The 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Adventures

Friday, June 25, 2010

Wildflowers I met on my Lake Trek

I took thousands of photos on my 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach. Sure, most of them were of Lake Michigan, but I often took shots of people, animals, insects and plants along the way.

Since I began my Lake Trek in the last days of winter -- there were still chunks of ice in the lake -- hiked through spring and summer and into the early days of fall, I saw the lakeshore come alive. As I hiked, the trees leafed out, plants poked out of the ground turning the shoreline from grey to green, and flowers budded and bloomed.

I was delighted to see the endangered Pitcher's Thistle in the dunes of the Upper Peninsula.

























And the Lady's Slipper, a temperate orchid, growing on the side of a dirt road near the lake.


















And I saw this unusual yellow flower in the Upper Peninsula. Does anyone know what it is?















Here's a video of all the wildflowers I met while on my Lake Trek.

Walk with me...




4 comments:

  1. The identity of that yellow flower eludes me. Do you have any other shots of it?

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  2. I only took two shots, and this is the better of the two. My hand in the shot gives a bit of scale to the flower.

    I've never seen anything like it. And I only saw it once in the UP.

    It's a strange, spiky thing.

    Thanks for taking a look!

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  3. I have been cudgeling my brains because the blooms themselves look familiar, but not that big white ball they're coming out of. So I began to wonder--could this be a familiar pealike flower with some kind of gall?

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  4. Well, I had to look up what, exactly, a 'gall' was. ("Galls or plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues and can be caused by various parasites, from fungi and bacteria, to insects and mites.") There were some pretty wild photos of galls on the site, so I guess that it is possible.

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