Mid May Wildflowers

Here are just a few of the wildflowers I’ve seen recently.

I try hard to not misidentify the plants that appear here and all of the little yellow, 5 petaled flowers growing in lawns increase the chances of that happening, so I usually leave them alone. This bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) was relatively easy to identify though, so here it is. This plant gets its common name from its bulbous root, which is a corm.

Most of the red trillium (Trillium erectum) blossoms have faded or have been eaten, but I still see them here and there. They lighten from deep red to a pale purple color before finally turning brown.  The fading of red trilliums means it’s time to start looking for pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) and painted trilliums (Trillium undulatum.)

 

I love the plum colored anthers on these hawthorn (Crataegus) blossoms. They are very beautiful, in my opinion.

 

I’ve decided that mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum ) are hard to photograph, and that’s because I’ve never been happy with a single one that I’ve taken.  The flowers are very close to the ground but even if I lie out flat they never seem to be fully in focus.

 

Our native sessile leaved bellworts (Uvularia sessilifolia) have put on a good show this year. I’ve seen more than I ever have. Botanically speaking the word sessile means sitting, as in the leaves are sitting on the main stem, which means that the leaves themselves don’t have a stem (petiole.)

 

Red baneberry (Actaea rubra) is blooming early this year-probably because of the early warmth we had. Soon each tiny blossom will become a poisonous red berry. Native Americans dipped their arrowheads in concentrated baneberry juice to use as a poison.

Dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius) will set a cluster of yellowish fruit if the tiny white flowers are pollinated.  If it doesn’t set berries this plant often disappears without a trace shortly after flowering. The trifolius part of the scientific name refers to the three compound leaves that always appear in a whorl around the stem. Each leave has three to five leaflets that are nearly sessile on the stem.

 

I wasn’t sure if I’d see a Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) this year. I visited all of their growing places that I know of and found only two plants. That could be because last year was a banner year and I saw them everywhere. Many plants-even oak trees-“rest” after a bountiful year. This plant is in the arum family, along with skunk cabbage and many others.

 

I always pop the hood on jack in the pulpits to see what ‘Jack” is up to. I also like to see the purple stripes on the inside of the spathe, which is the hood that overhangs Jack. Jack is a club shaped spadix which in this photo appears black, but is actually purple. At the bottom of the cup shaped spathe male or female flowers will form at the base of this spadix. The spadix smells like mushrooms and if its female flowers are pollinated by tiny fungus flies, they will become bright red berries that deer love to eat.

 

I found quite a large patch of blue bead lilies (Clintonia borealis) recently. If you gave this plant a quick, passing glance you might mistake its leaves for those of pink lady’s slipper, but blue bead lily leaves don’t have deep pleats like lady’s slipper leaves do.

 

Blue bead lily is in the lily (Liliaceae) family and it’s not hard to see why when you take a good look at one of the small flowers-they look just like a Canada lily. If pollinated each flower will become a single berry that will turn from green to white and finally to an almost fluorescent, bright blue. I had a hard time finding any berries last year so I’m hoping there will be many to see this year.

 

Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are still blooming in great drifts across mowed places.  This plant is considered an ephemeral, but given enough moisture it will bloom well into summer. Their range of color goes from almost white to dark blue and I always try to find those with the darkest color. These ones looked fairly dark.

 

Cypress Spurge ( Euphorbia cyparissias) is also called cemetery weed because it’s often found there.This plant was introduced from Europe in the mid-1800s as an ornamental. Of course, it immediately escaped the gardens of the day and is now seen in just about any vacant lot or other area with poor, dry soil. This plant forms explosive seed pods that can fling its seeds several feet.

One of my very favorite woodland flowers is fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia,) also called gaywings. This plant is a low growing creeper which at a glance is easily mistaken for a violet. I know that from experience because last year was the first time I ever really paid any attention to it. I think that I have passed it off as just another violet for most of my life, which is too bad. The flowers are made up of five sepals and two petals. Two of the petals form a tube and two of the sepals form the “wings.” The little fringe like structure at the end of the tube is part of the third petal which is mostly hidden. When an insect lands on the fringed part, the third petal drops down to create an opening so the insect can enter the tube. There are 3 or 4 flowers in this photo, and they all seem to be growing on top of each other.

