Lone Cabbage Fish Camp, St. Johns River, July 13, 2010

I went in search of wildflowers near the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp, where SR 520 crosses the St. Johns River. I found Alligatorflag and Swamp Rosemallow right where I expected them to be, plus I found a new mint. Also, I made a brief stop at F. Burton Smith Park just east of the St. Johns to see if there were any interesting wildflowers there.

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Wood sage; Canadian germander (Teucrium canadense, Lamiaceae)
Native

In the original of this post, I had misidentified this plant as tropical bushmint (Hyptis mutabilis). In September 2011, I was notified that it was actually wood sage (Teucrium canadense). It was a new plant for me. The plants were about 5-ft tall and had coarse, 4-sided stalks. This patch was a few feet down a path on the west side of the boat launch area that is on the north side of SR 520.

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Alligatorflag (Thalia geniculata, Marantaceae)

Native

This plant grows along the banks of the St. Johns River. It is flowering at this time; however, I was unable to get a close shot of the blossoms. You can see close-up photos of alligatorflag at the USF/ISB website.

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Swamp rosemallow (Hibiscus grandiflorus, Malvaceae)
Native

The south side of SR 520, on the east side of the St. Johns River, is filled with tall mallows in full bloom. Again, water separated me from the plants, so I was unable to get a good close-up photo of the blossoms. Also, it was late in the day and many of the blossoms were closing or closed. You can see close-up photos of rosemallow at the USF/ISB website.

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Red-shouldered hawk

This hawk was working on some sort of prey near where I was photographing the rosemallows.

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F. Burton Smith Park

The nature trail here is fairly barren. It runs through a tangled jungle of Brazillian pepper. However, I did find a couple of wildflowers.

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Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana, Lamiaceae)
Native

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Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum, Asteraceae)
Native

This was a surprising find. There were about a dozen patches of mistflower along the short nature trail.

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Starrush whitetop (Rhynchospora colorata, Cyperaceae)
Native

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Water oak (Quercus nigra,  Fagaceae)
Native

Not a wildflower, of course, but I was impressed with the large, very spatulate leaves on this sapling oak.

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Cottontail

Another non-wildflower along the nature trail.

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