Travels in New Hampshire: Shelburne area

Here are some more photos to get you an idea how the northernmost northeastern United States look like, and it certainly doesn't look like New Jersey. There are lakes and rivers with clear water and in the distance you can see mountains like Mt. Washington. Apparently you can see Mt. Washington if you are out at sea at the Maine coast, that is how it was discovered by the Europeans.

There are not as many white birches as I expected, but in Shelburne is a whole grove of them. Otherwise there are lots of maple, beech, oak, spruce, hemlock, and other tree species that don't exist in northern Europe. I was amazed at all the ferns in the forests, many kinds and all over. The lack of invasive species that create a tangled underbrush was also really nice and quite the opposite to New Jersey's impenetrable forests. No Japanese honeysuckle, no multiflora roses, no grape vines (they are native though), no Japanese stilt grass, etc. Maybe it is just a matter of time, I hope not. In New Jersey these species are pushing out the native flora.


Along the road was a little pond with very interesting aquatic plants. There were upright curly leaves coming up from the bottom and very straight, linear leaves floating on the top, and they might have been two different species or one with two kinds of leaves. I don't know what this is, any ideas? I imagined moose wading in the pond at night, and they are frequent road guests as you can see by this sign (and who wouldn't brake for a 600-pound moose?).

This butterfly (EH, can you identify it?) was along the roadside, and the roads in New Hampshire were covered with this little red-orange sunflower relative (rodfibbla in Swedish). When you drove by there were thousands of speckles of orange along miles and miles of road, really nice. The lupins were flowering in blue and purple too and they were abundant on the roadsides.

So, similar to Sweden or not?