Louisiana Wildflowers

                                      
                                          

Virginia Meadowbeauty (Rhexia virginica)

Summer Solstice Safari

                   
                             

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

It was plenty hot, but we had a fantastic hike today at the Charles Allen Biological Station, led by Dr. Allen himself, with friends from the Louisiana Native Plant Society. It was our kick-off hike for the Summer Solstice Safari that continues through Sunday noon.

Tomorrow we will visit the Nature Conservancy reserve in the Copenhagen Hills that neighbor the CABS where we spent today. I am so excited! The Nature Conservancy is not open to the public, but Dr. Allen can take use in.

This beauty is tasting Brazilian vervain, a common wildflower in Louisiana that butterflies love.

              

BioBlitz: Critter

                              
                                     

Huckleberry Hideout

A critter shot from the BioBlitz at Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia, La. And I didn't know I had a spider in this shot until I got it on my computer screen! Amazing how much his legs look like part of the blossom.
                    

Critters

                                      
                                          

Whadda you mean, you "see me"?

I'm sure this guy thought I couldn't because these critters don't usually hang around while you get up close and personal with an extension tube! Maybe he was posing so nicely hoping for a lucrative endorsement contract with an insurance company?

This is one of the numerous critters we saw at the ULM Biology Department's BioBlitz at the Charles Allen Biological Station last month.

Photographer's Journal

                              

Beech among Pines

                                                 
I love Beech trees in winter. They hold their pale, coppery gold leaves until spring. Their branches are near horizontal, and so, seeing them in a stand of pines struck by sunlight, I think of heavenly beings holding their arms out in blessing.

But... my attempts to show this in a photograph have never lived up to what I see in the woods! Of course, that is true of many things. This universe is true incarnation and does not bend to the will of even the best camera, lenses and photographers. That's fine. Indeed, good for the human ego.

But I keep trying. And this evening decided to dump the color from one of my attempts. Sometimes black & white shows color and light better than color! Kind of like it.

This was taken at ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia, La.
                       
           

BioBlitz: Charles Allen Biological Station

                           
                                      

Tree Spirit (Cucumber Magnolia [Magnolia acuminata])

                                
This tree is also called "blue magnolia." It casts the loveliest shade ever from its big, rounded soft green leaves.

According to Wikipedia, cucumber magnolia is fairly common in Appalachia but not so common here in the south, and in Canada it is an endangered species.

This particular tree grows on the 80-acre ULM field biology lab near Columbia, La., along a high ridge.

BioBlitz: Charles Allen Biological Station

                                       
                                       

Straight and Tall

I am the beam that holds your house, 

the board of your table, 

the bed on which you lie, 

and the timber that builds your boat.
I am the handle of your hoe, 

the door of your homestead, 

the wood of your cradle, 

and the shell of your coffin.

 

--from an ancient prayer used in Portuguese forest preservation.

You can see why Loblolly pine is a favorite for builders and carpenters. But happily this lovely stand is on protected land--ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia, La.
                     

BioBlitz: Charles Allen Biological Station

                                              
                                                    

Spiderwort (Tradescantia)

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Saturday was BioBlitz Day at ULM's biology field lab near Columbus, La. It is a place I love to go: 80 acres of ridges and lowlands along the Ouachita River characterized by excellent biodiversity. I'll have many more to share from the 200 frames I shot!

The genus Tradescantia includes 71 species and even the biology students and faculty I was with did not want to hazard which one this might be!

Great find, II!

                                                          
                                                

Southern Twayblade (Listera australis)

   
So... here's a close up of the blooms of the wild orchid I posted a few days ago. Again, this wonderful find was at the Charles Allen Biological Station down by Copenhagen, La. It's about 90 acres of beautiful bluffs overlooking the Ouachita River, ridges, and bottomlands with a cattail pond. The land is populated by a great diversity of plant life (and animal life, I'm sure). I am working with the Biology Dept. documenting and preparing the site for greater educational use.

I just shared this photo with the online Google+ community of photographers a few minutes ago for a theme called "MacroMonday," and one of my friends commented right away that he really likes "the hairs going down the neck."

I do to. But I didn't even see them when I was making this shot. I think it was because I was kneeling in mud! These do grow in damp areas and I ended up with wet, dirty knees because they are tiny plants, close to the ground.

