Virginia Salt Marsh Mallow (Kosteletzkya virginica)

I shot this salt marsh mallow about 2 miles in on the North Shore of Lake Apopka Restoration area.  Below you can see the marshy area where it was growing.

The Virginia Salt Marsh Mallow is a many-flowered plant producing large, slightly drooping pink flowers that resemble common garden hibiscus blooms.  Despite "Salt Marsh" in its common name, this tall, muti-branched plant also grows in freshwater marshes throughout Florida, as you can see in the picture above.  It thrives in wet conditions in the wild, but it is easily grown and makes a showy addition to the home garden.  The only downside is that each blossom lasts but a single day.  Several clutivated varieties are available for purchase.

Wild Bush Bean (Macroptilium lathyroides)

I found this plant in the Apopka restoration area, also.  I thought it was unusal and with a little help from my friends on our open native florida gardening group on FB, was able to put a name to it! It is a wild bush bean!  Not native to Florida, but still very interesting!  Plus, this is one of the best pictures I have taken with my little ole'cannon point and shoot!

The pea-shaped flowers bloom in pairs and have a spirally twisted keel petal.  The seed pods are hairy, slender, and up to 4 inches long.  When mature, the pods explosively open to eject the small, pitted, brown or marbled brown and black beans.  The leaves have 3 narrowly oval to lanceolate leaflets and lanceolate stipules.  The stems are slender, green, and erect, trailing, or twining.  Wild bushbean grows along roadsides, in pastures, and in other sunny, open, disturbed area.

Fragrant Water Lily

Today, I rode my bike 7 miles through the Apopka restoration area on the N side of  Lake Apopka.   I stopped at the first bridge that goes over a canal of the project, looked over and took this picture of

 this Fragrant Water Lily.........................

Water lilies have floating leaves. There are about 40 species of water lily in the world, plus numerous hybrids and varieties. Some water lily species prefer southerly warmth and are found in temperate and semi-tropical zones, some prefer the cold and are found only in northern Canada and Alaska.
This species, fragrant water lily (Nymphaea odorata), occurs from Puerto Rico to Alaska and from California to Quebec (Kartesz 1999). Its many subspecies and varieties may be found floating in ponds, lakes and sluggish streams just about everywhere in North America.
Water lily leaves  are nearly circular in shape, as you can see in this picture. They are notched to the center. Its leaf lobes are pointed. The leaves arise on stalks from long rhizomes in the mud. Fragrant water lily flowers are showy white and aromatic. Flowers of unusual color and shape are characteristic of hybrid water lilies.

Common Buttonbush

I explored about a mile of the Apopka Restoration area outside of Zellwood down 48 A today (July 27th) and found this wildflower, which I now know is a Common Buttonbush!  Thanks to my followers for the help!  It has large, fragrant, ball-shaped blooms and a slender long flower part which protrudes from each tiny white flower, giving an overall pincushion-like appearance to the entire round head.  It is highly ornamental, fast growing and adapts well to moist soils.  American Indians used it to treat dysentery and rheumatism.  It is a native perennial of Florida and its habitat is wet sites, marshes, swamp margins, and pond edges.

Spatterdock, Cow Lily

Spatterdock is a large plant whose leaves are often floating, however, submersed and emersed leaves are common.  Spatterdock commonly occurs in ponds, lakes and sluggish streams and blooms from spring to summer.  Spatterdock has large heart-shaped leaves, usually with wavy margins.  Spatterdock floating leaves are attached to long, stout stems which arise from large, spongy rhizomes.  Its submersed leaves are very thin, attached at the bottom rhizomes.  Spatterdock flowers are yellow and 'half-opened" at or above the water surface. 

This picture was taken while kayaking on the Weikwa River.

Pikerelweed

When I was hiking down this path, which is the Blue Trail in Wekiwa, I came across this little swampy stream.

 It was filled with Pickerelweed, which is an aquatic herb with a creeping, submerged rhizome and violet-blue flower spikes extending above water.  It flowers between June and November and is found in freshwater marshes and edges of ponds, lakes, and strams, such as the one in the picture.  The seeds can be eaten like nuts and the young leaves cooked as greens.  Deer also feed on these plants.  It also attracts butterflies.

Lanceleaf Tickseed,(Aster family) Coreopsis crassifolia

Lance-leaf tickseed grows in small clumps but forms extensive colonies.  It s 1-2 1/2 feet tall and has leaves 3-4 inches long, opposite, sometimes alternate near the top where the leaves are fewer.  some of the leaves are deeply cut, almost forming 3 leaflets.  flower heads are yellow, 1-1 1/2 inches across.  The yellow center or disk flowers stand out distinctly from the ray flowers, which appear to be attached just below them.  Ray flowers are 4-lobed.  the yellow, daisy-like flowers occur singly atop long, naked peduncles.  This native species has branching stems at base and often forms sizable colonies along roadsides and in old fields.

 I took these pictures next to Sand Lake on the northwest side of Wekiwa State Park.