More From The Wetlands

This post is kind of a continuation of the last. I’m still spending time walking through what is really a huge wetland area, and of course I’m seeing many things which like that kind of environment. This particular visit started off quite foggy, but this photo was taken just as the fog began to break. You can still see it; gray and soft off in the distance.

These weren’t raindrops; they were condensed fog drops. It was that kind of morning.

This place is a place of water drainage and every now and then all that water drains into a low spot and becomes a pond, and they are always full of life. I’ve seen beavers, snapping turtles, great blue herons, and too many smaller birds to name here. Right now the yellow bullhead pond lilies are blooming and for the first time I’ve seen a strange thing happenig; some type of bird flies down and lands on a leaf and then hops from leaf to leaf. I think the birds that do this are red winged blackbirds but I can’t be sure yet. Whatever the birds are, they must be looking for insects.  

One of the smaller birds I met at the pond was a Kingbird, which is an amazing acrobat. It is one of the flycatcher clan. It would find a good perch and sit for a bit and then it would be off, swooping high and low and left and right before coming back to the same perch, much like a dragonfly would. That means it’s easy to anticipate where it will land and get set up for a shot of it but even so, without a tripod this was the best I could do. According to what I’ve read Kingbirds get their name from how aggressively they defend their territory, even against hawks. They are king of the hill in birdville and they have no fear of anything, humans included. Its scientific name Tyrannus tyrannus even hints at it being a bit of a tyrant, but they landed and perched near me many times as if I wasn’t even there. I watched this one catch dragonflies in mid air, which it once did so close to me I could have touched it.

Out went the wings, up came the feet and like a rocket this bird was gone so fast I didn’t even know it had left. This shot was taken purely by accident; when I clicked the shutter I think the bird was still sitting on the branch. Since plants don’t fly away I don’t need stop action camera settings so it’s just a blur. Luckily I’m not out to win any photography awards; I’m just here to show you the beauty of nature and this shot, even though blurry, shows you something not often seen. Between my old beater camera that I’ve fallen on too many times to count and my cataract dimmed eyes I’m lucky to be able to post any photos at all, so I can’t complain.

I was happy to find the oval leaves of floating pond weed floating just off shore. That meant that, though I couldn’t reach them, I could get a close look at the plant’s small, cigar shaped flower heads.

This is a better shot than I’ve ever gotten from a wave rocked kayak. I think you can just get a side glimpse of a couple of the tiny white flowers toward the top, but the rest had all gone to seed already. At least, that’s what I think this shows. If nothing else it shows the seed head, which is something you don’t see every day. Another thing you don’t see is the plant’s second set of leaves, which are grass like and stay underwater.

I was leaving the pond when this cute little thing flew past and landed on this leaf in front of me, just as you see it here. It was if it was saying “I’m ready for my photo shoot,” so here it is. Google lens says it’s a common ringlet butterfly. I looked at other examples online and it seems to be a match. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen one before; at first I thought it was a cabbage white but once I saw it on the computer I saw that there really wasn’t a lot of white on it.

For a long time I had read and heard about the wonderful scent of our beautiful fragrant white water lily but since they were always offshore just out of reach, I doubted I’d ever smell them. After all, how can you smell a flower you can’t get near? I had given up the thought of ever smelling them until one day a few years ago I walked around a pond with hundreds of them growing in it, looking for that perfect photo, when a breeze blew across the pond. Here was the delicate, fruity scent of hundreds of these beautiful flowers, as light as the breeze that carried it, and it was wonderful.

George Washington loved orchard grass because, he said: “Orchard grass of all others is in my opinion the best mixture with clover; it blooms precisely at the same time, rises quick again after cutting, stands thick, yields well, and both cattle and horses are fond of it green or in hay.” I like it because of its simple beauty. It will slowly turn purple as it ripens and become even more beautiful.

Nature is always full of surprises; that’s one thing you can count on. How, I wondered, could I have spent the better part of 60+ years outside, and even walked by this very spot for at least two decades and not seen this grass? It’s all about being in the right place at the right time, and apparently I’ve just never been here when this grass was flowering. It is called June grass, and it’s beautiful. If nothing else this illustrates why it’s a good idea to walk the same places again and again. Nature is in a state of constant change so you can’t expect to walk a trail once and think you’ve seen all there is to see.

