Was the lobelia washed away?
December 02, 2010
[Updated at the end...]
Over 2in/5cm of rain yesterday… And the site of our local wild population of the cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, is getting a clear out from the flood waters rushing down the creek. It’s no wonder that those brilliant red flowers appear in a different place each year.
It'll be interesting to see if the white turtlehead, Chelone glabra, the monkey flower, Mimulus ringens, and the very rare native gentian Frasera caroliniensis - known as American Columbo! - that I saw there a few years back will re-appear next summer. That water really was roaring. Next season I’ll also be looking for the plant of the Russian skunk cabbage Lysichiton camtschatcensis, the white version of the yellow US native form, which I set a few years ago at the creek’s edge. It’s flowered well this year.
Today, with temperatures down from 60F/15C yesterday to 22F/-5C this morning, as the water returns closer to its usual level the creek will soon be frozen solid. Plants put up with a lot. Let’s hope they're not washed away.
UPDATE Checking the following day, when much of the flood had subsided but the creek was still rushing... There's the lobelia, under the water, the dead flower stems trailing in the water and the mass of creamy white fibrous roots almost completely exposed after the water had washed them free of whatever sediment they gripped in the bed of the little creek. [Point-and-shoot picture through rushing water...]