Growing In/On Rocks

I photographed a lot of organisms growing on the rocks when we made our tour of state parks in southern New York (Stony Brook, Robert H. Treman, Taughannock, and Letchworth). Most of the gorges are crumbling shale - small and large slabs. Since we are focused on waterfalls - some of the plants were cling to wet or damp rocks.

There were mosses and ferns that see to require very little soil

Others that grew in a bit more soil in the cracks…or lichen that grows on the surface of rock, breaking away small bits of the stone over long periods of time.

Any structure built of stones seemed to have colonized by something from algae to lichen to liverworts to mosses to ferns to higher plants. I enjoyed taking pictures of the small landscapes on the rock walls of the gorges and the walls/bridges that had been constructed for the trail. Enjoy my picks for the slideshow below!

Robert H. Treman State Park - August 2015

Another New York State Park that we visited in August was Robert H. Treman State Park near Ithaca. We have hiked it before - in the fall of 2012 (blog post here). There was more water this time. My husband was do experiments photographing the waterfalls which gave be time to look at other things along the Gorge Trail…

The stone brides and walls of the trail through the narrow gorge

The view of the sky from the bottom of the gorge….the trees precariously balanced on crumbling sheets of shale.

Water droplets splattering on a ledge. It must be consistent enough to support the film of brilliantly green algae…or it is lichen.

Some wildflowers.

Cairns left the falls. They are evidence that people wade just about everywhere in the water on some days…but no on the day we were there.

Some imprints of plants long gone left in the shale.

The erosion of rock by smaller streams of water. Or maybe this falls is much larger when it rains.

And finally ---- waterfalls.