In 2010 I did some work in Fort Erie at the site of an old amusement park known as Erie Beach Park. It operated between 1885 and 1930 and included attractions like a casino, swimming pool overlooking Lake Erie, and a tugboat ride. It was really quite something to see how the site had reverted back to nature and as it turned out a number of cool plants can be found along the beach.
Biennial gaura (
) is a fairly uncommon plant, listed as S3 in Ontario. The similar looking large-flowered gaura (
Gaura
longiflora) has short hairs, appressed to the stem in comparison to the wiry, wide-spreading hairs of biennial gaura. The species is often found in disturbed sites, this one was in a pile of rubble from one of the old amusement park buildings.
The next two photos are
groundnut (
Apios americana), otherwise known as indian potato. The tuberous root of this plant is edible when cooked and is apparently quite nutritious. First Nations groups throughout the plant's range incorporated it into their regular diet. The flowers are coiled up and unfurl by splitting open, really strange. A similar plant,
hog peanut (
Amphicarpaea bracteata) is best distinguished by trifoliate leaves (3 instead of 5) and it's flowers are white and somewhat different from those of groundnut.
In an
earlier post I had a photo of a post-flowering fringed gentian, here we have
bottle gentian (
Gentiana andrewsii). The things you find when you tuck into the woods to answer the call of nature. I've always found the foliage resembles the non-native
bouncing-bet (
Saponaria officinalis). The flowers of bottle gentian never actually open, bumblebees peel the petals apart and get right in there to pollinate.
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