Series of things seen on a run in the river park on which I live. The water is polluted enough that you are forbidden to swim or fish here, and I have never seen many water birds. There are deer though, as you will see below, some fish and some turtles. These were all taken with my cell phone camera, so they are not very sharp.
The river park was a very old canal, and there are sections of the stone retaining wall which still remain. In some places where the wall has completely fallen, the bank is being eaten away at a good clip. Eventually, in a decade or so, this will all be a broad swamp again.
I had never seen this in seed before, but this is an arrow leaf seed cone. It is the cousin of the skunk cabbage, whose flower I blogged about last year, and also the jack-in-the-pulpit. It doesn't go to seed in the northern States, like New York or Massachusetts, until October, or so the online botanists tell me. Odd considering that I've always observed their spring flowers to bloom only three weeks behind ours.
At first I thought this might be mile-a-minute vine because of its triangular leaves and pale green color, but looking around online, it seems that the infamous m-a-m vine has to have barbed hooks. This vine does not, and does not seem as invasive. So this must be some sort of cousin...
In the northern section of the river park, where it is flatter and there are fewer granite ledges, there are small clearings of these flowers. They are whitish, or else an extremely pale shade of pink, and they attract a swarm of very lively white butterflies, who could not abide my being near them. They had no scent and a very hard stem, which must be why they have survived as wildflowers in civilization.
And this is the fruit of a mayflower. They have large walnut sized white flowers in the spring. Supposedly, if you hide the fruit of the mayflower under your pillow, you will dream of your true love.
I ran right up on two deer before I saw them. At first I only saw the one right by the side of the path, who is only about 20 feet away. I looked around for any others, but didn't see the other deer until this one turned its own head to look at its friend. We looked at each other for a few minutes before they forded the river to the other side. They made a tremendous splash for all their absolute silence in passing through the brush.
Just at the end of the trail by the dam, there are hedges of what I think is feverfew, or Tanacetum parthenium. I am not sure if this stuff grows wild here, or if this has escaped from some one's garden. For all that it is very pretty, it goes largely ignored by the local flying denizens.
