Today’s adventure took us to Osborne Mill County Park. I hadn’t visited the site since the mid-1980s, when we went there with Maxine Miles, who purchased the land with money raised after the death of her husband Vaden. A friend had alerted us to a rare and endangered plant that was blooming there.
Here’s the plant, pink turtlehead. In Michigan it is only found along the flood plane of the Huron River in Washtenaw County It was first discovered here in 1904. The normal range is further south.
Leave it to Susan to find a caterpillar on one of the flowers.
As Susan spent more time with the plant and the caterpillar I wondered and was immediately struck with the diversity in fungi. This is an oak-loving gymnopus, found appropriately in a flood plane dominated by oaks.
This is wolf’s milk (a slime-mold) found on a dead tree limb on the ground.
A yet to be identified puffball on a trail leading to the river.
My favorite of the day, violet-toothed polypore on the bark of a small black cherry.
A deer family – buck, doe and two yearlings.
A yet to be identified snake. Now some fungi for an early walk in our neighborhood.
Yellow fieldcap.
Pear rust, found appropriately on a pear leaf.
Devil’s stinkhorn, which has apparently released some spores.
More tomorrow…
Michael's Place 