More Bike Path Wildflowers

About a month ago I posted on the fabulous spring wildflower displays the Hockhocking-Adena bike path puts on in Athens county each year.  This season has been no exception with the diverse number of ephemeral species bursting forth and impressing all those who can't help but let their eyes wander as they jog or bike down its lengths.

In the past few weeks the canopy has really closed in and seen many of the earliest species set to seed and disappear into the green menagerie of vegetation continuing to grow and mature on the forest floor.  It's hard to believe just a month or so ago the under story was still just beginning to wake up and largely lifeless with last year's decomposing leaf layer still clearly visible.  Now the ground is nearly impossible to see in some areas due to the rich and diverse array of plants and wildflowers.  Unfortunately, I am quite pressed for time these days with work and other projects so this post will be all photos from here on out but I think they speak for themselves better than your blogger ever could.  Enjoy!

Rich mesic forest slopes alive with spring wildflowers

Sea of drooping trillium (Trillium flexipes)

White and red form of the drooping trillium

Drooping trillium red form

Drooping trillium white form

Carpet of blue-eyed mary (Collinsia verna)

Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna)

Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra)

Blackhaw viburnum (Viburnum prunifolium)

Morel mushroom (Morchella spp.)

Common Yellow Violet (Viola pubescens)

Canada violet (Viola canadensis)

Toad and the trillium

Crinkleroot (Cardamine diphylla)

Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) leaves

Sessile trillium (Trillium sessile)

Large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) beginning to fade