The Botanical Wonderland otherwise known as The Creek

  Down behind the house where the Bayou turns into a creek, I find more amazing botanical specimens.  These are just growing wild between the roots of oaks, pines, tulip poplars and maples.  Spider lilies, rain lilies and irises abound! Mosses, palms and ferns are in huge mounds but these are not what caught my interest today.  Today's magical find was the Stoke's Aster!  This beautiful bluish purple flower never ceases to impress me.  The color, the fringed petals and the sheer number and size of blooms is breathtaking! The creek is filled with the plant and this is the month of their showy blooms.  Ahhh, perfection!

  Mark and I were out on a late afternoon hike about the hillside when he pointed out the gorgeous flower.  The bright purple stood out against the soft greens of the wood ferns making this quite the showpiece.  I had to stop and photograph the stunning view.  Further down in the creek than we dared to go, I knew that the whole area would be filled with the blooms.  With the sun setting in the west and the creek swollen from recent rains, not only would there be masses of these flowers but there would be hundreds of cottonmouth moccasins lounging on the moss-covered roots.  These are not critters that I wish to cross!  One misstep is all it would take for one of us to be severely injured.   I would have to be happy with the few plants that were near the clearing. 

  Stoke's Aster is a lovely medium sized plant with ruffled leaves and tall, stocky stems.  Numerous four-inch blooms fill the tops of the stalks and wave happily in the breeze.  The multi-petaled blooms range in color from deep blue to cornflower blue, white and lots of different shades of purple.  The plant was named after Jonathan Stokes (1755-1831) a botanist and physician.