Dutchman's breeches has a rather limited distribution in the Pacific Northwest, but extends westward to a few locations in the Willamette Valley and northern Oregon Coast Range.
In the past the western plants have been separated as var. occidentalis; it would be interesting to see if molecular data would support any separation. Rydberg originally separated occidentalis from the eastern and midwestern plants on the basis of coarser foliage, spurs that are longer and more diverging, a more prominent crest on the inner petals, and underground parts "more gruinose and not scaly".
Hinesburg Area Rec.Trails
Bublets/tubers
The soil had washed away, providing a chance to photograph the corm.
I seldom see these two growing right next to each other.
Found a lot of these beauties today!
Human vision vs UV + bug vision filter
Purple Pleatleaf (Alophia drummondii) produces a few flowers, which only last a single day.
The flowers secretes fatty acid floral oil, instead of sweet nectar.
The main pollinators of Alophia drummondii are oil bees.
The second picture is UV flora, aka Bee Vision
As my 1000th observation submitted to iNaturalist, here is something a little different and unusual from my archives.
My colleagues and I took this photograph of an actual original and unique X-Ray (physical "hard copy") film made in the Emergency Room of the University hospital in which I worked night shifts back in 2002. It was the regional center for medical treatment of snake bites in north central Florida.
This snake had bitten someone late at night, roughly in the vicinity of Cross Creek, southeast of Gainesville, as I remember, and the snake was killed and brought to the E.R. as proof of the species of poisonous snake that had inflicted the bite, for antivenom administration purposes. There were a couple different types of antivenom then, and they usually took a little time to reconstitute or prepare. All pit vipers in Florida inject similar venom when they bite, but it is different from that of the Coral Snake for instance, which is North America's only native Cobra. Having the actual body of the snake delivered to the E.R. is not absolutely necessary of course, but it does insure correct identification as to species, for whatever that may be worth, at the time, and in later analysis.
While identifying a snake from an X-Ray photograph may be a little unusual, it is not so difficult in this case as some might imagine. After all, here is a very large Pit Viper, totally without tail rattles, in Alachua County Florida.
Just how big was it? Coiled up as you see, it almost doesn't fit on a piece of film that was 11 by 14 inches in size. The snake's head, distorted a bit by the trauma of its demise, alone is nearly 3 inches long, measured directly on the film itself. The snake's coiled body, head to tail, can be measured on the original film by laying a piece of string on the image, tracing the course of the backbone. At 58 inches, or 4 feet 10 inches (147 centimeters) then, this a pretty large snake as Water Moccasins go.
What's more, one of the reasons we X-rayed it at all was that it had clearly recently eaten something. It had a large bulge in it's stomach, down about a third of it's body length, just past its air-filled lungs that are visible on the film as well defined darker shapes. We found the bulge was a big fish with a large blunt bony head, very visible swim bladder, which we took to be a catfish, though we lacked an Ichthyologist amongst the E.R. staff of course. I can follow the fish's spine for quite a ways in the image, but lose it somewhere along the snake's lung in the extreme right of the picture. We did not, in any case dissect the snake in the E.R. Nor did we weigh it, unfortunately. For all I know, the patient, who survived with the help of our treatment, took the dead snake and its last meal home with him when he was discharged.
The Technician that made the actual exposure for us on film, at my request, wrote the details of the exposure for future reference on the film itself, which, though the film suffered damage when it was stolen from my vehicle inside a locked briefcase and dumped out in a back alley and further mistreated both by the thieves and the weather, I can still read most of what he wrote with a "magic marker":
"40(or 46) MA
1 MAS
56 KV"
Are there any X-Ray Tech's out there who can confirm that that is in fact a good exposure for a big dead snake?
This observation is of the Fish, rather than the Snake that ingested it (listed separately).
My colleagues and I took this photograph of an actual original and unique X-Ray (physical "hard copy") film made in the Emergency Room of the University hospital in which I worked night shifts back in 2002. It was the regional center for medical treatment of snake bites in north central Florida. This Florida Cottonmouth's (Agkistrodon conanti) coiled body, head to tail, can be measured on the original film by laying a piece of string on the image, tracing the course of the backbone. At 58 inches, or 4 feet 10 inches (147 centimeters) then, this a pretty large snake as Water Moccasins go.
What's more, one of the main reasons we X-rayed it at all was that it had clearly recently eaten something. It had a large bulge in it's stomach, down about a third of it's body length, just past its air-filled lungs that are visible on the film as well defined darker shapes. We found the bulge was a big fish with a large blunt bony skull and easily discernable swim bladder, which we thought to be a catfish (though we lacked an Ichthyologist amongst the E.R. staff of course).
I can follow the fish's spine for much of its length in the image, but lose it somewhere along the snake's lung in the extreme right of the picture. There is an interesting and distinct structure visible at the top that looks to me like a bony spine at the front of the dorsal fin. The skull is about 7 centimeters long, and the fin spine about 3 centimeters long, measured directly from the actual film. I don't know whether the loose dense material below the swim bladder represents the fish's stomach contents, or something else in the snake's stomach. The X-Ray film was 11 by 14 inches in size, so the fish must have been roughly around a foot (30 centimeters) long in total. We did not, in any case dissect the snake in the E.R.
My impression at the time was that this was most likely something like a Brown Bullhead, just judging from what I could make out of its size and shape. It would be fascinating to hear from someone more familiar with fish skeletons and anatomy. I am sure identification from an X-Ray is possible, considering what can be done with even fossil remains among experts. I will defer to anyone with more experience reading fish X-rays.
The Radiological Technician that made the actual exposure for us on film, at my request, wrote the details of the exposure for future reference on the film itself, which, though the film suffered damage when it was later stolen from my vehicle inside a locked briefcase and dumped out in a back alley and further mistreated both by the thieves and the weather, I can still read most of what he wrote with a "magic marker":
"40(or 46) MA
1 MAS
56 KV"
Are there any X-Ray Tech's out there who can confirm that that is in fact a good exposure for a big dead snake with enclosed fish?
Found among Eastern skunk cabbage. Not far from the NJ State Botanical Garden.
Stand of Western Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus, East of Snoqualmie Pass, Washington
Wintergreen and crane fly orchid
These beautiful orchids were everywhere on the south side of Rumbling Bald where the fire burned. It appears that this species may have benefited from the fire.
The root is 15 inches long
The two pale flowers have been pollinated recently, they fade quickly after pollination. Here is the same group 3 days earlier before the two flowers were pollinated https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/47574102
Pollinia extraction
Observed during annual tracking survey at preserve.
Unusual plant with two leaves -- one normal size, the other much narrower -- from the same source! On the meter rule, the larger marks are 10 cm apart.
X (5) (5) 4 1^4/
Herb
Lvs simple, opposite, serrate
found in forest/yard transitional area, on signal mountain, within 500yds of the TN river
So pumped to come across this plant!!!