Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) at the creek’s edge in late August. It’s one of the showiest Lobelia species that grows in the Arkansas Ozarks.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
A few days ago I took a walk out to the deep woods to see how the wild ginseng and habitat companions were doing.
The wild plants are in pretty hard to reach areas and I don’t get out there very often. When we plant seeds, we try to keep enough distance between the wild-simulated and the wild to avoid genetic pollution.
For more information on genetic pollution and diminishing variability in wild ginseng, here’s a couple of references:
http://wildginsengconservation.com/GeneticPollution.html (You’ll have to copy/paste that link – can’t make a live link because it’s not a secure site, and mine is)
The last time I took a look at this particular habitat area, it was in May, I believe. Ordinarily I can drive the 4-wheeler closer to the departure point. Not so on this trip today.
The trail ahead. Definitely not good ginseng habitat right here.
The trail had become overgrown with brambles. My quest to find wild ginseng in August was going to take a little longer than I expected.
I used a machete and hacked away for a while.
Bloody and sore after a few minutes, with still no progress, I called it quits and took off on foot uphill, toward the right. As soon as I got away from the trail, and started heading uphill, the going was a lot easier. No more brambles, at least.
I went out at late afternoon, so the light was already dim in the deep woods. Although I went looking for ginseng, I am always on the watch for other interesting plants.
Here’s one that caught my eye. There were only a few of them, all confined to one small area, much in the same way wild ginseng grows in small confined areas.
The photo isn’t very good because the light was very low right here. And I’m not good enough at using my camera to know how to compensate correctly for that, yet. Nothing I tried yielded a good focus.
Triphora trianthophora orchid, whole above ground plant.T trianthophora, a new find for me. It’s also called Three Birds Orchid and is endangered in many states but not in the Ozarks, or Arkansas. Still, I only saw a few.
The place where I found the orchids looked like it should have been a good place for ginseng, too, but there were none that I could see.
I did see some ginseng companion plants, though. Here’s Doll’s Eyes:
Actaea pachypoda, also called Doll’s Eyes or White Baneberry. This is one of the most reliable ginseng habitat indicators here in the Ozarks.
There was also maidenhair fern, blue cohosh, christmas ferns, goldenseal, and bloodroot present. I didn’t take many photos because daylight was fading fast and I still hadn’t found the ginseng.
However, a shaft of sunlight filtered between the tree canopies to fall on the nettles, and it made a beautiful photo so I had to stop for that:
Wood nettles in flower. These sting. I know this from experience.
Wood nettles are a great indicator of rich, moist, loamy soil – perfection for American ginseng. But there was still no ginseng in sight. I walked eastward a little longer, then downhill toward a spot I was fairly sure I could find some plants.
One of the wild ginseng plants with only green berries.Mature 3-prong American ginseng with ripe berries.
So I found a few plants and took a few pictures, and then it was time to get back to the trail before the sun went down much more and made it too difficult to find my way back!
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
Yesterday I brought my camera with me when I went to the mailbox. If I had walked, I know it would have taken more than an hour because I would have seen so many more opportunities to stop and take a picture.
There’s Never a “Quick Trip” Anywhere Out Here
My intention was to make *quick* trip to check the mail because I was waiting on a delivery of something in particular. But before I started the mailbox run, there was a mushroom that Rob had spotted near where he parks the tractor.
He’d told me about it the day before so I needed to get pictures of it first thing.
Just as I took its picture, I saw there were more of them, just a little up the hill.
Saw this one just a little farther up the hill.And there was this one peeping out from behind the leaves. Same type of shroom but the shape is a bit irregular.Don’t they look just like pancakes?But from this angle you can see they do have stems.
The day before that he’d seen a different one, so of course I got some pictures of it, too:
A humongous mushroom growing at the base of Gloria, the old white oak tree out front.This perfect mushroom looked like it should have had a fairy sitting on the edge, with her legs dangling from it.
But I digress. After I finished taking the pictures of the pancake mushrooms I took the 4-wheeler to get on with the mail-checking task.
But the 4-wheeler was having issues and died on me a few times. This, of course, is where having the camera on hand came in handy indeed. I had ample time to walk around a bit and take some pictures while I waited for it to start again.
Dinner Leavings along the Mailbox Route
I know it was a squirrel who left this mess on the flat rock by the first creek crossing. The day before we’d seen a squirrel running across the driveway with a mouth full of mushroom.
Leftovers from a squirrel. Mushroom stem and nut shells.Mushroom stem leftover from a squirrel.
Good thing I wasn’t watching which mushrooms the squirrels were eating so we could try them too! Squirrels have some interesting digestive abilities. They can even eat the deadly mushrooms without it hurting them. There’s more information about that here: http://www.mushroomthejournal.com/greatlakesdata/Terms/squir27.html#Squirrelsa
Leaves to Notice
It’s only July but already the leaves of the sourwood are beginning to color and drop. They always do this a little in late summer. And I always notice them. I love the leaves of autumn and the teasers of late summer.
Black gum leaf on a rock.
A spot of bright red.
Deep burgundy and brown.
A little blush of red, some yellow, and brown. I loved the added dimension of the pebble-filled crack in the rock just above it.
My favorite leaf picture from yesterday is a rock and leaf composition with understated colors. I love the paleness of the rock and the light colored leaf:
Herbs to Notice
I’ve been watching for a particular herb favorite of mine. It’s about the time for Lobelia inflata to bloom. I use the seeds of this plant to make a tremendously appreciated anti-spasm formula.
A mature Lobelia inflata plant with blooms and swollen pods.Swollen seed pods of Lobelia inflata.
When the seed pods are brown and dry I’ll snip the stem and put the whole thing in a paper bag. Then I can smash the bag a bit and the pods will burst, releasing all the seeds inside the bag. After that, I’ll use a portion of them for my herbals and spread a portion of them outside so I’ll have more to gather next summer.
Frogs and Feathers
I love finding wild bird feathers. It seems that I encounter a lot of crow feathers during my walkabouts. Yesterday morning was no exception. We have free-range chickens, so chicken feathers are easy to find. And I’m always finding feathers as evidence the cats have killed a bird, too. But those feathers don’t catch my attention the way randomly placed ones on rocks in creeks do.
Just as I was getting ready to try the 4-wheeler again I saw this small frog in the creek.
He’s only about an inch or two long and thought he was well-hidden, which he was. But not so well-hidden that he could escape my notice, ha.
Other Posts Like This One
If you enjoyed this, this post reminds me of Why it Takes Me an Hour to Go to the Post Office and Back so you might like it too. Both demonstrate how I shouldn’t leave home with the camera or a notebook or a sketchpad if the trip is intended to be a quick one.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
Here’s the cover and sample page for “Forest Companions”, the last book in the “Into the Ginseng Wood” series. Should be at Amazon by the weekend! If you want to catch up on the others, heres a link to the first one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OFAMAS6. They open into full page photos, no double-tapping required!
Click on the image below to go to the latest release.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
