Twayblade and Thomas Early

[Teegate]

All,

Twayblade orchids are out and we visited our usual location today to see how they are doing. We were told about this place by a member of the site years ago. I believe they learned about it by a chance encounter with a random person in a store. Anyway, there are too many to count but I suspect there may be 500 or so there scattered around. We roamed more today in the area than we usually do. Either we stepped on this one today or something else did but it really seems somewhat damaged. The true facts are all of my other photos did not turn out because I did not have my camera settings set correctly. I still am learning how this camera works.

Not the greatest looking orchid so most people don't search them out I suspect.

After leaving there we headed to Lebanon to look for the final corner to the Thomas Early tract. This tract has monuments number 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the original Lebanon survey sometime before 1916. The number 4 is on the top but I did not have water or anything to clean the top off. The stone is right next to it.

The above corner is about 75 feet away from the Batona Trail. An old map showing the property.

A true location view from my records.

 

[Teegate]

We returned to Early's Crossing today to again search for a Lebanon monument on the corner of Thomas Early's property from pre 1928. If the Early's Crossing sounds familiar you may have observed it here.

NJPineBarrens Maps

maps.njpinebarrens.com

All of our previous searches were troublesome because the place was full of briers. However, the FFS has recently burned the woods opening it up for exploration. I could not pass that up so we went again today. Roaming around at all of the locations I felt it may be at, I decided to cut across the dry stream bed to look on the others side. While I was directly in the center of the stream bed I noticed this.

It was the NJ7 monument for his property.

I had already found NJ9 so we traveled to the NJ8 location where I had looked before. I had an uncomfortable situation there the last time I was there so I have held off going there for a while. Since I had just found 7 I recalculated in my head about where we needed to go and headed into the woods. In no time at all Jessica yelled she had found it.

This one had a stone.

 

[manumuskin]

Pink is up down here in Cumberland County,Three 14 inch spikes and half a dozen three inchers with probably 50 more on the way

 

[Bog Mermaid]

I have not come across twaybalde yet, thanks for sharing. I guess they wouldn't win an orchid beauty pageant, but posess thier own beauty in an unconventional, perhaps underappreciated sort of way. Looking forward to finding one myself. Looks like an enjoyable exploration.

 

[oji]

Maybe not as frilly or colorful as others but it does have some appeal.

 

[er-birds]

I love the humbler orchid species...had been excited to look for Twayblades this spring, and succeeded in finding some yesterday! A pretty big population scattered in and around sphagnum beds, under cedars and red maple. One had grown straight up through a dead leaf, keeping its leaves from fully opening. Many more tiny stems are still coming up. We counted at least 45-50 individual plants, but didn't explore to the end of their zone, so there could easily have been hundreds...once you see a few you realize how small and well-hidden they can be.

Saw my first Swamp Pinks in flower yesterday too!

 

[er-birds]

Caught a Large Twayblade (Liparis liliifolia) starting to flower earlier this week! More were still budding. Also came across some Adder's-Tongue Ferns for the first time-- unusual plants.