I love the internet, especially for sleuthing out mystery plants. A few carefully considered questions asked in the right places will usually lead me to what I am looking for. Of course I am also just as likely to head down some wormhole and forget what I was looking for in the first place. What recently kept me busy was trying to ID a plant I saw blooming earlier this month while kayaking on Queens Creek, a small tributary of the James River in Charles City County. In places the flowers smothered the shoreline in bright yellow, which was a nice contrast to the gray storm-threatening skies. I first thought it could be any one of those yellow composite species that all begin with h-e-l (
Helianthus, Helenium, Heliopsis) that are difficult for me to tell apart. Although
Helenium autumnale (sneezeweed) is very common here, and was blooming elsewhere on my trip, I knew that was not it. I next guessed it might be
Helianthus angustifolius (swamp sunflower), as I was indeed in a swamp, but after paddling closer for further inspection all I could confirm was my cluelessness. So I took close up photos of foliage and flowers to look up when I got home, and resolved just to enjoy the site of it.
After a few minutes on the internet I narrowed the plant down to one of the
Bidens. A little while later I think I fixed it to
Bidens laevis (smooth beggartick, smooth bur-marigold, showy bur-marigold). To help in the identification of this plant I used two of my favorite sites; the Native Plant Database at
wildflower.org., and the
Digital Atlas of Virginia Flora, which is a decades long project to map all of the state's native plants. From the atlas I learned that
B. laevis inhabits tidal freshwater marshes to oligohaline marshes. I had to look up the definition of oligohaline, which means having a very low amount of salt, and I decided to make it my word of the day, and wondered if health conscious snack companies could successfully market oligohaline chips or crackers. I digress. If any of you know this plant to be something else, please feel free to correct me. Regardless of its exact ID, it was a lovely thing to see, especially in such proliferation.
During my trip I had the creek to myself, no one else was on the water, though I did speak with a couple of guys on the shore getting their duck blind ready for the coming season. Judging from the number of blinds I saw, I will avoid this place in-season. I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a duck. Below are some of the other sights I saw.