To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. ~ Beverley Nichols

Thanks for stopping in.

A Forest Walk

Since New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the country after Maine, with 84% of the land forested, forests are easy places to explore. More difficult is finding untouched places that are as close to true wilderness as you can get, but it can be done. I visited one such place last weekend.

In these pockets of older, sometimes protected forest there are often no marked trails or other signs of civilization, so it is wise to be well prepared if you decide to penetrate them very deeply. People get lost in these forests year round-even experienced hikers and hunters.

Violets always make a hike more pleasant. This one had very downy stems, and that makes me think that it was an ovate leaved violet (Viola fimbriatula.) The only trouble with that line of thought is, ovate leaved violets are supposed to be purple and my color finding software tells me that these are very blue.

In places hundreds of anemones carpeted the forest floor. As I moved on I realized that, instead of feeling thankful for the beautiful scene before me, I was wishing that the anemones were white trilliums like the amazing displays I’ve seen on Michigan and Ohio blogs. I need to work on gratitude.

Low bush blueberry bushes (Vaccinium angustifolium) grow in great profusion in any spot that gets enough of sunlight. The berries are an important food source for bear, deer, and many other animals and birds.

This forest has low, wet places made even wetter by beavers. Beaver ponds are active for an average of 30 years and the first stage in creating one is damming a stream to form a pond. Our native trees aren’t meant to live with their roots under water because they take in a lot of oxygen through them, so living trees in an area like this means it was flooded recently.

This was another wet area that looked to be in the process of becoming a sunny clearing with a stream running through it. The dead trees show that this was once a forest that became a pond. Older beaver ponds fill with silt or the beavers move away and their dams erode enough to drain the land. In either case the beaver pond of today will eventually revert back to forest. When the forest has re-established itself and there are enough trees for beavers to eat they will come back and again flood the land in a slow but ever repeating cycle. I feel lucky that I was able to see both the birth and death of beaver ponds without having to travel very far.

Three leaf goldthread (Coptis trifolia) is very happy in moist places. This plant gets its common name from its bright, golden yellow roots. Both Native Americans and colonials used goldthread to treat soreness in the mouth, hence the common name “canker root.” It is said to be very bitter.

 

Starflowers (Trientalis borealis) grow all through the forest and make use of any place that might get an hour or two of sunlight.  The Trientalis part of the scientific name means “one third of a foot” and relates to the plant’s 4 inch height. Two or three flowers are the usual number for this plant but each year I like to try to find the plants with the most flowers. I think my record is four.

Heartleaf foamflowers (Tiarella cordifolia) like to grow in moist, shady places. This plant is a good example of how wildflowers becoming garden flowers. People liked this plant enough to create a demand for it and nurserymen obliged by collecting its seed and growing it for sale. Of course, plant breeders also got ahold of it and have bred many new and unusual varieties.

 

Wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) like sunny spots and help keep the forest inhabitants well fed.

 

All kinds of lichens fall from the tree tops and litter the forest floor. I think this one is a fringed wrinkle lichen (Tuckermenopsis americana) but there are many that look very similar so I’m not 100% certain. Lichens can be very hard to identify because they change color as they dry out, and then when it rains change back to their “normal” color again. That’s why serious lichen hunters only hunt for them after it rains.

The fungus growing from under the bark of this tree reminded me of those dinner rolls that come in a tube and pop out if you smack them hard enough.  I’ve looked through three mushroom identification books and haven’t found anything that resembles it.

Hobblebushes (Viburnum alnifolium) grow in the clearings and along the edges of the forest. Hobblebush grows very low to the ground and is known for tripping up, or “hobbling” both men and horses.

