The Elusive Ruby Spurrey [Update: Got it !]

[Andrea B.]

Next to Shore Cottage where we are staying in Maine is a wonderful grassy wildflower meadow sloping down to the rocky shores of Somes Sound. A small portion of it is mowed to use for picnics or for sitting and watching the schooners and sailboats, but most of it is left to grow as it will for the summer.

I've photographed about 35 wildflowers so far from the meadow, but there must be near 50 species growing there. I don't think I've ever found such a concentration of wildflowers in one small area.

 

Here's the Schooner Lynx sailing up Somes Sound. Pretty boat!

 

On 10 July while making an initial photography survey of the meadow flowers I wanted to follow up on, I discovered a small patch of tiny, pretty Ruby Spurrey (Spergularia rubra). This was a new flower for me, and I was eager to check it out its UV signature. And so promising to return the next day with the UV kit in tow, I turned my back on that little pink thing -- and then could not find it again for the next 17 days.

 

Here's the Ruby Spurrey patch on 10 July.

The way everything has been going, this shot may be the only one I ever get.

 

I looked and looked and looked for that flower. Ants bit my legs while I was scruffing around on hands and knees in the weeds, grasses and flowers. I got stung twice by what-I-don't-know but probably a yellow jacket. The bumblebees were kind - they just laughed and buzzed but left me alone. I got chigger bites on my ankles. The mosquitos marked me for a dimwit and bit me up good. But the Ruby Spurrey remained hidden. If I had not made that initial photo of it on 10 July, I would have begun to think that I had been seeing things in some sort of meadow-induced hallucinatory daze.

 

Maybe the deer ate the darned thing, I thought. So I tried to chase our resident herd of three out of my meadow and away from my Ruby Spurrey - wherever it was. Deer know when you're a blithering idiot so these three just stared at me, laughed and kept munching away in the meadow.

 

Here's Bambi snarfing flowers and ignoring pesky humans.

 

Two days ago (Day 17) I walked up the little hill from the Cottage to the meadow on my way to the weekend Art Show in Southwest Harbor. I side-stepped into the meadow to check out an Oenothera, looked down and - bingo! - there's my patch of Ruby Spurrey again. In plain sight. Looking all cheery and pretending like it had never been hiding all those days.

 

There was no way I was going to lose this flower again, so I put down my camera beside it and went to fetch one of those orange & white snow poles used to mark the edges of streets and driveways for the snowplows. I planted that pole beside that patch of Spurrey and went whistling away to the Art Show for a couple of hours vowing once again to haul out the UV gear upon my return. What could possibly go wrong, she thought.

 

Now comes the part where Andrea learns that Ruby Spurrey naturally closes up in late afternoon. Sigh. Yes, upon my return from town, the Ruby Spurrey can hardly be found all over again. When a tiny little flower closes up, it and its tiny little leaves become almost invisible in a grassy meadow even when the plant is marked by a tall fluorescent orange & white snow pole.

 

Ever the optimist I vow to be up bright and early the next morning (Day 18) to get that UV shot.

No go. Very overcast and quite foggy here on the shore, so flowers did not open up.

 

Hanging onto my optimism by a mere fingernail, I vow to be up bright and early the next next morning (Day 19) to get that UV shot.

No go. Day 19 was this morning, the fog was thicker than yesterday and then the rain started.

 

And so it goes.....

[nfoto]

Oddly familiar. Sounds like trying to get a Salsify on UV record. The only difference of course is that salsify (Tragopogon spp.) are less likely to hide the *plant* away, however, it happily closes its flower head every time you are on the spot with a UV camera B).

 

Over here, Spergula rubra is a species of seashores and the inland locations are secondary and transient.

[Andrea B.]

These little pinks are known as either sand-spurreys or sea-spurreys in some of the flora and books. So ours also appear to be a species of the shores. FNA also gives meadows and roadsides as locations. The meadow here that I have loved so much is on the shore of ocean waters - although in the form of a 'sound' or 'bay'.

 

I had to look up the actual measurements for S. rubra because I've become insecure about my powers of observation after this on-going failure to locate tiny pink flowers The corolla lobes are given by FNA as 2-3.2mm. Leaves are about .5-1.5 cm. The ones on my plant seem to be of the .5mm variety. Yep, it is tiny.

 

The sun is just now coming out @ 9:36 AM. Hurray! I gotta rush off to get dressed and go look again for my Ruby Spurrey.

[Andrea B.]

Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!

She chortled in her joy.

 

...with apologies to Lewis Carroll on Day 20 of the Elusive Pink Spurrey Search.

See Jabberwocky.

 

The Ruby Spurrey is there - all its tiny pink blooms wide open in the sunlight and ready to be photographed in situ.

At last. At last.

 

TTYL.

[Damon]

Ha! I love your stories. Had me chuckling.

We can all relate in some way or another. We have that little bugger here too. Lots of it at our preserve in Cape May. Well, The Nature Conservancy's Preserve I meant.

I recently had a pretty neat tomato flower on an alligator clamp near the ground. I had been waiting for this sucker to come out. Had it all set up, went to take the picture--NO card in camera--grrr. went back and got card and then back to an empty clamp. One of my chickens ate it. Wasn't expecting that at all.

Hope your pics turned out ok!

[Andrea B.]

Now I'm laughing - that is a good one - a flower-eating chicken ruining the documentary effort.

And makes me think of that old excuse -- "Sorry, teach, the dog ate my homework". :D :D :D

 

So my elusive Ruby Spurrey - which I've never seen in the last 7 years of intense floral UV-signature work - grows in my very own state? I did not know this. And I hear from JD in Tennessee that he's got some growing in his yard. Apparently the stuff is everywhere!

Oh well.

 

Maybe I'll stumble across a true rarity one of these days. B)

But please let it be a flower larger than 3 mm across. :)

[JCDowdy]

So my elusive Ruby Spurrey - which I've never seen in the last 7 years of intense floral UV-signature work - grows in my very own state? I did not know this. And I hear from JD in Tennessee that he's got some growing in his yard. Apparently the stuff is everywhere!

Oh well.

 

It seems the little flower I thought I had is now gone, perhaps hiding as yours was!

Upon closer inspection of your photo I am now uncertain if that is what I saw.

[Andrea B.]

oh lol !! That is what tiny flowers do to a person - give them all sorts of visual uncertainty about what they may have seen.

 

I looked today to see if for S. rubra was still there and had to get down to the ground level with my nose to find it all folded up in late afternoon. It must be a morning person. Unlike me.

[JCDowdy]

So you did get it in UV?

[Andrea B.]

Update: http://www.ultravioletphotography.com/content/index.php/topic/2319-spergularia-rubra-red-sand-spurry/

[Andy Perrin]

Hip hip HOORAY for the red sand spurry! I am glad this story has a happy ending.