However, I truly wish I had been carrying a mat of some kind. I would have loved to have gone belly down with stacked extension tubes to get an even closer shot of just one blossom.

Oh, well. That's what's compelling about photography: You have to keep going back and trying again for that elusive perfect shot...

Photographer's Journal

                                  
                                     

Buckeye (Aesculus pavia)

I went to the woods looking for color last weekend for my online photography mentorship assignment. The week before, I had photographed fragments of corporate logos for my online friends to try to identify. You might be interested to know that even the international photographers in my online community were able to identify quite quickly most U.S. American fast-food trademarks from a photo of a mere fragment!

It was a fun game, but after several days of looking at corporate logos, I was ready to go looking for the subtler hues of nature in Louisiana in winter. What fun it was to find this red buckeye flower stalk with its wonderful reddish pink florets!

This treat for the eyes was photographed at the Charles Allen Biological Station near Copenhagen, La.
               
                   

Photographer's Journal

                                        
                                           

"Wide Open" [Cross Vine (Bignonia capreolata)]

This was another discovery on my third trip to the Charles Allen Biological Station, not as spectacular as the orchid Matt Herron found, but Matt congratulated me on spotting it. In the summer, cross vine bears reddish-orange and yellow flowers and is a lot easier to spot. This is the fruit left behind that splits open to release the seeds. I was please that this particular fruit still had seeds; that's the reddish brown papery thing you see inside the wide open fruit.

My "Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Louisiana" by Charles Allen, Dawn Newman & Harry Winters tells me the roots of this plant are a source of sarsaparilla. The name comes from the cross shape formed by the pith, which can be seen by cutting a cross-section of stem. I didn't. I'll take the book's word for it!

Great find!

                      
                                         

Southern Twayblade (Listera australis)

This small plant is in the orchid family. Matthew Herron, a graduate student in biology, spotted it today at the Charles Allen Biological Station (CABS) near Copenhagen, La. I have identified it--I hope correctly--using the wonderful "Louisiana Wildflower Guide," by Charles Allen, Kenneth Willson and Harry Winters. In fact, this is probably two plants growing close together.

Matt and about a dozen students were at CABS today to do clean up and I tagged along to document proceedings. Matt bent down to pick up a piece of trash and spotted this little beauty. As the book states, "This species is probably more common than the records indicate, as it is easily overlooked due to its size." We did not measure these, but I'd guess the tallest stalk to be about 8 inches.

Way to go, Matt! Although the wildflower guide lists quite a few orchid species that grow in Louisiana, this was my first opportunity to see one in the wild. Now I know what to look for!

Photographer's Journal

                                    
                                           

Lace Over

I am endlessly fascinated by the moods of the cattail pond on the Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia, La. On my second visit in late January, I approached the pond in early afternoon from a side I had not visited before. I stood on the edge of the pond among saplings that still hung on to their dead and shriveled autumn leaves. I didn't look closely at the trees; I'm not sure what they were, but several tree species in Louisiana hang on to dead leaves until they are pushed off by new buds in spring.

And I reveled in the delicate tracery of the shadows of those leaves on the seemingly solid algae-bloom surface of the pond.

      

Photographer's Journal

                                   
                                         

Glancing Light

                                   
                                   
A shaft of light reached into the woods and drew my eye to the shelving mushrooms on the trunk of this tree. The tree was down a steep ridge from the path, and so I was about eye-level with the mushrooms, even though they were high on the tree. When I walked a little farther, I looked at the tree again, and saw that the bark of the tree around behind the mushrooms was white--still on the tree and looking normal except stained with a large blog of white.

This shot is from my second trip to the ULM field biology acreage near Columbia. It will be called the Charles Allen Biological Station. This Saturday, a group of biology department students will spend a day at the Station picking up trash, clearing fallen trees off trails, digging a fire pit for a camping area, and so forth. I'll go down at about noon and spend a few hours photographing the work. Can't wait!

Favorite Places

                        
                           

The Ouachita from Indian Lookout

                
The Ouachita River crosses the southeast corner and constitutes part of the boundary of ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station. This is the view from Indian Lookout, a point on the bluffs overlooking the river.