 

The flowers are beautiful but deceiving. The fertile flowers are small and form in the center of the flat topped flower cluster (corymb). Larger and showier infertile flowers ring the outer edge of the cluster. This shrub is a favorite of mine and has been very popular for a long time. Even Gorge Washington grew them in his garden.

There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties. ~ John Muir

Thanks for stopping in.

 

Hot and Dry

About two weeks ago the sun came out and has stayed out, and each day has been warmer than the last. The eighty degree temperatures make it feel like summer and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s still early May. Of course, the sunny days mean no rain and we are starting to see the effects of that.

The boulders at a local reservoir show that the water level is about three feet lower than it should be. The water level is drawn down in the fall to make room for snow melt and spring rains. Unfortunately the spring rains haven’t happened this year and now we are about 4 inches below normal.

This has been our weather-not a cloud in the sky-for about 15 days.

 

 Some plants have been affected by the lack of rain but not this weeping willow (Salix babylonica,) which was in full flower the day I visited it. Weeping willows like a lot of water so it was surprising to see the tree in such fine shape.

 

Ferns are still coming up in the wetter areas. These are the silvery fiddleheads of evergreen Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides.)

 

The fronds of cinnamon ferns (Osmunda cinnamomea) are just starting to unfurl. These ferns seem to prefer wet areas. That’s where I see most of them growing.

 

In spite of the dryness coltsfoot held up well and had quite a long blooming season. Now the wind is doing its job of distributing the seeds. Once the seed heads have disappeared the leaves will begin to grow. One of coltsfoot’s common names is “son before the father” because of the way the flowers appear before the leaves.

 

I was surprised to see several false morel mushrooms in such dry soil. I think these are Gyromitra esculenta. This is a mushroom that you don’t want to eat by mistake. According to Tom Volk’s fungus identification website these fungi contain a chemical called gyromitrin (N-methyl-N-formylhydrazine), which is metabolized to monomethylhydrazine when eaten. This is rocket fuel. Really-rocket fuel-and it destroys red blood cells in human beings who are unlucky enough to ingest it. People have even gotten sick from inhaling the steam produced by boiling these fungi.

 

Rattlesnake weed (Hieracium venosum) got its common name from the way people thought it grew where there were rattlesnakes. We have timber rattlers in New Hampshire but they are as rare as a blue moon. This plant has flowers that resemble those of yellow hawkweed, but I like its purple veined leaves. I can’t say for sure how rare this plant is in New Hampshire but I’ve seen only one in my lifetime, and this is it. It is listed as endangered in Maine. This plant grows in a dry, sandy spot in full sun.

The new leaves of red baneberry (Actaea rubra) always look tortured to me- as if they were in a gale force wind. I like looking at them and have pictures from last year that I keep telling myself I’m going to draw. Someday.  This plant is already showing flower buds and will later have poisonous red berries.  The leaves closely resemble those of black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa.) This one grows on an embankment that never dries out completely. They seem to like a lot of water.

I thought I’d show what the fruit of skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) looks like when it is forming for those of you who have been following along and watching the plant’s development. The fruit is contained within the splotchy purple/yellow/brown spathe and will ripen between July and September. These plants like low, swampy places that are wet in spring but don’t seem to mind a little dryness later in the year.

These tiny new oak leaves were red and fuzzy. I ‘ve been reading about why new spring leaves aren’t green in many species of trees and have found, according to the Vermont Monitoring Cooperative, that trees require plenty of light and warmth to begin producing the chlorophyll that makes them green.  When there is a cloudy, cool spring trees will not be able to produce chlorophyll and their leaves will stay red (or orange, yellow or another color) until the weather turns sunny and warmer. Oak leaves are among the last to appear in spring, so it hasn’t enjoyed the last two weeks of warm, sunny weather.

 

These new poplar leaves are also fuzzy, and almost completely without color. It is the only tree I know of that has white leaves in spring. Trees keep a weather history in their rings and I wonder if someone in the future will read our history and see that we’ve had very strange weather over the past three years.

