Chaffeeville Ledges, Mansfield CT

 This gently ascending trail I visit each spring to observe the lovely Hepatica, earliest of woodland blooms.

Crossing the first creek, I stop to taste the ramps, Allium triccocum (wild leek). I'm always very careful to smell first for its oniony pungence for I'd hate to mistake it for the deadly hellebore (second shoot from the right in the first photo).

Veering off the path, I try to stay dry

 and step from stone to mossy stone in this skunk cabbage haven.

It's hypothesized that the rhizome of Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage) could live for thousands of years! Specimens several hundred years old have been found.

In the next creek I find liverwort hugging the wet rocks. Check out that reptilian texture.

Since they won't produce their fruiting stalks for another week or two, I've shown a shot taken last April.

Next is the apple moss, Bartramia, growing way up in the ledges. Propping myself beneath them to shoot against the blue sky, my hair and camera catch the incessant droplets raning down the face of the cliff.

A shot from above.

 

At the base of the cliff, a little fellow scurries across the moss and will only stand still for me when she's blending in with the leaflitter.

Ahhh....

what I came here for...

a Hepatica bloom emerging. Furry!

The photo below shows the Hepatica nobilis in full bloom, taken a couple of weeks later, last year.