Bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, is blooming in the woods south of Stone Mountain.
Descriptions from the Missouri Botanical Garden tend to be laconic. But the experts said this about the bottlebrush buckeye: “Mid-summer bloom can be spectacular.”
The little white flowers are in cylindrical panicles. The ones I saw were about a foot long. The red anthers and pink filaments, against the white flowers, were hard to miss.
A week ago, I saw a lot of wild petunias — Carolina ruellia, Ruellia caroliniensis — in bloom at Arabia Mountain. They were blooming at Stone Mountain on July 3. Wild petunias bloom all summer, although individual flowers don’t last long.
Why do we see a patch here one week and a patch there the next? Rain?
The flowers I’ve seen are violet, rather than blue.
The dragonflies at the pond at Wade-Walker Park have been putting on an air show. I’ve seen widow skimmers, Libellula luctuosa, and twelve-spotted skimmers, Libellula pulchella. Ebony Jewelwings, Calopteryx maculate, are common damselflies.
The most astonishing thing about the Georgia Piedmont is the climate. It was 75 degrees during a midmorning walk. To a fellow from Texas, that almost seems chilly.
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