Wildflowers 2021

June 8, Bear Loop trail, Ingalls Field Airport, Bath County, VA

Flame Azaleas

Rhododendrun

Mountain Laurel

 

May 31, Millboro Springs, Bath County, VA

Swordleaf Phlox (rare!)

Bowman's Root

 

May 9, 2021, Aman Park, Ottawa Co., MI

Wood Anemone

Dogwoods

Paw Paw trees

May 2, 2021, Aman Park, Ottawa Co., MI

False Lily of the Valley

Dwarf Gingseng

Starry False Solomon's Seal

Trilliums

False Rue Anemone

Squirrel Corn

Dutchman's Breeches

Sweet White Violets

Spring Beauties

Wild Geraniums

Virginia Bluebells

Wild Phlox

Blue Cohosh

Jacks in the Pulpit

Wild Ginger

Buttercups

Downy Violets

Wood Betony

Large-flowered Bellwort

Trout Lily

April 28, Aman Park, Ottawa Co., MI

Trilliums

False Rue Anemone

Squirrel Corn

Dutchman's Breeches

Virginia Bluebells

Wild Phlox

Blue Cohosh

Jacks in the Pulpit

Wild Ginger

Buttercups

Downy Violets

Wood Betony

Large-flowered Bellwort (just beginning)

April 11, Aman Park, Ottawa Co., MI

Redbud trees

Trout Lilies

Myrtle (non-native)

Budded: Mayapples, Early Meadow Rue

April 8, home & Blandford Nature Center, Walker, MI

Cut-leaved Toothwort

April 4, Aman Park, Ottawa Co., MI

Spring Cress

Hepatica

Spring Beauties

Bloodroot

False Rue Anemone

Dutchman's Breeches

Trillium budded but not open yet

March 24, Blandford Nature Center (West Meadow), Walker, MI
common violets

March 22, Blandford Nature Center, Grand Rapids, MI
wild leeks up, pussy willows

Geography & Geology terms

I started watching Wainwright Walks videos by Julia Bradbury, reading from Alfred Wainwright's volumes of Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. That got me to wondering about the terms "fell," "moor," "tarn," etc. 

Fell means barren or bare moor hills or mountains above the treeline. In the Blue Ridge in Virginia, you can see a great illustration of the mountains, the lower piedmont (foothills, like the eastern uplands or the Gold Coast hinterland in Queensland), the fall line, the cliff fells, then the coastal plain, all leading to the ocean.

Moor means upland or highland grasslands that have acidic soil. In the UK, moorlands are covered with peat. In Scotland, moors may be called heaths - covered with shrubs of heath, heather, or gorse.

Heath means shrubby lowlands; or evergreen flowering shrubs, like Broom, or heather, which is a genus in the Heath family.

A tor is an outcrop or bare rock formation at the top of a hill or mountain, like Flag Rock on top of Warm Springs Mountain in VA.

A tarn is a lake or pond, specifically a mountain lake or pool formed by a small glacier called a cirque or corrie. Tarns are in a bowl surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides and the 4th a morraine that makes the lip or threshold or sill and that consists of glacial till. We have lots of morraines in Michigan.

A kettle, in contrast to a tarn, is a lake or hole or pothole formed by a leftover piece of glacial ice that melted in a plain. Lots of kettle holes in Michigan.