9/12
Last week of August and 1st week of Sept delivered some really nice days for some of us to patrol all of zone 7 and eastern sides of zones 10 +11.
For Alice, me, Christie and Richie, our patrols were about fanning out to learn to “see” the many native plants that are readily found in South Cove and not in some of the other zones they has been covering this summer. Intertwined in the many pondweeds were native Naiads (green and purple), different varieties of Bladderworts, some good size clumps of native Waterweed (Elodea), Water Marigolds and one of NH’s more common native Milfoil (called Myriophyllum humile.) The latter can be found in zone 11, grids 264 as well as in 224 and 223
Then just a few days ago Don and I went into So Cove’s east side of zone 11 to look carefully for algae growths and any unusual plant(s) we had not found before. (And we are still investigating some of those specimens.) The increased wind sent us to the smaller quiet coves and we ended up paddling down Snow Brook — a bit beyond the bridge. Found lots of native shore plants and a beautiful group of Lobelia cardinalis. On an earlier patrol Alice and I found a good number of the smaller white Lobelia dortmanna in zone 10, grid 466.
Filamentous Algae could be found everywhere from the wispy green clouds that sit over or coat submerged plants to the occasional bubbly yellow masses that collect on the water’s surface. See below.
I patrolled all of zone 7 a few days ago and found nothing unusual until I went into Wiley Brook Cove and found a treasure trove of familiar native plants (common for the cove by this time of the summer.) But then I was pleased to find one new native plant, the Coontail, that we can now record as “found” in Conway Lake. It has a very dark green color, about 8-10 inches tall, and has a thick bottlebrush appearance when seen from above, much like the Water Marigolds and some of the larger Bladderworts. When I took a specimen I was impressed how dense and plastic-like it felt. The cross section was a perfect way to identify it.
