The Water-Willow wildflowers are blooming on the Cape near the swamps and ponds. They are an aquatic shrub with magenta flowers that grow in whorls. (Click on blog link to see the interesting whorls.)
The flowers are only 1/2 to 1 inch while the plants grow up to 9 feet tall. I’ve seen Water-Willows on the boardwalk on the Red Maple Swamp Trail at Fort Hill and along the banks of the Silver Spring Trail at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.
Such a pretty and delicate little flower…
The Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is just gorgeous this year. They have done a beautiful job creating a flower garden with walking paths so that people can really enjoy the natural environment. (Click on blog link for other photos.)
There are so many different varieties of flowers that bloom at all different times of the summer.
What a wonderful place to explore and enjoy!
I was just commenting to Phil that I hadn’t seen an Indian Pipe wildflower yet this summer. And then, not even 5 minutes later, there was one on the side of the John Kendrick Woods Trail. It was perfect, under the tree with a little bit of sun shining on it.
Indian Pipe, a whitish, waxy, scaly stalk with nodding bell-shaped flowers, does not contain chlorophyll, so it doesn’t photosynthesize. Its nutrients come from decaying matter. They bloom in the rich woods from July through September, so you still have time to see it.
Have you ever seen one?
You can see the white Queen’s Anne’s Lace wildflowers blooming everywhere on Cape Cod. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many! They are just beautiful!
“The Queen Anne’s lace ‘flower’ is actually a compound flower with thousands of tiny white flowers in lacy, flat-topped clusters (umbels) with a dark, purplish center. As the seeds ripen, the inflorescence curls inward to form a birds nest shape and turns a brownish color.”
