After a nice afternoon nap, Penny talked me into taking her on a walk to Sandogardy Pond. We had been away for ten days visiting relatives in Kentucky, and she stayed here with David. She missed us!
Before we even got off our property, I stumbled across the largest colony of Indian pipe (Monoflora unitropa) that I think I’ve ever seen. This one looked especially nice against a backdrop of moss.
Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)
I was pleased to see some fringed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) in the ditch along the road. There used to be a lot more of it, but the Japanese knotweed has been expanding along the ditch, forming a huge monoculture and displacing native species as it goes along. Here is one of the flowers, shot from underneath:
Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata)
And here’s what the plant looks like. Notice how the flowers nod:
Fringed Loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata)
This patch of woods along th way was covered up with ripe blueberries. I stopped, picked, and devoured about a pint of them.
Lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)
Just before the pond, there was a batch of shinleaf pyrola. I think this was as nice a batch of them as I have ever seen:
Shinleaf
(Pyrola elliptica)
We got to the pond, but I could tell there were a lot of people there picnicking and swimming. Not wanting to bother them, we detoured down the the stream that drains the pond, and Penny jumped right in:
Penny cools off
We approached the pond from the other side, stopping to look at the bluebead lilies:
Bluebead lily (Clintonia borealis)
Over at the other end of the beach (the part that is somewhat overgrown with alder), I found one of the plants I was hoping to see – swamp candles. This was was blooming next to a wild rose:
Swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris)
The pickerel weed was also in bloom, but it was just starting – it will be more photogenic in another week or so. There was what I know is a variety of St Johnswort growing on the beach, and I think it might be dwarf St Johnswort. But I have not yet confirmed that.
Dwarf St Johnswort (Hypericum mutilum)?
We’ll go back again soon Penny!
Jomegat's Weblog 
July 12, 2015 at 10:05 am
There seems to be an explosion of all of these plants here this year too. I’ve never seen so many shinleaf in bloom.
Dwarf St. Johnswort is a tiny thing that barely gets ankle high and the flowers are about pencil eraser size. The ones I see grow almost right at the edge of the water. It looks like that could be it, but as always it’s hard to tell from a photo.
July 12, 2015 at 1:27 pm
That’s probably not it then, as the bloom was at least an inch across. Everything else fits though.
July 12, 2015 at 1:41 pm
I’ve seen that one too. It’s almost like a stunted full size plant. I never have been able to ID it. You can find an excellent description of the dwarf variety here: http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/wetland/plants/dwf_stjohn.htm