CACHE IS NOT AT POSTED COORDS. (Don’t play in traffic!)
SOLVE PUZZLE BELOW TO GET COORDINATES FOR CACHE LOCATION.
When I’m out on the trails, I enjoy taking note of various plants and seeing if I can identify them. If I can’t, I look them up in my field guides when I get home. (I know there’s an app for that, but I like doing it the old school way as it leads to serendipitous discoveries.) Whether I can identify them on site or not, I tend to take a lot of photos. My geo-friends are used to me exclaiming over new plants, quizzing them to see if they remember plant names I mentioned on previous hikes, and temporarily holding up the walk to the next cache to take photos. (They are awesome, patient people.) Learning the names of the local plants isn’t a requirement in life, but I think it makes walking the trails a bit more interesting, and it’s simply... nice to know. By working on this puzzle, you just might learn something new to take with you on your next hike. :)
How to solve the puzzle:
Match the plant photos with the plant names/descriptions. Common names are used for this puzzle. You will not use all of the names/descriptions provided -- there are a few extra ones (just to make it a little bit more difficult).
Once you have matched the photos with the names/descriptions, put the letters of the answers in order to match the photos. If photo #1 matches name/description A, and photo #2 matches name/description B, and photo #3 matches name/description C, and so on, then the string of letters you want to put into the checker will be formatted like ABC[and so on].
When you enter the letters in the correct order into the checker, you will be given the coordinates to where the cache is hidden. NO NIGHT CACHING. Please be respectful of the location and the neighboring homes.
The puzzle:
Photos of plants (taken by me while caching):
Plant names and descriptions:
A - Indian pipe (a.k.a. ghost pipe or ghost plant) is all white (stem, leaves, and flower). It is a parasite that does not need sunlight to grow (Chlorophyll? We don’t need no stinkin’ chlorophyll!), so when you find it, it’ll likely be in a shady part of the woods.
C - Milkweed comes in many varieties with flowers in many different colors. You might be most familiar with one known as swamp milkweed, rose milkweed, rose milkflower, swamp silkweed, or white Indian hemp. Monarch butterflies feed on the flowers and also lay eggs on the underside of the leaves. (If you’ve ever cached with morbler1, you have seen her check milkweed for tiny white eggs, because she raises monarchs at home!)
E - Jack-in-the-pulpit (a.k.a. bog onion, brown dragon, or Indian turnip) is found in woodlands and thickets in eastern North America, and it thrives in moist, shady, seasonally wet locations. Do you see the “pulpit” from which “Jack” is preaching? I don’t come across these very often, but when I do, it’s usually during ASP Geobash weekend!
H - Queen Anne's lace (a.k.a. wild carrot, bird's nest, and bishop's lace) is common along roadsides and in fields. Sometimes there is a tiny reddish or purple flower in the center. As kids, my sister and I were always excited to find one with a red flower! Fun fact: The story goes that it got its North American name because the flower resembles lace (prominent in fine clothing back in the day), and the red flower in the center is thought to represent a blood droplet where Queen Anne pricked herself with a needle when she was making the lace.
I - Skunk cabbage, or eastern skunk cabbage, is a.k.a. swamp cabbage, clumpfoot cabbage, meadow cabbage, or polecat weed. If you hang out in swampy areas in early spring, you may come across it. (I see you, fellow swamp cachers!) The mottled purple flowers push up through the mud first, followed later by the large leaves. When the leaves are bruised, the odor may resemble that of a skunk. Fun fact: This plant can crank up its temperature to melt its way through frozen ground. Thermogenic powers, activate!
L - Chicory (a.k.a. common chicory, blue daisy, blue dandelion, blue sailors, blue weed, bunk, coffeeweed, cornflower, hendibeh, horseweed, ragged sailors, succory, wild bachelor's buttons, and wild endive) is often found growing wild on roadsides, and it may be grown as a forage crop for livestock. If you’ve ever come across it and tried to pick one, you’ve discovered how woody the stems can be. I always associate this with a roadside on a dry, hot, summer day (possibly while grabbing a guardrail cache when it’s just too darned hot to hike ;) )
M - Gaywings (a.k.a. fringed polygala) are an Orchid-like wildflower resembling a tailless, tiny airplane. You may come across blooms in shades of pink or purple. Most recently I spotted some while hiking at--you guessed it--ASP Geobash!
N - Jewelweed (a.k.a. orange jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, or orange balsam) is often found in ditches and creeksides. Fun fact: The juice of the leaves and stems is a traditional Native American remedy for skin rashes, including poison ivy. (You cachers who always seem to find yourselves in a patch of P.I. -- jewelweed is your new best friend :) )
O - Violets come in many varieties. The photo on the left is of the common blue violet (a.k.a. common meadow violet, purple violet, woolly blue violet, wood violet, or hooded violet). The photo on the right is of the sweet white violet. I’ve come across the blue ones much more often than the white ones (and once again, ASP Geobash was where I took this photo of the white one).
R - Trout lily (a.k.a. yellow trout lily or yellow dogtooth violet) is one of my most welcomed signs of spring when walking in the woods. Its name comes from the way its mottled leaves resemble the coloring of a brook trout. In early spring, you’ll often see patches of the tell-tale leaves well before the flowers bloom.
T - Here are what we call “eyeball plants” in my family. I used to get these two different plants mixed up. The photo on the left is white baneberry (often called “doll’s eyes”), and you will find it in shady hardwood or mixed forests. The photo on the right is gray dogwood (a.k.a. northern swamp dogwood or panicle dogwood), a shrub which tends to grow in thickets. Gray dogwood’s leaves can turn red or purple in the fall. (I saw lots of it at Majors Park in East Aurora, where this photo was taken! There may have been Wherigos involved...)
U - There are many species of trillium, and a number can be found in New York State and Ontario, Canada. My photos show painted trillium (a.k.a. painted lady or smiling wake robin), red trillium (a.k.a. wake robin, purple trillium, bethroot, or stinking Benjamin), and white trillium (a.k.a. large-flowered trillium, great white trillium, or white wake robin). If you’ve attended ASP Geobash, you’ve probably seen “seas” of these along the camp roads. Fun fact: The trillium is Ontario’s provincial flower.
W - Mayapple (a.k.a. American mandrake, wild mandrake, and ground lemon) is a woodland plant that grows in colonies derived from a single root. When I was a kid we called them "the umbrella plant" and it’s one of my favorites to come across on springtime hikes. Some plants will have a white flower below the "umbrella" which will mature into a single fruit (the "apple"). (The feet are attached to me and are not an identifying feature.)
Y - Bloodroot (a.k.a. Canada puccoon, bloodwort, redroot, or red puccoon) is another sign of spring with its white flowers. Fun fact: Bloodroot was used in some medical quackery in the 1920s and 1930s, for which the perpetrator was charged, pled guilty, and was fined $25.00.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
Congratulations to Cayuga Crew on the got-it-just-before-sunset FTF!