Saturday, April 25, 2009

Where the Wild Things Are

So Jack and I had planned to go on our second annual Yellow Ladyslipper walk to a spot I came across last year (in a top secret location). We went to get our lunches and when we returned home and pulled into the driveway, something at the bottom of the loblolly pine caught my eye... can you see it?

A bright pink ladyslipper! In my very own yard!

I've never noticed it before...has it been there all the time? I was pretty excited. After taking a few pictures we grabbed our lunches and headed out. Along the way we saw some typical area wildflowers: pussytoes, bluets, and golden ragwort. But on the side of log perched over a small tree we came across something a little unusual - a humongous fungus!


I don't really know anything about mushroms, but when I later checked my guidebook it seemed we had found a chicken mushroom (Laetiporus sulphureus).

It's supposed to be very good and we're thinking about trying it, so if I'm wrong, this may be the last you ever hear from me. After that we wandered over to the lady slipper spot. Just as beautiful as last year.

Jack looked a little sad when I told him it was time to go.

3 comments:

Les said...

Sinful confessions time. When I was a kid growing up outside of Richmond, we played in the woods nearly every day. There were so many of the pink Lady Slippers and we were forever yanking them up and bringing them home to mom or fruitlessly trying to plant them in the garden. I would feel more guilty now except the woods and the Lady Slippers were bulldozed for new houses, along with several Civil War earthworks. It was a loss on so many levels.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

I love the pink lady slippers, what a delicate color.

Phillip M said...

Les, we all do things we're not proud of, like the time I - well I better not go into that. Anyway, live and learn. At least the pink lady's slippers are still fairly common. But how could someone bulldoze historic earthworks? Aren't there laws against that?