Pond Flowers

In a new annual tradition, we spent an August week in a cabin at the Appalachian Mountain Club camp on Ponkapoag Pond's eastern shore--our third annual stay. Ponkapoag is in a little corner of eastern Massachusetts' wonderful Blue Hills Reservation, near enough to two highways that, when the insects and frogs take a breather, you can hear the hum of the traffic.  

 Our first full day there was a rainy one, but no one minded.

 This is a boating crowd--mostly human-powered.

 After three years, this is "our" cabin.

 There is something very relaxing about a rainy day, Beatrice and Golda agree.

 The boys would chime in, if they weren't so busy.

Lots of things in flower in Ponkapoag Pond, Canton, MA.  In fact, more of the true pond plants appear to be in flower than not.  In a few hours of paddling over several days I managed to photograph most of them.

 White water lily (Nymphaea odorata) is our most fragrant and perhaps most beautiful pond plant.

 

 I was surprised to see a pink water lily for the first time ever.  This turns out to be

a form of the same species that's usually white.  Since I didn't see it the last two years,

I expect it is the same plant, but triggered by the environment to produce the pink color. 

 

 The yellow-flowered asterisk-like plants in front of the pink flower are bladderworts (Utricularia inflata) that get nitrogen by sucking tiny creatures into their tiny underwater bladders.  White branches filled with air (hence the Latin name), keep flowers where pollinators can reach them.

 

 

Yellow water lily is in the same family as the white, though you wouldn't think so 

by looking at the flowers.  Outside the flowering season, you can tell them apart 

by leaf shape: leaves of white are nearly round, those of yellow are larger and oval. 

 Fanwort (Cabomba caroliniana) usually grows entirely underwater as long stems covered 

with lacy leaves with forking branches (the whole effect giving it another common name: 

coontail), but at flowering time the growing tip begins producing simple, oval leaves 

and emerges from the water to make its white and yellow flowers available to pollinators. 

 

Floating heart (Nymphoides cordatum), though in the same family as the two water lilies, has smaller leaves than they do, and a bundle of roots suspended below the leaves.  It is not in flower now.

Wild celery, aka tape grass (Valisneria americana), is neither a celery, nor a grass, but a member of the Frogbit family.  Its long strap-shaped leaf has lateral divisions that give it a chambered look.

Water shield (Brasenia schreberi), differs from pond lilies in having oval leaves with the

leaf stem attached at the center of the bottom of the blade.  It is not in flower right now.

 Half the Michals-Brown armada was in residence a the camp, including the sail/rowboat Bebe, above, and below Serendipity (green) and Musketequid (blue, dead center).

 

 

On our last day, Beatrice joined me for a paddle around the entire pond. 

I have ideas brewing from the pond for future posts.

A Week on Ponkapoag Pond

Our week at an Appalachian Mountain Club cabin on Ponkapoag Pond (only half an our from home, but very different from the city) brought a few nice surprises along with familiar sights.  This was our Second Annual stay--showing how quickly a tradition can be formed if enough of the family approve!  (Here is last years'.)

There is no potable water at AMC Ponkapoag, and the outhouses are pretty ripe at this time of the year, but even my wife loves coming here.  The cabins are available year-round for modest fees, campers often have years and generations of memories of the place, and most work is done by dedicated volunteers.  It's a bit of a community, really.  Those who enjoy society hang around the little dock at the pond's edge, while their children swim, boat or fish.  The pond is rather small and not very deep, and various water plants can make kayaking difficult in places, but it boasts a real Atlantic White Cedar Bog at the other end, and it is set in the beautiful Blue Hill Reservation.  It is a great place to enjoy fairly undisturbed forest, and socialize with others of like mind.

 

 A dragonfly making  a long visit to our outdoor table (shy his right rear wing)

allowed me to make use of Sidney Dunkle's Dragonfies through Binoculars.

I decided he was mostl likely a young male Eastern Pondhawk.

 I haven't figured out this lovely big fungus yet.

If it's a good edible, it would have made a whole family meal.

Walking the trail near the camp brought to light two kinds of Tick Trefoils (Desmodium)

My attempt to get a panoramic view of the pond by the camp.  

At least a dozen kayaks and canoes line the nearby shore.

My son and I kayaked to the far end of the pond on the second day, and I enjoyed the pond edge plants.

 

The foundation of any bog is Sphagnum, aka peat moss.

In sunny locations it can take on a "sunburnt" appearance.

 

 

A boardwalk maintained by volunteers allows egress to the entire quarter-mile distance through the bog to open water. The trees are Atlantic White Cedar, making this unusual among bogs.

 Bog Cotton (Eriophorum virginicum) is related to neither cotton nor grass;

it is a distinctive plant I've never seen outside of a bog.

 

Red-rimmed leaves of Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia)mark a palm-sized 'insectivorous" plant characteristic of nutrient-deprived places like bogs.  Sticky hairs trap passing insects, which are captured not for food, but really for their nitrogen "fertilizer" potential.

 The parasitic vine Dodder (Cuscuta) is a plant that cannot make its own food

--its yellow color showing its deficiency in chlorophyll.  Instead it twines around other plants,

 absorbing nutrition through peg-like haustoria that are just visible in the photo. 

 

Open water at the end of the boardwalk.  Its possible to land a kayak there, 

but the landward end of the boardwalk is a nice two-mile stroll through forest.

 

Once off the boardwalk, I took the time to admire a cattail marsh

that has so far escaped invasion by Phragmites reed.

 

Birds playing aerobatic chase over the marsh reminded me of chimney swifts at home,

but turned out (after many attempts to photograph) I think to be Bank Swallows.

 

One rainy day meant our only meal indoors.

 The last day I rose early to take in the dawn and early morning.

I sat quietly for half an hour with this sky overhead.

 

I had seen enough dead trees without their bark to know that the grain often spirals,

but I'd never seen bark that peeled off in a spiral.

 

 A tiny lichen & moss garden that caught my eye as we walked around the last day.

The branching lichen on the left is (confusingly) called Reindeer Moss, though it is no plant at all.

 Boulders--many enormous--abound around the pond, reminders of glaciers that receded 12,000 years ago.

But some have now become decorated with plants such as this Common Polypody (Polypodium vulgare).

 

The afternoon sun breaks through and glows on the far end of the pond.