I’ve wondered for a long time if I was seeing sheep laurel or bog laurel. The keys to identification I read weren’t really clear, and to make matters worse sheep laurel is able to grow in bogs, and bog laurel can grow on dry land. But then I found clarity: sheep laurel leaves have a stem, called a petiole, which attaches them to the main stem. Also, 3 leaves usually form a whorl around them stem. Bog laurel leaves have no leaf stem; they are sessile on the main stem and two leaves grow opposite each other. Sessile means no petiole or leaf stem. So, all of that is a long winded way to say the beautiful flowers in this shot belong to sheep laurel.

Thanks to the Maine Natural History Observatory for clearing that up.

This little mother wood duck seems to be wearing a joyful expression but the actual moment was quite different. I was walking a trail around a pond when she came gliding out of the woods and landed off shore. Then she swam in circles, whistling and hooting loudly, as if frightened. Soon I saw why; 7 or 8 little ducklings swam out from some pickerel weeds very near where I had just been walking. I walked right by them without seeing them and wouldn’t have done more than take a photo if I had, but their mother didn’t know that and she was about as agitated as a bird could be. They all swam off while I stood there watching, and it happened so fast I never did get a good shot of the ducklings.

Female wood ducks don’t quack; they kind of whistle or squeak with an urgent sound that’s very hard, if not impossible to describe. It’s also one of those sounds that, once heard you don’t forget. It’s easily found online if you’re interested.

I was thinking as I looked at this shot of a tachinid fly how, if I had taken it in a cemetery I could have said “fly on the family stone” but since it wasn’t, I won’t. It landed on a stone in a stone wall and walked around in circles as if looking for something. It might have been on the trail of a caterpillar, because they lay eggs on young caterpillars. The eggs hatch and the fly larvae begin to drink the “blood” of the caterpillar. That means the caterpillar won’t go on to become what it should have. Some call this fly the enemy of butterflies for that reason but I see it simply doing what it has evolved to do. That’s what it does and it really doesn’t matter what we think about it; nature doesn’t know or care about good or bad.

I saw another large clump of yellow irises along the river bank, so this makes two now in this general area. This is an iris from Europe that is quite aggressive. I found a small pond once that was absolutely choked with them so there wasn’t even room for cattails to grow there. I’m not sure what the plants get out of growing so thickly that they starve themselves enough to stop flowering, but that seems to be what they do.

But there is no denying the unique beauty of this iris. The featureless background in this shot is the river itself, but it looks like I was holding a gray card behind the flower. I’ve never seen this happen but we’ve had some strange light, what with smoke from wildfires and lots of clouds, so I was happy to get a shot at all.

Maiden pinks can now be seen blooming just about everywhere, usually in the color seen above or in white. Originally from Europe, they escaped cultivation almost immediately but they aren’t terribly invasive. They like dry, hot, sandy soil in waste places and that’s where I find them. The name “pinks” is supposed to come from pinking shears, which leave a serrated cut in cloth that is similar to what is seen on its petals, but since the flowers must have come along much earlier than the shears, I question that theory.

But anyhow, if you like them there are garden cultivars sold under the name “pinks” which can be found at any nursery. One old red flowered variety is called “flashing lights.” It’s a name I’ve always thought was appropriate for these little flowers. I see them flashing just about everywhere I go.

Orange isn’t a common color in nature where I live so it’s always nice to see orange hawkweed coming into bloom. It isn’t anywhere near as common as yellow hawkweed but I’ve seen it a few times lately.

The flowers of this plant grow on long thin stems (pedicels) and dance in the slightest hint of a breeze, and for that reason it was named fawn’s breath. Native Americans used the powdered root as a laxative and for that reason it is also called American ipecac. That takes a bit of the sweetness away from the name fawn’s breath, but that’s the way it is. It’s a beautiful thing unless you eat it, then any thoughts of beauty might just go down the drain.

A pretty, native wild honeysuckle that blooms after all the invasive honeysuckles have finished is glaucous honeysuckle. It is also called limber honeysuckle and I can understand why, because its long branches are so limber they flop on the ground rather than stand up. “Glaucous” means blue green in color, or covered by the natural, powdery bluish wax called “bloom.” The leaves are bluish green and the stems have the same bluish powdery bloom that blueberries have, so the name fits perfectly. It likes well drained, constantly moist soil and I find it growing in gravel at the base of a small hill. This plant is the only one I’ve ever found.

The pretty flowers of glaucous honeysuckle shout honeysuckle. I haven’t seen a true native honeysuckle flower yet that didn’t have that big red, mushroom headed pistil, and here it is on these flowers. What beautiful color both the flowers and flower buds have.