The new leaves of shagbark hickory (Carya ovate) are green from the start, but the insides of the bud scales that enclosed and protected the new growth are fantastic shades of orange, pink, and yellow. They are so colorful and unusual that they are sometimes mistaken for flowers.  It seems like in spring every plant wants to show how beautiful it can be.

 

As soon as I started writing this post telling you how sunny and dry it was, clouds rolled in and we’ve had scattered showers for the last two days. Who says Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of humor?

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long.

~ John Moffitt

Thanks for coming by. Happy mother’s day to all of you moms!

Early May Flowers

We haven’t seen a cloud in the sky here for the last two weeks, so I apologize for the harsh lighting in some of these shots.

 

The many different native white flowered trees have just started blooming. Soon they will brighten the roadsides in every town in the county. This is a cherry (Prunus) but I’m not sure which one.

 

The magnolias didn’t have room for even one more flower this year. They’ve been beautiful.

 

Last weekend I saw what a couple of well-placed magnolias, a cherry tree or two, and a few hundred daffodils can look like. It was an amazing spring display, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would look like in the summer.

I saw a few white trilliums (Trillium grandiflorum) in the woods near the woodland garden in the previous photo, but I’m not sure if they are natural or if they had been planted.  However they got there, they were very beautiful and are rarely seen in our woods.

If you want to see a rare and most beautiful display of white trilliums and other flowers, check out Jerry’s blog, Quiet Solo Pursuits, by clicking here.

 

Japanese Andromeda flowers (Pieris japonica) resemble many others, including grape hyacinth and blueberry.

 

In the garden fern leaved bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) has just started blooming. This is one of my favorites.

I saw more coltsfoot plants (Tussilago farfara) in one place than I ever have on this trail recently. They extended well out of the photo to the right. Coltsfoot has just about finished the end of its blooming period.

 

I think that what I thought were native rue anemones (Thalictrum thalictroides) are actually false rue anemones (Enemion biternatum,) which are also native. The leaf shape helps identify each plant but I want to find them both so I can be sure. Both are just starting their blooming period. As if that isn’t complicated enough, there are also wood anemones (Anemone quinquefolia ,) that resemble the other two.  Maybe I should just say that this photo of some type of anemone.

 

Native ginger (Asarum canadense) has just started blossoming as well but the flower is hard to see.  This plant isn’t related to the ginger we buy in stores, but Native Americans dried and ground the root and used it as a seasoning. Scientists believe that the plants may contain poisonous compounds and do not recommend eating any part of them. The plant also contains two different types of antibiotics and was used as a poultice to heal wounds by both Native Americans and early settlers.

It’s a small and not very colorful flower, but interesting. The reason the flower is so close to the ground is because it is pollinated by flies that look for the carcasses of dead animals after they emerge in the spring. That is also why the flower is the color of decomposing flesh-it fools the flies into pollinating it.

The flowers of Norway maples (Acer platanoides) appear well after those of red maples. These trees are native to Europe and are considered an invasive species. White sap in the leaf stem (petiole) is one way to tell Norway maples from sugar maples, which have clear sap.

 

I’ve seen a lot of beautiful man-made gardens but I think this display of dandelions and ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is every bit as beautiful.

What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thanks for stopping in.

 

Unexpected Beauty

This post is about finding beautiful things in unexpected places, which seems to be happening a lot lately.

Curly dock (Rumex crispus) is a roadside weed that wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but the seeds left from last fall were very beautiful indeed.

The orange color found in these new spring maple leaves gives just a hint of the brilliant display that will come later on in the fall.

Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica) blooms when the trout lilies do and can be seen everywhere right now. The upper, creamy yellow parts are the male stamens and the lower white, string like parts are the female pistils. The leaves look a lot like course grass, so this is an easy plant to miss when it isn’t blooming.

These are the fuzziest fern fiddleheads I’ve ever found. I think they are interrupted fern (Osmunda Claytoniana.)

I like looking for last year’s Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) plants because they look so very different than the pale, ghostly things they once were. This one looked like it had been carved.

