Riveroflife
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Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
Pretty much a winter visitor to ROLF that is also attracted to nectar and suet feeders.Adults are black on the back and wings with white bars; they have a black head with white lines down the side and a red forehead and crown, a yellow breast and upper belly, a white lower belly and rump and a black tail with a white central bar. Adult males have a red throat; females have a white throat.
Wild Ginger
Common on the spring branch path in the spring. Un-mistakable leaves. Native Americans used the root to flavor foods much as real ginger is used (This plant is not related to the ginger you can find in the produce department of your local grocery). In addition it was thought to protect those who ate spoiled meat or food that might be poisoned or have some sort of a spell cast on it from the types of sickness one might expect from eating such food. The accounts of it being used to prevent sickness from eating questionable meat are so numerous as to give the use some credence.
Goldenrod
About 100 perennial species make up the genus Solidago, most being found in the meadows and pastures, along roads, ditches and waste areas in North America. There are a handful of species from each of Mexico, South America, and Eurasia.[1] Some American species have also been introduced into Europe some 250 years ago.
Many species are difficult to distinguish. Probably due to their bright, golden yellow flower heads blooming in late summer, the goldenrod is often unfairly blamed for causing hay fever in humans. The pollen causing these allergy problems is mainly produced by Ragweed (Ambrosia sp.), blooming at the same time as the goldenrod, but is wind-pollinated. Goldenrod pollenis too heavy and sticky to be blown far from the flowers, and is thus mainly pollinated by insects.
Goldenrods are easily recognized by their golden inflorescence with hundreds of small capitula, but some are spike-like and other have auxiliary racemes.
Plentiful in the fall at ROLF.
Wild Geranium
This native perennial plant is 1-2½’ tall, consisting of a loose cluster of basal leaves and flowering stems that develop directly from the creeping rootstock. On the lower portion of each flowering stem, there is a pair of opposite leaves. Both the basal leaves and the lower opposite leaves of the flowering stems have a similar appearance.
They are up to 5″ long and across, and palmately cleft with 5 deep lobes. Each of these lobes is wedge-shaped at the base. The leaf margins have a few secondary lobes and coarse teeth. Each leaf has long petioles with coarse white hairs, while its upper surface has fine white hairs. The flowering stems are covered with coarse white hairs and more or less erect. The upper pairs of leaves on the flowering stems are like the lower leaves, except they are smaller in size and usually have only 3 primary lobes.
Common at ROLF in May to early June.