Every time I see Canada anemones bloom I think back to a woman who had just bought a house and had heard about me from others in the neighborhood and wanted to meet me. As we stood in her yard one day talking and planning she made it clear that if I were to be her gardener under no circumstances would I plant anemones. Of course I had to ask about the white flowers we stood beside which were in fact anemones, but they didn’t bother her. Though I worked for her for many years I never did find out why anemones bothered her, or even which anemones she was thinking of. Since she had been in the foreign service and had lived all over the world, they could have been anything.

Called one of the most invasive weeds worldwide, creeping thistle plants are shoots that grow from an extensive network of long, thick, underground roots. Trying to pull the plants just breaks them off the underground root and new plants soon take their place. Mowing all the above ground growth just makes the roots spread more, and they can spread as much as 10 feet in a season. The plant is originally from Europe but is also called Canada thistle. Its leaves have sharp spines all along the edges so just holding on to them on a windy day to get a photo is a challenge. I’ve taken photos of its flowers for years but this year I noticed how beautiful its buds were. As pretty as it is though, you don’t want this one growing in your yard.

I hadn’t seen any caterpillars yet so from a distance I was surprised to see what I thought were tent caterpillars swarming all over a stick. When I got closer I saw that it was instead a dead weed. But what a beautiful weed. I called it Rapunzel. It reminded me once again how there is beauty everywhere you care to look on this earth. Climb a hill, step behind a tree, dig a hole or roll over a log; no matter what you do or where you do it you will surely find beauty there.

To illustrate what I said about beauty being everywhere; I happened upon a spot where someone had lifted a log from the forest floor and revealed this bright orange mushroom mycelium that had been growing under it. I thought it was a very beautiful color, and so unexpected it stopped me in my tracks. It helps I think, to know that much of the beauty of life is found in small, seemingly insignificant things that might appear at any moment as you move slowly through nature. Even a pebble can sometimes be as beautiful as a jewel, so don’t just look; open your mind and heart and really see. Perceive the beauty of life using all of your senses. These wonders are all around us. It’s all there, just waiting for us to find it.

Green was the silence, wet was the light;
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.
~Pablo Neruda

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Late June Flowers

It wouldn’t be summer without black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) and here they are, right on schedule. I’ve noticed over the past few years though, that they have seemed to bloom earlier each year and what was once July has now become June. Since I’ve always thought of them as a fall flower, their early arrival always comes with mixed feelings. Cheery yes, but let’s not rush into fall, has been my main gripe. At least this year they waited a bit.

This plant was always believed to have been given its common name by English colonists, but that caused a real conundrum among botanists who all agreed that it was a prairie native. Though everyone still agrees that it is a prairie native, recent research has shown that it was growing in Maryland in the 1600s. In other words it was most likely growing in all parts of the country then, just as it does today.

One day probably 40 years ago a kind man who was the director of the MacDowell artist’s colony in Peterborough at the time told me if I could name the plants that made up his hedge, he’d hire me as his gardener. I got the job, and I think of him and that day we stood on his lawn every time I see a purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus.) It is in the rose family and at a glance you might think you were seeing a rose, until you saw the big maple shaped, light gathering leaves that allow it to grow in shade. The 2 inch diameter flowers always look like they need ironing, so that’s another hint that what you’re seeing isn’t a rose

Our native dogwoods are starting to bloom and I think this one is a gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa). Gray dogwoods are large shrubs that can get 12-15 feet tall and at least as wide. Its flowers become white, single seeded berries (drupes) on red stems (pedicels) that are much loved by many different birds. Most of our native dogwoods like soil that is constantly moist and can be found along the edges of ponds, rivers, and streams.

Shrub dogwoods can be difficult to identify at times but gray dogwood flowers clusters tend to mound up in the center enough to appear triangular, and other dogwoods have flower clusters that are much flatter. Both gray and red osier dogwoods (Cornus sericea) have white berries. Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum) has berries that start white, have a period of blue and white, and then finally ripen to blue.

One of my favorite “weeds” is crown vetch (Securigera varia). It is in the pea family and was imported from Europe and Asia for soil erosion control. The long, wiry vines can be found along roadsides and in fields, and I’ve even found it in forest clearings. This plant is toxic and has killed horses, so you might want to watch along roadsides before you let your horse stop for a snack.

Crown vetch is very beautiful, in my opinion. Each flower head looks like a bouquet of orchids. All flowers make me glad I’ve found them but some go beyond that and absorb all that I am for a time, and this is one of those. It’s such a beautiful place to get lost in.

