ONAPA WV Field Trip: Part 3, Forest Roadside Botanizing

After lunch on the second day of our ONAPA (Ohio Natural Areas and Preserves Assocation) field trip our group, in a lengthy caravan of cars, began roadside botanizing. But first, a photo of the participants, courtesy of Guy Denny and tweaked by yours truly.

Our guides had earlier scouted prime floral locations for us, all on forest roads in the Monongahela National Forest. Soon after leaving our lunch spot, the Cranberry Mountain Nature Center, we dove off Route 150 (part of the Highland Scenic Highway) and into the woods.

At each stop we piled out to investigate the flowers.

One of our first finds was the large purple-fringed orchid.

A closer look with the camera's flash turned on produced an interesting effect.

Most of the time we parked on the side of the road, and fortunately never met a vehicle coming the other way. Twice there was a more generous pullout.

A flying insect was investigating the buds on this poke milkweed.

At one point the navigators in the lead car realized that we had taken a wrong turn, and we were forced turn our vehicles around one-by-one on the narrow forest road, making the last car the new first car. In this map, purple marks the main route, red the errant leg, and blue the way north that Joan and I took at the end of the excursion (everyone else continued on the purple route). Click on the image to enlarge.

More roadside botany,

including this purple-flowering raspberry,

and this wood mint, probably a hairy wood mint ("flowers whitish or pale lavender, with purple spots"), or possibly a downy wood mint ("flowers pale blue, lavender, or whitish, with purple spots").

For many the star of the show, at our final stop,

was a patch of canada lilies,

but there were also pretty monarda tucked among the mints.

A few minutes after the caravan departed to head home, wherever that might be, Joan and I parted with it, taking the "blue route" to our B&B for the night, the Morning Glory Inn.

For dinner we drove up to the Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort, where several of the restaurants were open even in late June. We reviewed our maps for tomorrow's add-on adventure, not part of the ONAPA field trip, to the Green Bank Observatory.

ONAPA WV Field Trip: Part 2, Cranberry Glades

Joan and I left our motel in Elkins, WV, early June 29th to drive down to the Cranberry Mountain Nature Center and the second day of the ONAPA (Ohio Natural Areas and Preserves) West Virginia field trip. It's about a two hour drive depending on the frequency of slow trucks on mountain roads, and we encountered only a few short slowdowns.

At the nature center we first investigated a nature trail loop, and then drive down to the Cranberry Glades. We reveled in the nature trail, stopping frequently to admire or attempt to identify a plant, and individuals would shuttle back and forth between the clumps of people around each naturalist, especially with each exclamation of a new discovery. My only photo is of this round-leaf orchid. This is the with-flash version, which came out best.

Then it was a short drive to the Cranberry Glades.

There was a pause as we all parked and gathered and waited for a large group to exit the boardwalk. In the meantime, on the other side of the parking lot, Dave Keener discovered

 some mountain woodsorrel, oxalis montana.

Once on the boardwalk we trod slowly, trying to not overlook anything.

Here is a cluster of purple pitcher plants (although I prefer the alternate moniker of turtle socks). These plants are not native, but are thriving here. Click on the image to enlarge.

The rose pogonia, or snakemouth orchid, loves this environment.

The grass pink orchid is showy, and unusual in that the lip is on the top of the flower, not the bottom.

There is both a pogonia and a grass pink in this photo.

After completing the boardwalk we scooted over to an opening where the naturalists, in their earlier reconnaissance, had located a tubercled rein orchid and one other orchid. Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out. Here the last of our group is returning from that hunt.

Then it was time to return to the Nature Center for lunch, and reorganizing into a single line of vehicles for some roadside botanizing.