Lake Springfield Boathouse/Meadow – August 2023 (1)
/A mid-morning walk around the Lake Springfield (Missouri) boat house and meadow was pleasant…also our last outdoor activity for the day that rapidly became a hot one. There was a volunteer gardener working on the plantings around the boathouse.
I learned from her that the plant I thought of as a sunflower…was a relative called Cup Plant because its leaves fuse to the stem in a way to form a cup that holds water!
It was a cloudy morning after a recent storm. There were some branches that had broken but were still attached to trees along with trees holding mature seed pods on the lake side of the path.
The meadow was a jumble of plants of various maturities.
Some of the zoomed images showed remnants of spider webs visible because of water droplets. The milkweed pods are still green…far from splitting open and releasing seeds.
The stream that is often dry was still wet and burbling from the recent rain. Marsh mallows and pokeweed grew along the bank.
Looking more closely at the beds around the boathouse before we left, I noticed several areas where beautyberry was thriving.
There were also other natives. Some have been planted on a slope…a good strategy to avoid mowing!
