August 23, 2026: A Bounty of Buttons

This week I took a slow paddle around the edges of the lake exploring the late summer shoreline vegetation.  I was also looking for purple Bladderwort blooming, but it was the wrong time of day as these aquatic plants seem to bloom early in the morning.  But there were plenty of other interesting plants to be found, including many with seeds and fruit.  

Possumhaw or Wild Raisin (Viburnum nudum)

This is the same plant I found blooming on the Franconia Ridge in July.  It was supposedly named possumhaw because opossums dine on it.  The plant's fruit goes through a full spectrum of color as it ages:  It starts pinkish-white, darkens to red, then to blue, and finally in winter, it becomes black and wrinkled, resulting in its other common name of wild raisin. 

A clump of possumhaw berries showing the color progression

Early on the fruit is acidic and not very palatable, even to a animals.  This means much of it is left on the plant until winter when the sugars have become more concentrated.  At that point in the season it's a very important high energy food source for wintering animals, especially fruit-eating birds such as cedar waxwings and bluebirds (which are now year-round residents in central New Hampshire).

The next abundant crop I came upon was Arrow Wood, another viburnum species. 

Arrow wood (Viburnum recognitum)

Arrow wood fruit is soft with high energy content and will be eagerly consumed by many birds.  But not all will be consumed with a large crop, and because the berries cling to their branches, the surplus will provide another high calorie food for overwintering birds.

One more fruiting shrub, or in this case a vine, I found was grape.

Fox Grapes growing among the possumhaw and buttonbush.

There weren't a lot of these, and they were largely overgrown by all the other shoreline plants, but they were hiding in there nonetheless.  

In addition to providing food for animals, these thickets of vines and shrubs are a great deterrent for keeping geese from nesting.  Because goslings can't fly, geese prefer to nest where they can easily walk to the water.

Buttonwood is another lake-edge shrub that keeps on giving throughout the year.  Their pretty white pincushion flowers start to bloom in June and continue into July.  

Buttonbush flowers in early July.

By mid August the flowers form reddish seed pods that add a dash of color all the way through fall. 

Eventually each blossom forms dozens of small seeds that ducks feed on during the fall. 

Many tiny seeds in each button.

Over winter when food is scarce or buried under the snow, songbirds take over.  Mice will happily pick up whatever seeds the birds or the wind drop to the ground.

And though I didn't find purple bladderwort, I did find a different pretty aquatic plant in bloom:

Duck Potato (Sagittaria latifolia)

The name duck potato is partially a misnomer.  The tuber is in fact much like a small round potato that is edible, but ducks rarely dive deep enough to dig in the mud to eat them.  [Florida Wildlife Foundation]  Ducks do eat the above-water seeds, but it's beaver and muskrat that feast on the tubers.  Native Americans harvested them as well.

We've been inundated with hummingbirds the past few weeks - I think there might be two pairs that have broods nearby.  There are frequent acrobatic dogfights between adults, and multiple small hummers drinking from the flowers.  Here's a video (accompanied by Beethoven's Fur Elise) of one hummingbird sampling several flowers in a sometimes random manner.

They provide nice entertainment on a summer afternoon!

I'll end with the weekly update on Pip - looking sharp!