another field day

 this time we did the nested plots where we estimated cover; we now have five of these plus several done last fall (I presume we will do more this fall)

Only two photos today, this day was more busy

First up: Asclepias viridis or green milkweed (sometimes called green antelope-horns, but then it gets confused with A. asperula, which is antelope-horns, but I think that's more in the western part of the state). This is the most common milkweed around here

 they're not extremely pretty but they are good for butterflies.

We also saw one plant in a stand of Coreopsis tinctoria that had a genetic variation - the ray flowers were almost entirely red; more commonly the ray flowers are mostly yellow with some red towards the disk. This would make a pretty garden flower. I don't know how common the red variant is but I think it's the first time I've seen it

the "tinctoria" specific epithet makes me wonder if it was used as a dye plant, often times dye plants were named "tinctoria" (Indigo, the plant originally used to dye blue denim, is Indigofera tinctoria). 

***'

I have been knitting; working a bit on the shawl (I'm still at least 24 rows from shifting to the lace, if I have enough of the blue). I also got more done this past weekend on the new socks, here you can see the arrow lace pattern columns starting: