Nature Trail explodes with fireworks of flowers

Published 2:36 pm Sunday, June 11, 2017

River’s too high, channel’s too muddy, couldn’t find a pond and the boat trailer needs to have two drum replacements.

So I took my wife’s advice and spent a day traveling down and up the Creole Nature Trail — La. 27. 

Texas may have its bluebonnets, but we’ve got our own colors right out in the marsh. And there are a lot of colors.

Now is also the time to get out and see them.

“There are quite a number of flowering plants now, especially on the half-mile boardwalk at Pintail Drive (east portion of La. 27 just north of Gibbstown bridge),” said Diane Borden-Billiot at the Cameron Prairie National Refuge headquarters. “I just went out last week and saw so many plants. This would be a great place to start if you just want to get out there and look at the plants and flowers.

“Even around the rest of the drive, you can see many. It’s just amazing.”

Among the plants and flowers Borden-Billiot recalled seeing were: water shields, Jamaica sawgrass, alligator weed, star rushes, purple water hyacinth, spider lilys, pennywort, frogbit, water primrose, American lotus (yellow), pickerelweed (purple), duck potato (white), bullwhip and cattails.

I took the west side of La. 27 the day my family made our trip.

Stops were at the recreational areas of Sabine National Reserve — Blue Goose Trail and the Wetland Walkway (opposite side of West Cove).

Also, we headed on down to the coast and to Peveto Woods, the bird sanctuary. Not many birds but a lot of blooming flowers; several of them in the sand right near the water.

Right now I’m in the process of identifying the flowers and plants we saw. 

Like some of the birds of which I take pictures, I have to Google or check books to verify their identification.

Thus far I have the spider lily and the marsh orchid “ID.”

I have a long way to go.