I found knapweed growing near the crown vetch, which seems right considering it was also imported to stop soil erosion on roadsides. That’s where it grew in great numbers, but the plants had just started blooming. I think this is brown knapweed (Centaurea jacea) but I could be wrong. The plant is very invasive in some states but this particular colony of plants has been here for years and really hasn’t grown any larger.

Since they grew in a small weed patch in back of our house hedge bindweeds (Calystegia sepium) have been with me my entire life, but not this one. The ones I grew up with were pure white, but now most of those I see are pink and white like this one. It doesn’t really matter what color it is though because these blooms are in my genes. They played a large part in my lifelong love of flowers. I’d watch them open, watch which insects visited them and how they twined around the other plants, and for a while it seemed that I knew them better than I knew myself. That’s why I often call a flower or plant an old friend; because they really are.

St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) on the other hand, is a plant that I can’t call an old friend because I never saw it until I became a gardener and started working over in Peterborough. Just 20 miles away they had it, but we here in Keene didn’t, or at least I never saw it. It seems to be one of those plants which, like pokeweed,  just kind of snuck in unnoticed but are now everywhere you go. I’m sure if they had been here when I was a boy I would have seen such a pretty flower. I got around, always in a ditch or pond or meadow somewhere, and I was always watching for new plants.

Tall thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana) gets its common name from the way its seed head grows into a shape and size that resembles a thimble. It’s a pretty flower that isn’t real common here, but I do see it now and then. They are about and inch across and are easy to miss once the white sepals have fallen off. Eventually they’ll release white cottony seeds to the wind. I’ve read that Native Americans burned the seed heads to revive the unconscious, but I don’t know how true it is. Like all plants in the anemone family it is toxic and can burn the mouth and throat if eaten.

I saw more lupines blooming beautifully on a roadside, along with many other flowers.

A smooth rose (Rosa blanda) grew by a road that ran through a cemetery. It is a native rose with almost thornless stems. It’s very pretty and has a nice fragrance, and I would have liked it in my yard.

Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) is a plant I haven’t seen for probably 40 years or more but I found this one in a public garden recently. It’s a very pretty flower that reminds me of an ox-eye daisy but it is much smaller. According to Mount Sanai hospital “This member of the daisy family has been used for centuries to treat headaches, arthritis, and problems with labor and childbirth. Ancient Greek physicians used it to reduce inflammation and treat menstrual cramps. Although it was once used to treat fevers, as its name suggests, it was not very effective. It is now used to prevent migraine headaches, and several scientific studies suggest that it works well for that purpose.” I’m always fascinated by the uses plants have but I’m even more fascinated by how the use was discovered. How do you reach the point where you say well, this plant has a nasty odor and tastes bitter and might kill me, but I have the worst headache I’ve ever had so I’m going to make tea out of it? There are very many plants (and fungi) which could make that cup of tea the last one a person ever had. Did they draw straws? Short straw gets to drink?

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is another plant that can cure or kill. Or at least, the compounds in it can. I’ve had the plant in my gardens forever and it has never hurt a fly. It’s all in how you use them, and if you happen to have cardiac arrhythmia, the digoxin made from the plant could save your life. Digitalis  means finger-like and speaks of the shape of the flowers. I’ve read that herbalists used to, back in the 1700s, pick and dry the leaves and then rub them down into a fine green powder, which could then be used in an infusion to treat many ailments. But I wouldn’t play around with doing that, because it is a very toxic plant that has been known to kill. I just watch the colony that I have in the back yard grow each year and enjoy seeing them. Sometimes I even stick my finger in one, just to see if it fits.

Whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) is our second native yellow loosestrife to bloom, coming right on the heels of swamp candles. At about a foot tall it isn’t much taller than swamp candles but it is bushier. This plant doesn’t have as much of a need for water as swamp candles but I’ve seen it near water occasionally. Its common name comes from the way its leaves are whorled about the stem, meaning each group of four leaves all radiate about the stem in the same plane. If you picture looking at the edge of a plate while holding it parallel to the floor, that is what you see with whorled leaves. Four small yellow flowers grow out of the four leaf axils. It’s a pretty plant, especially when massed as they often are.

