May Wildflowers - White Oak and Upland Trail at Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve
May 2023 - Photos and Prose by Melissa Fey The early Spring Wildflowers are coming to end. Soon the woods will be warm and muggy with swarming Mosquitoes, making hiking unpleasant. You have to wear layers of clothes and spray to protect your self from the bites, which takes most of the fun out of the effort. The woods are also getting extremely overgrown and looking more like a green jungle. Hard to differentiate one group of green leaves and flowers from another. Yet hiking in May is still full of surprises and beautiful blooms. Early morning is always the best time to go, the dew leaves beautiful droplets shining in the morning sun. The spider webs cover the prairie as we walk towards the woods into the morning sun. The Prairie Dock is sprouting its large leaves that will soon cover the sides of the trail as you are heading east from the parking lot at the Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve. The Wild Bergamot can also be seen. Even touching the leaves you can recognize the disti