For those who are curious, "Ouachita" comes from two Choctaw words: ouac = buffalo + chito = large. The river rises in the Ouachita Mountain region of western Arkansas where herds of buffalo roamed the prairies. It crosses Louisiana at an angle and flows into the Red River.

When I first moved to Louisiana, I missed the brilliant fall colors of the mountain ridges in central Pennsylvania where I had been living for seven years and the brilliant fall colors of southeastern Iowa where I grew up. But the longer I am here, the more I appreciate the subtle winter colors of Louisiana, in this photo, the tree on the point with its copper leaves still attached, the blush of red in the bushes below, the tinges of red and green in the trees on the other side.

This January day a cold wind came off the river and numbed my nose and fingers. It's hard to take pictures with gloves on! Looking forward to going back when the weather is balmier.

Photographer's Journal

                                      
                                           

Stalwart

I should know the name of this tree! We have lots of them in Louisiana, and I found this one on the steep side of a hill on ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station down by Copenhagen. 

Because I was standing on a trail perhaps 10 feet above the base of the tree, I was eye-level with a section of the trunk that would normally be way above my head. This particular kind of tree I can't name at the moment has flat, silver-gray bark that is always mottled with lichens, some of which are a lovely subtle shade of sage green.

However, this photo is a black & white conversion with just a touch of sepia toning added to warm the monochrome a bit. This treatment seemed to enhance the modeling effect of the low angle sunlight.

                         

                      

Photographer's Journal

                                  
                                     
Reflections & Silhouettes

                                                                                 
Moving around the cat tail pond to the north, I came to a bit of open water. Clouds, the blue of the sky, and details of the trees surrounding the pond form an upside down world on the still, dark mirror surface.

This part of the pond gets less sunlight because of shading from trees. It's also where deer come to drink, leaving deep tracks in the soggy shoreline.

A few feet out, the algae bloom resumes but is thinner and patchy, blurring the reflections but not obscuring them. Only in the top left corner do you get a glimpse of that part of the pond completely covered with a thick layer of algae.

This cat tail pond is just inside the main entrance gate to the Charles Allen Biological Station near Columbia.
          
         

Photographer's Journal

                                       
                                            
Silhouettes & Shadows

                                                
                                        
ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station contains a small cat tail pond. As I pproached from the east, the declining sun reflecting off the surface looked for all the world like a covering of ice!

Of course, it wasn't. When I got closer, I saw that the pond surface was mostly covered with a major algae bloom. Looking straight down, I could see two distinct kinds of algae, one green in color and the other reddish in color.

I walked past the pond, then back to it from another angle as the sun continued to decline, and was treated to a kaleidoscope of light and color patterns depending on the changing perspectives of me and the sun. I'll post more of those images over the next few days.

Photographer's Journal

                                
                              
Translucence

                                 
                            
Once again, a botanical I can't identify. I intend to remedy that through my new relationship with the ULM Biology Department and documenting the Charles Allen Biological Station near Copenhagen. I've long had a secret life as a wannabee biologist!

This photograph has garnered quite a bit of favorable reaction from other photographers on Google+. Back lighting can be a challenge to work with. On top of that, vines are quite unruly, so isolating a few leaves in a pleasing composition is also challenging.

This image required a bit of what we photographers call "post processing." The image actually contains four leaves--if you look carefully. Four of anything rarely makes as good a composition as three, and in this case, the fourth leaf was truly unruly. It insisted on pointing straight at the camera, rather than turning its back and allowing the light to pass through.

So, I darkened it in my digital darkroom. You can still see it in the upper right corner of the image, but it is hardly noticeable, and that makes a huge difference visually. To put it in artistic terms, I neutralized a non-supporting actor in the story I was trying to tell.

I think my favorite thing about this image is the little rust spots and yellowing edges that show these to be old, winter leaves rather than spring leaves. I identify!
                         
                                    

Photographer's Journal

                          
                               
Separation

                             
This is third in a series of photographs from my first day spent hiking ULM's Charles Allen Biological Station near Copenhagen, La., and looking for ways light interacts with the environment to satisfy an assignment for my online photography mentorship.

Again, I'm not sure what plant is featured here. Perhaps one of the goldenrods? I know we have a lot of it in northern Louisiana, and that by late December it has turned into this lovely seed head that sometimes catches the sunlight just so, separating it from the background. It almost looks dusted with snow!