Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Thomas Webber is a new contributor, but his photos of flowers are lovely. Tom’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  The images have been stacked, but I removed that information from the captions.  On to Tom:

The University of Florida owns and manages a large pine forest near Gainesville for teaching and research. Much of it is a commercial-type pine plantation, with smallish trees all the same age growing in close-packed straight rows.

Another part is managed to restore something like the native pre-settlement forest; in this section the trees are relatively old and widely spaced, and the canopy is fairly open, allowing plenty of light to reach the understory. This forest type has evolved under the influence of fire, and the wildfires have now been replaced by managed burns. The understory is host to an impressive variety of shrubs, grasses, and forbs, many of which are adept at exploiting burned- or other periodically disturbed patches of the landscape. Here is a just a small sample of the wildflowers I’ve encountered there in late summer and early fall this year.

I think I’ve identified all of them correctly to genus, and most to species, but I have put the qualifier “cf.” before some of the species epithets I’m not so sure of. I invite corrections.

Prairie clover, Dalea cf. pinnata. 1 cm.:

Spurred butterfly pea, Centrosema virginianum. 3.5 cm across the long side:

Hempvine, Mikania cf. scandens. 2.5 cm. This one has not fully opened:

Blackroot, Pterocaulon pycnostachyum. 7 cm long. I was surprised to find these at this time of year; they are usually spring flowers, but a few emerged in one plot after the mid-summer burn:

Silkgrass, Pityopsis cf. graminifolia. 1.5 cm.:

Pineweed, Hypericum gentianoides. 3 mm. The flowers are tiny but the plants can be conspicuous; this year they covered a dirt road in one of the less-traveled parts of the forest:

Button eryngo, Eryngium yuccifolium. 1.5 cm.:

Azure sage, Salvia azurea. 1 cm across the lower lobe:

I especially like the next ones because they are uncommon, furtive, and take some finding.

Sensitive partridge pea, Chamaecrista nictitans. 7 mm across the lower lobe:

Ticktrefoil, Desmodium cf. paniculatum. 7 mm across the upper lobe:

Florida sensitive-briar, Mimosa quadrivalvis. 1 cm.:

Rustweed, Polypremum procumbens. 4 mm.:

Mouse melon, Melothria pendula. 3 mm.:

Axil-flower, Mecardonia acuminata. 5 mm.: