Found along the path

The largest Green Dragon plant I know is right along the path leading back to the creek, about 40 feet west of the mulch pile on the left side of the path.   Earlier I posted a picture of the flower of a different plant; here are the developing berries.    They turn bright red when ripe.

This plant is easy to find if you want to look for it.   At the left is a picture of its location, a few feet left of a log by the path.   The plant whose flower I posted a picture of earlier is harder; it's a ways west of the meeting for worship in nature area.

After spending so much time pulling and spraying Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), a FEPC category I exotic invasive, it's good to come across the native Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) growing naturally. I recently noticed a strand of this one right in the path, growing up a dried stem not much thicker than it was. Unfortunately the support (like so many of the green plants around here in the current drought) has dried out and fallen; however the honeysuckle seems to be going strong. It's about fifteen feet east of the Green Dragon, also on (and in) the left side of the path. I'm not expecting much in the way of flowers on this one, since it doesn't get much sun there. Here is a picture of the one we bought at the Native Plant Sale last spring and planted by the fence in the children's yard. This year we bought two more and planted one on each side of this.

Indian Pink and Blue Flag Iris

This Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica) was planted in our front retention pond by Karen. According to the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants it's not been reported in Alachua County. It's been reported in a few panhandle counties, and is common fairly north, but its status as a native here may be a little shaky. However it certainly looks nice.

It's just up the bank from the Blue Flag Iris (Iris virginica). We planted the first few last year, and have put in several more this year. Last year we had one bloom; this year we're on our fourth and we have two more coming. I'm looking forward to having them grow in more densely so that we'll have multiple blooms to look all through the blooming season, rather than having them come one at time. 

Hmmm. I see that the Florida Atlas doesn't have this in Alachua county either, though it is shown along both coasts. And they don't use our common name for it either: they prefer Virginia Iris.    And they use Woodland Pink for the Spigelia marilandica.

Green Dragon Flowering

Today when I went to the meetinghouse to water the new long leaf pine I walked back to the creek and was glad to see that the Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) has returned everywhere that we saw it last year.    This is a relative of the Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) but as you can see its spadix is rather more stretched out than "Jack" is.

I had been somewhat anxious since they all disappeared last fall shortly after I sprayed herbicide on Air Potatoes. I had hoped that it coincidence, that it happened to be the time for the Green Dragon to be done for the year, and this seems to be the case. All of the plants I saw had flowers. We only discovered them last fall, so we don't know if they flowered last year, but we don't remember having seen any berries. It may be that they appreciated the wetter spring this year.