Thursday, August 5, 2010

Flora and fauna...

So, I've got more pictures from my trip to Stone Mountain. It really is a beautiful place. No, my garden blog isn't turning into a travel blog, but I really did enjoy Stone Mountain. It is just a different kind of garden, right? Near the top of the waterfall...




... I found a couple of small wild flowers. This yellow one made me think of Blue Eyed Grass, which is blue, and this one is yellow. Obviously. But I really don't know what the yellow one is at all. I wondered if it was some sort of bulb. I didn't pull it up to see, though, as the plants in the Park are protected.




And then there was this charming little white flower. It is not much larger than the photo shows and I don't know what it is either. If you have any ideas about these two, I'd love to know.




As we were hiking down the trail to go to the bottom of the waterfall, I thought the raindrops on the pine needles were so pretty.




And at the bottom of the falls, a couple of other hikers pointed out this orange salamander! It has deeper orange spots on it.



On the way back to the trail head, I spotted this gorgeous fungus growing on a fallen tree. I love all the different colors in it.



The deer in the Park aren't very nervous about people and cars, so I was able to get some pictures of these bucks. There were actually 4 of them grazing here, but only three in this shot.



Along the trail to the Hutchinson Homestead, I found a rather large, fairly flat rock cover with this tiny fern. To give you an idea of its size, the largest leaf in the center of the picture would fit on a penny!


Have a beautiful day!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everything is so pretty! Makes me want to visit there. I don't think that is going to happen in the next few weeks, though. :)

~ K ~

Daricia said...

ruth, i think the white flower is flowering spurge and the bottom "fern" is fern moss. there's a directory of plants in the state parks which can help a little. here's the link for that:

http://149.168.1.196/Checklist/find.php

Ruth said...

Thanks, Daricia! I thought maybe you would know a little more about the wildflowers! :) I'll check out that link.