our little creek – I bent a few dead blueberry branches over the plants just to deter the deer. After all, these three turtleheads have only just arrived - it would be a shame for the deer to eat them even before they’ve set some seeds.
The lavender flowered perennial Mimulus ringens, a small piece of which I moved from a huge colony alongside another stream a few miles away, flowered for the first time this year then just a couple of days ago I was delighted to see a plant in flower that I’d never seen alongside our stream before.
Three plants of white turtlehead, Chelone glabra (above, click to enlarge), have turned up and, while the one in the shadiest spot was still in bud, two had opened their first flowers. And a turtlehead is exactly what each flower looks like, as you can see from the picture.
Two of the three plants are right on the edge of the little stream, the other in a boggy patch close by. I can only assume that the seeds were washed down from upstream somewhere but it’s strange that all three plants are within 20ft of each other and there are no more to be seen anywhere.
White turtlehead is not a rare plant, it grows all over eastern north America from as far south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to Newfoundland in the north. But it’s a treat to have it on our little creek – I bent a few dead blueberry branches over the plants just to deter the deer. After all, these three turtleheads have only just arrived - it would be a shame for the deer to eat them even before they’ve set some seeds.