This is the creek, running along a limestone bed. It's a good place for a hot day; very ferny and cool.

Here's Connie - wading the stream while I mess around with the camera and tripod. It was worth the time, though, because the picture I took was this next one...

This is a Synandra. It doesn't have a common name, apparently it's not all that common (Synandra hispidula, Lamiaceae). It's a really striking plant, with large white flowers - about the size of a domestic snapdragon.

This bizarre plant is called Squawroot (Conophilus americana, Orobanchaceae). It is a parasitic plant (not a fungus, although it looks like one) that grows on the roots of oak trees. It's pretty bizarre-looking; I've never seen anything like it before.

Here's part of the whole colony of Squawroot - there were a couple of different branches of the colony, all growing off the roots from a single tree.

Um, this... well, it's a snail. Gastropods aren't my strong point, but we thought it was cute.

This is a False Solomon's Seal (Smilacena racemosa, Liliaceae). It was used for a number of different things - the berries were eaten, as were the young shoots and roots. Various parts were also used medicinally.

We almost walked by this one - a Nodding Trillium (Trillium cernuum, Liliaceae), so called because of the flower that hangs down below the leaves.

The landscape of the park is marked by these large depressions - sinkholes. That's usually a good clue that there are caves in the area, especially if you're in a limestoney area. This one was huge, as you can see in comparison to Connie.

Once you get back into the Wolf Cave Nature Preserve area, you can see some even more amazing things. This is a Puttyroot or Adam-and-Eve Orchid (Aplectrum hyemale, Orchidaceae), one of the earlier-blooming orchids in the area. While some Indiana orchids are showy, most are rather subdued. It's pretty easy to just walk right by one, as from a distance it just looks kind of like a brown stalky thing... catch it in the right light, though, and it glows auburn-red. It gets the name Puttyroot from the mucilaginous quality of the corm, and the name Adam-and-Eve from the fact that there are two corms on each plant. Hey - one of my goals for the summer was to finally see a wild orchid - I'm doing pretty good!

This is an extremely tiny nest we found alongside the trail - no idea what kind of bird it would be, perhaps a finch.

This Rattlesnake Fern (Botrychium virginianum) was named for the spore-producing stalk that grows up above the leaves. McCormick's Creek has a bunch of different ferns, including the oddly-named Walking Fern - it grows a new fern wherever the tips of the leaves touch the ground. I'm still looking for that one.

We found this huge old Sycamore down in the bottomlands past the cave. Given that the overall size of trees tends to be measured by diameter at breast height, this is the largest Sycamore I've ever seen.

This is the entrance to Wolf Cave. The cave is 57 yards long, and probably the safest cave you could find - no drop-offs, no deep water... the most common injury is people knocking their heads against a rock while trying to navigate the passageway. On a quiet day, you may be lucky enough to see some of the salamanders that live there.