MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES

Just a few mysteries the boundless universe has thrown my way recently:

I spotted this gelatinous green ball in March, at Highbanks Metro Park, Lewis Center, Ohio.  What is it?

You'd think this unique looking flower, photographed May 11 at Big Hill Park in Beloit, Wisconsin, would be easy to identify.  But it's not.  It's the only specimen of its kind I've seen.  Can you help?

I was on the park bench at Beckman Mill, watching the sun set with my pal Charlie the Chipmunk, when I noticed this little black beetle sucking blood out of my left hand.  I brushed it away, and the next day this reddish rash developed.  Now, a week later, it's turned a delightful raspberry color.  It doesn't hurt or itch, what in the wide wide world of sports is goin' on here???

APRIL WEED AND WILDFLOWER INVENTORY

This year in the Stateline Area we had our April in March and our March in April.  So maybe the flowers were confused.  I know I was.  Here's a brief, incomplete list of sightings, including a couple noted on a walk in Ohio, while on tour.  Carry on!

Wild Geranium  (Geranium maculatum)
Garlic Mustard  (Alliaria petiolata)
Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia sororia)
Yellow Rocket  (Barbarea vulgaris arcuata)
Marsh Marigold  (Caltha palustris)
Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum commutatum)
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Trillium (Wake Robin) (Trillium recurvatum)
Shepherd's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata)

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)

False Rue Anenome (Enemion biternatum)

Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Cutleaf Toothwort  (Dentaria laciniata)

Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense reflexum)

Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)

White Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum)

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Sighted at Beckman Mill and Big Hill Parks, Beloit, Wis.; and Highbanks Metro Park, Lewis Center, Ohio.

JULY WEED AND WILDFLOWER INVENTORY, Part Two

Beckman Mill Pond, Beloit, WI

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Ha, so you thought one overlong blogpost of flower pictures was too much?  GUESS AGAIN!

Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata)

Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis)

Queen Anne's Lace, about to blossom

Question Mark butterfly drinking along the shore of the Rock River.

Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis)

Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)

Unidentified spider on Leadplant (Amorpha canescens)

False Sunflower? (Heliopsis helianthoides)

Wild Garlic?

[Nope!  It's Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)]

Gray-headed Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

Honeybee havin' a good time on a Sunflower (Helianthus annuus).

Whoa.  Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)

Unknown Sage-like plant.

[Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)]

I said I would learn my thistles, but I have yet to do it.

The rare white-flowered Chicory (Cichorium intybus).

The even rarer pink Chicory!

Colored Sands Prairie, Durand, IL

On a sand bluff, overlooking the Sugar River, Illinois.

Meadow Salsify (Tragopogon pratensis)

Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata)

Unidentified species with spider.

Leadplant (Amorpha canescens)

Unidentified species.

[Cleland's Evening Primrose (Oenothera clelandii)]

Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata)

See above regarding thistles, but this one's a beauty, eh?

[Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa)]

Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta)

Pale Indian Plantain (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium)

Turns out this is a very rare species!  And it was just standing there a few feet from the parking lot!

Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium)

White Wild Indigo (Baptista alba)

Baptista alba leaves.

Good night everybody...

"Sometimes I sits and thinks...  and sometimes I just sits."

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All photos by Stephanie Dorman, taken at Big Hill Park, Beloit, WI; Beckman Mill County Park, Beloit, WI; Macktown Forest Preserve, Rockton, IL; Colored Sands Forest Preserve, Durand, IL; Sugar River Alder Forest Preserve, Shirland, IL; or Harper's Prairie, Beloit, WI.