Coastal NC Wildflowers

Last Sunday my friends and I did the Southport Butterfly Count. With exception of the Cloudless Sulphurs flying everywhere it was as quoted "Never seen so many great butterfly wildflowers with so few butterflies, surely it could not be worse". Anyway 4 parties managed to get 42 species (my group two weeks earlier got 44 species in Durham).

We were assigned the Boiling Springs Lakes area. never been there before. My take was the developers created all these lots and the roads to go with them and most were not sold. So we drove down abandoned roads that lead nowhere. I was driving and saw these White Fringed Orchids and we stopped to check them out. 

 White Fringed Orchid

Platanthera blephariglottis (Habenaria blephariglottis) As we (4 of us) were photographing these orchids Will noticed we were nearly stepping on Venus Flytraps!

I've only seen Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula a few times in the 25 years I have lived in NC.
This one has a grasshopper it caught! I'm sure most of you know that is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids.

These plants were growing quite well in a boggy spot on one of the Boiling Springs Lakes lots with a for sale sign in front of it. Back in 1992 it was determined  that only 35,800 Venus Flytraps  remaining in nature as they are found growing native in only 2 counties in NC and one county in SC. Back then it was also estimated that 3-6 million plants were growing in cultivation though.

Lots of baby plants growing under the bigger plant. Notice the stalk from the flower, I have seen these in bud but not in flower.

Loblolly-bay, Gordonia lasianthus
These plants are rarely seen in bloom so we were delighted to find this fragrant fresh bloom. Thanks to Will Cook for knowing what is was, he is an expert on woody plants. It is related to the camellia so I was thrilled to get a photo.

Meadow Beauty, Rhexia alifanus We saw lots of of Meadow Beauties. I keyed this out in Radford, according to Radford's there are 5 different meadow beauties in the area we were in.

Rattlebush, Daubentonia punicea
This was new for me or I was having a senior moment! I found on the web that this plant is toxic to humans and that you can by this invasive plant for your garden, duh!! Below is the seed pods which will turn dark brown very quickly.

Purple Fringed Orchid

Here is a Purple Fringed Orchid, Platanthera grandiflora
The only one I found at Spruce Knob Lake in the West Virginia mountains. Once I visited Mount Mitchell in North Carolina and found thousands of these in bloom. Hoping to get back to Mount Mitchell in the near future.

Currently I am transferring photos files from 2006 that are on a Lacie external harddrive that has become very flaky and temperamental. Just picked up a Seagate 1.5 TB external harddrive and hope to put all my photos on them and organize them, wishful dreaming right? Anyone suggest a DOS way to move my files as Windows Vista stalls more than it works when moving huge folders of files.

Upcoming on my next post is a look at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina. At one time back in the 1920s the gardens it had every known cultivar of camellias totally 5000 different plants. Unfortunately no camellias were blooming when we were there. I did get lots of photos of the most incredible bottle wall art I have ever seen. A sample is shown below.