Japanese knot weed (Polygonum cuspidatum ) is one of the most invasive plants known but in early spring, just as the new shoots are coming up, they are amazing things to behold. I always want to sit beside them and draw them so I can gain a better understanding of their remarkable curves, twists and turns.

The just opened buds of lilac (Syringa) look like tiny grape clusters.

A man stopped while I was taking pictures one day and asked me what I was doing. After talking for a while he gave me a tip about where I might find some ram’s head lady’s slippers (Cypripedium arietinum) which the Forest Service lists as “rare and critically imperiled” in New Hampshire. Needless to say if the man who told me about them was correct, it would be quite a find. Unfortunately, he also told me that people used to dig them up at that location. In any event, I’m watching the shoots of the pink lady’s slipper in the above photo, hoping they’ll tell me when I should look for the ram’s head orchids. They are a very beautiful flower that is rarely seen.

The woody seed pod of a pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule.) Several of these plants have colonized my yard and I’m very happy to see them producing seeds.

Striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum ) buds show hints of pink, rose, and even orange, according to my color finding software. I don’t see all of those colors when I look at them, but they seem to have an aura, almost as if they were lit from within.

 At this time of year it looks as if someone had traveled through the forest with a basket of green and silver feathers, hanging them on the branch tips of all the Beech trees (Fagus grandifolia.)

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness. ~Michelangelo

Thanks for coming by.

A Wider View

I apologize to those who came hoping to see snail’s tongues or some other minute wonder of nature, but every now and then I like to be standing up when I click the shutter, rather than lying in a prone position in the forest litter. A wider view is a little easier on the knees, which seem to creak and pop a little more now than they used to.

Sky and Telescope’s Sky Week program told me that I’d be able to see Saturn just above and to the left of the full moon last week and I saw what looked like a very bright star, but all my camera could see was the moon. I was happy to see that it had some yellow in it and had lost the harsh, white coldness of winter. Of course the moon doesn’t change color and was yellow only because I was seeing it through our atmosphere, but I kind of like this color. It feels warmer.

The sun was also playing color games. Last year corn was grown in this field and then last fall the farmer planted a cover crop of some kind. In the late afternoon sunshine it was such an impossible bright green color that I had to stop and get a picture of it. My color blindness cheating software tells me that it is yellow green.

I went to one of my favorite viewing spots in Marlborough, New Hampshire over the weekend to get a picture of Mount Monadnock. I don’t really need any more pictures of the mountain but I can’t seem to stop taking them.  When I was about 15 or so I foolishly thought that someday I would have made a list of every wildflower that grew on its flanks. I quickly realized that two lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to compile such a list.

 

I saw some fuzzy wild ginger leaves (Asarum canadense,) but no blossoms yet.

Once again I found a “late fall polypore” that didn’t know it was mid spring. This is Ischnoderma resinosum, whose common name is literally “Late Fall Polypore.” These are said to fruit on hardwood logs late in the year, but I wonder if temperature and day length isn’t a trigger for them. Days can have the same length and temperature in the spring as they do in fall and these seemed relatively fresh.

I expect trails to be muddy at times but this was ridiculous. Luckily there was plenty of room in a field off to the left so I could go around it.

It has been dry enough here to raise the brush fire danger to high. The water in the giant mud puddle in the previous photo went down so fast that the mud around the edges hadn’t even hardened when I saw it. Unfortunately frogs, counting on April showers that never came, miscalculated and didn’t lay their eggs deep enough to survive the lack of rain. Even nature makes an occasional mistake and in this case the price paid is fewer frogs in the forest, and that means more black flies and mosquitoes.

I stopped at a small pond hoping to see some frogs but all I saw were reflections and pollen.

I saw some colorful turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) but no turkeys.

 

Sometimes you have to climb a hill to see a mountain and that’s exactly what I had to do to see across the Connecticut River valley to Stratton Mountain in Vermont. On Sunday I climbed the hill known as “High Blue” in Walpole, New Hampshire. Whoever named this hill got it right because the view is always very blue. It has been quite warm so I was surprised to see snow still on the ski trails.

