Mountain Juneberry?

I think the flower that stymied me yesterday is a mountain juneberry (Amelanchier bartramiana). I have one of these growing at the edge of my yard, and I compared the blossom this afternoon. They are pretty much identical. The thing that threw me was that my specimen is a bush, and it’s three feet tall or so. Of all the ones I saw on Mount Major yesterday, none were higher than 18″.

I’ll wait until Mr Smarty Pants gets back to me before making any such declarations though.

Beth, Penny, and I took a walk down to Sandogardy Pond this afternoon to give Va a chance to mop the floors. While we were down there, I found some Indian Cucumber Root (Medeola virginiana) in bloom. I wasn’t expecting that yet, but after checking my records for last year, it shouldn’t have come as a big surprise. My first log last year for that plant was June 3.

Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana)

I’m actually rather fond of this plant. The root smells and tastes like cucumbers (thus the name). It’s still not a great idea to collect much of it though, as there just isn’t very much of it around. I’ve read that its lack of abundance is due to overcollection in the past, but I kinda find that hard to believe. How many people know about this stuff anyhow? Still, the roots are pretty small, so it would take a lot of it to make a meal. So maybe it doesn’t take many collectors to reduce its population substantially.

I also notice that the bullhead lily (Nuphar lutea) has bloomed. It was at least a hundred feet off shore, and I was not equipped to wade out there to take a picture, so I didn’t. Besides, I had forgotten my large memory card, so I had set the camera to record small images. At full size, the small memory card will only hold eight images.