Showy Lady Slipper

 

 

I have been meaning to do this drawing for awhile and actually started it in July right after these orchids flowered in June in a fen in Northeast Ohio.  While I worked in Ohio I was responsible for monitoring this population of showy lady slippers (Cypripedium reginae) on an annual basis.  Showy lady slipper flowers are about the size of a chicken egg making them one of the largest of the native orchids - it is also covered with hairs that can cause poison ivy-like dermatitis on some people.  I never had an issue with orchid hairs but I have with the poison sumac (Rhus vernix) that shares the same habitat.  Besides the poison sumac the fen was always a very enjoyable place to spend the day counting orchids and botanizing.  Also in this illustration are two sedge species Carex leptalea (3 flowering culms) and Carex interior (1 flowering stem) that are commonly found with the orchids. 

 

This is 16"X20" and done with Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils - I had to scan it in four pieces and splice them together resulting in some inconsistencies in color.

Perigynia

Anyone who owns a “Flora of …” field guide has surely noticed that the Genus Carex can easily chew-up 50 plus pages of dichotomous key without the help of pictures or line drawings. It is intimidating. Ohio is home to more than 160 different species of sedges easily making it the largest genera in the flora. One of the primary characteristics used to identify sedges to species are the perigynia, an inflated sac containing the achene (seed). Usually a 20X hand lens is needed to observe the characteristics of these structures as most of them are around 3-4mm long. I have only been interested in sedges for a few years, but from my first look through the hand lens I was struck by the beauty of sedges especially when magnified.

Here is a banner of 11 different perigynia all from sedges native to northeast Ohio – can you identify any of them?

Here is a close up look at the staminate (male) spike on top and a pistillate (female) spike below.  This is Carex plantaginea (plantain leaved sedge).  A little more about plantain leaved sedge right here 

Cerulean Warbler

Cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulean) is a small warbler that often forages and nests high in the forest canopy especially on the edges of canopy gaps.  Some of our tallest trees in the eastern forests are tulip-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) – so here is a sketch of what you might see if you look up to the tree tops in a high quality forest this time of year.

Winter Wren

The sugar maples (Acer saccharum) are leafing out and the winter wrens are singing!  Colored pencil.

"Maggie"

Two of my favorite spring images - leatherwood (Dirca palustris) in flower and a magnolia warbler!  Colored pencil.

Early Spring

Spring is upon us and based on the flowers of leatherwood it is 26 days earlier than last year and 11 days earlier than 2010. I was back in Illinois again this past weekend and the vast majority of spring ephemeral plants were up and flowering. Here is a drawing of some of the action this time of year and a few snapshots of the drawing in progress.  I still plan to add some more dark leaves around the bases of the plants.  Colored pencil.

Pin Oak

The pin oak (Quercus palustris) in our front yard is breaking bud!

Hackberry

Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) - Colored pencil - Prints Available.

Forest Floor in June

Another still-life with Solomons plume, some oak leaves, bloodroot and oak apple gall.  This is a glimpse of the forest floor on a Sangamon River bluff in east central Illinois.  Colored pencil - Prints Available.  Not familiar with oak apple gall, take a look at this page from my field journal.

Pawpaw

Today I planted some pawpaw (Asimina triloba) seeds that will be used in a future floodplain restoration project.  It is a great little native tree with a unique tropical tasting fruit.  Here are some sketches of the spring flowers.  The flowers are unusual in that they are the color of raw meat and have a foul odor this is because they are pollinated by carrion flies and beetles.  Pawpaw patches are often clones of each other and since the plant is self sterile these isolated clones will never produce fruit.  So if your pawpaws are barren introduce some new genes to the patch and if that doesn’t work try throwing some road kill under the trees or try tying rotten meat to the branches to attract the proper pollinators.  Once you get the trees to fruit you will have to work hard to beat the raccoons and opossums to the fruit…

Flowers of Common Trees

Two common trees that produce noticeable flowers... On top northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) and below yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) Prints available for both.

Botanical Illustrations

Here are some more botanical illustrations in colored pencil. The top one is of a Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) cone early in the year when it is still green. The next is of a Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) showing both young leaves and the pink spring flowers. Prints Available.  Last one is of a winter bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) twig that is still holding onto a leaf.

OHIO

OK, so my firs blog worked and the image even appeared! The above image is dedicated to my new home state - Ohio. The image is again in colored pencil and is of a Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra) leaf bud breaking dormancy.

Is this thing working??

Welcome to my first blog! I really have no intention of writing typical blogs, but would like to use this to share some of my artwork. Stay tuned as I figure out this thing... the image above is titled white oak leaves and is done in colored pencil.  Prints Available