I’m seeing a lot of trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) flowers now. These are one of the most fragrant flowers in the forest, but since they grow so close to the ground you have to get down on your knees to smell them.  While I was down there smelling them I thought I’d get a picture too, so all of you who were betting that I couldn’t get through an entire post without at least one macro shot were right.

The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks for coming by.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I was going to do a post on spring ephemerals, but not all of the plants that follow are true spring ephemerals. Some plants however-even shrubs and trees-can have flowers that fit the definition of ephemeral, which is simply “lasting for a very short time.”

Our native bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis ) has just started blooming.  This is one of my favorite spring flowers. If we’re lucky and the temperatures don’t get too warm we might see two weeks of bloom.

 

A closer look at bloodroot. It’s hard to imagine a more beautiful or perfect flower.

 

Yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum ) has also just started blooming.  These flowers have three petals and three sepals. All are yellow on the inside but the sepals have brown / bronze on the outside. Trout lily blossoms open in the morning and close in the evening, so you have to time your visits accordingly. The place that I go to see them has many thousands of plants there and I’m hoping to see great masses of them all blooming at once this year.

 

Trout lilies might stand 5-6 inches tall so getting a peek inside the nodding flower can be difficult, but I always try. The flowers are pollinated by ants, so they don’t have to raise their faces to the sky.

The tiny pinkish white blossoms of trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) are also just starting to open. These are one of the most fragrant flowers in the woods and are the favorite of many a grandmother.  Mine called them mayflowers and she loved them. This plant isn’t a true ephemeral because its leaves appear year-round, but its flowers are fleeting.

 

Native fly honeysuckle (Lonicera Canadensis) is one of the earliest shrubs to blossom. Its greenish yellow flowers are interesting because of the way they are joined. The flowers give way to oval red fruits which are also joined, but don’t share a single ovary like those of partridgeberry. Each blossom lasts only one day. The National Park Service uses this small shrub quite a lot to improve wildlife habitat, but in my experience they are rarely seen in local forests.

 

 Spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) are going strong after a slow start. I’m hoping to see large masses of these soon. Depending on how quickly it warms up, these flowers might appear for only a week. I’ve noticed that they do not like hot weather.

 

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) is another plant that seems to dislike hot weather. Dryness is also a potential problem for spring ephemerals as the wilting stems in this photo show. We haven’t had the usual April showers here this spring, so we might be in for a dry summer.

 

I think I’ve had more trouble getting a decent picture of American elm (Ulmus Americana) flowers than I ever have with any other flower. I know of only one tree with flowers on it and every time I go near it either the light isn’t right or the wind is blowing a gale. I’m going to keep trying but meanwhile this shot will have to do.

Ferns may not fit anyone’s description of ephemeral, but anyone who has tried to find the spring shoots, called fiddleheads, knows that it isn’t long before they have turned into fully formed fronds. We’ve had some warm weather recently and in just the last few days ferns have suddenly started growing fast. I think the ferns pictured are common ladyferns (Athyrium filix-femina.)

 

 Our native bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are always a welcome sight in spring but they usually come up in lawns so they get mowed off before they mature. In my lawn they have time to mature though, because I mow around them. These tiny flowers usually range from white to pale blue, but every now and then a clump of darker blue can be found. These were growing beside a road. Though bluets are categorized as ephemerals in some books I’ve seen them blooming throughout summer in cool, shaded areas.

 

Red trillium (Trillium erectum) has many common names. Some call it purple trillium and some flowers seem to be more purple than red, like the plum colored one in this photo was.  Another common name is wake robin, because the flowers are supposed to appear at the same time as robins do. Yet another name is stinking Benjamin, and I remembered why it had that name when I was taking this photo-phew! Red trilliums are pollinated by flies and one scent that is attractive to flies is rotting meat, and that’s what they smell like. It’s a beautiful sight, but don’t stand down wind.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.~Annonymous

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