Wildflowers I have found

I have been trying to come up with the number of years I have spent hunting wild flowers, both before my digital camera (making photographs) and after its advent. Not quite sure but a ball park number of 15 years (give or take a year or two) sounds about right. Considering my age that is not a huge number of years, but since I am not and have never been a professional botanist I think it is a good number. I will of course check out wild flowers anywhere I travel and they can be seen, but the majority of my hunting grounds are fairly close to home in a pretty limited region, Southeast MA, with some excursions a bit further north. Habitat is mostly fields, woods, pond (lake) edges and some boggy areas that I can easily access. I don't have waders so I don't venture deep into bogs. What I am trying to say is that while I haven't by any stretch of the imagination "seen it all" I have seen and identified a lot of flowers/plants I see on my outings.

The flowers in today's post all share one common feature, these are the first photos I have made of the flower. Some flowers I knew about and the photos are just the icing on the cake so to speak. I was/am happy to finally have them, but I didn't have to do much research to pin a name on them. Others I had to look up, and in a couple of instances ask for help identifying. Oh, another common feature they are native to north America if not originally to MA and they have all been photographed in the past week or so. 

The above little yellow flower (and I do mean little) is Northern Yelloweyed Grass. I found this in a boggy area between two lakes at Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA, August 30, 2017.  This is one of those plants that I had seen drawings of but had never seen the actual flower until this past week. In one of my Wild Flower Guides the drawing of this flower is on the same page as Stargrass, a yellow flower that I think I have seen every year I have been looking for wild flowers.

Also found at Massasoit State Park, East Taunton, MA, August 30, 2017, Nodding Ladies Tresses. This is one of our native orchids. Not very showy flower like Lady Slippers are, but still pretty, and I was very happy to find it growing so profusely at Massasoit. It was in the same boggy area as the yellow-eyed grass above.

These next two flowers are both types of clover, actually they are both Bush Clovers, and I found these in my local city park, D W Field Park, Brockton, MA., August 31, 2017. The pink flowers above are Slender Bush Clover. 

The above is Round Headed Bush Clover. I have photographed this plant for years, but this year is the first time I have actually managed to find it in bloom. The flowers aren't very obvious and they don't last long. Found along the same path as the Slender Bush Cover above.

Not the best photo but for some reason I had a hard time photographing these flowers. Still is shows a flower and some of the plant leaves so it is representative. This is Partridge Sensitive Pea, and I found it at Nasketucket Bay Reservation in Mattapoisett, MA. Photographed Sept. 1, 2017. 

This last plant had me totally stumped, it is semi parasitic like Indian Pipes as it links to a fungus network in the soil for its nutrients. In this case the associated trees are Oaks. Many thanks to the members of Native Plants of New England Facebook group for helping me to identify it. This is Hairy Pine-Sap, and is my missing 4th Parasitic plant. See my post on Parasitic Plants back in September, 2017. Photographed September 2, 2017, Ames Nowell State Park, Abington, MA.

That is it for new to me plants that I have seen in the past week or so. Actually there were a couple of others but these are the most interesting and the post was getting too long so I will stop here. Please note that there are links to GoBotany for each flower if you are interested in Latin names or other facts, or if you wish to view other images.

As a final image today, above is a young Great Blue Heron that I photographed waiting for dinner to swim by in my local park.

One last comment, on my trip to Mattapoisett I photographed 2 (new to me) butterflies, a Red Banded Hairstreak and a Zabulon Skipper that I have added to the Butterfly page. That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome. Hope you enjoyed this post.