The old orange “ditch lilies” (Hemerocallis fulva) have come into bloom. This daylily is so common I see it everywhere I go, including in roadside ditches, and that’s where the common name comes from. It is one of those plants that were passed from neighbor to neighbor and spread quickly because of it. Today it is one of those plants that new homeowners go out and dig up when they can’t afford to buy plants for their gardens. It was introduced into the United States from Asia in the late 1800s for use as an ornamental and plant breeders have now registered over 40,000 cultivars, all of which have “ditch lily” genes.

Just after I said that I never saw mock orange (Philadelphus) anymore I saw one on the roadside. This is a very old-fashioned shrub that gets its common name from its wonderful fragrance, which smells like citrus. No yard should be without one in my opinion, but it seems to have fallen out of favor. I have a huge old example that bloomed beautifully but I had to move it and all it has done since is sulked. Normally they are a care free, plant it and forget it kind of shrub that can give many years of pleasure without asking for anything in return.

I’ve wondered for years now whether this campion is a true rose campion or if it is a white campion (Silene latifolia) with a pink blush. I’m fairly certain it is a blushing white campion but I’ve never really known for sure. In either case it’s a pretty flower.

I saw a scabiosa blooming in a local garden, trying to entice insects. It’s a busy but beautiful thing.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) is also called creeping thistle, but it is also called cursed thistle, mainly because of its deep and extensive creeping root system. The plant is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold and for that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states. It isn’t considered invasive here in New Hampshire but it is on the watch list. Wherever I’ve found them growing, they haven’t spread at all. I think the flowers are pretty, but I’m not the one trying to dig them out of my pasture.

I saw one of the smallest violas I’ve ever seen. It couldn’t have been any bigger than an aspirin, and it had just a blush of blue on it.

These are some roadside flowers that caught my eye. They are all lowly weeds and none is native but if you can put all that aside and just love them for what they are you’ll enjoy the outdoors a lot more.

Finally, because I won’t get another flower post in before the 4th of July, I thought I’d show you some of nature’s fireworks in the form of flowers. The male blossoms of tall meadow rue (Thalictrum pubescens) always remind me of “bombs bursting in air.” I hope everyone will have a safe and happy 4th.

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

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More Mid September Flowers

Each year summer goes out with a bang here in this corner of New Hampshire, and this is how some of our roadsides look now; full of several kinds of asters and goldenrods. Welcome to fall.

There were lots of what I believe were purple-stemmed asters (Symphyotrichum puniceum) along that road. They like damp places and branch at the tops of their stems. The stems are often very dark purple as can be seen in this photo, and that’s where the common name comes from.

This is also one of the best places I know of to find my favorite aster, the deep purple New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae.) It’s a hard one to find in this region for some reason, but it loves this small hillside.

I went from the roadside to brookside at Beaver Brook. There is a flower growing here that doesn’t grow anywhere else that I’ve been.

Blue stemmed goldenrod (Solidago caesia) appears early in summer but waits until September to bloom. Its stems grow vertically until the flowers begin to open and then fall over into a more horizontal position, as if to show off the yellow blooms that grow in tufts all along the stem.

The stems of blue stemmed goldenrod get their blue color from the same natural wax coating that is found on grapes, plums, blueberries and other plants. The coating is called a “bloom” and plants use it as a form of protection against moisture loss. It’s made up of tiny powdery, whitish crystals which reflect and scatter light in ways that can make the surface that they cover appear very blue. The wax crystals can be washed off by rain or melted by the sun, so many stems will be green before the plant blooms. This plant tolerates shade and seems to prefer places where it will only get two or three hours of sunlight. It isn’t considered rare but I’ve only seen it here.

White rattlesnake root (Prenanthes alba) also blooms at Beaver Brook. This plant gets its common name from the Native American belief that it could cure rattlesnake bites. The small, drooping white, lily like blossoms bloom at the top of stems that might reach 5 feet. They move in the slightest breeze and are quite hard to get a good shot of. I like the forked stamens that are often as long as the flower petals.

Northern bugleweed (Lycopus uniflorus) has opposite leaves that turn 90 degrees to the previous pair as they make their way up the square stem. The leaves are sessile, meaning they sit directly on the stem with no leaf stem (petiole,) or they can occasionally have a short petiole as these did. Tufts of very small white flowers grow around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant likes wet places and, since there are many different species of Lycopus, it can be hard to identify.

The tiny flowers of northern bugleweed are about 1/8 inch long and tubular with 4 lobes, a light green calyx with 5 teeth, 2 purple tipped stamens, and a pistil. They are also very difficult to photograph because they’re so small. The plant is usually about knee high when I find it along the edges of ponds and streams. They often fall over and grow at an angle if there aren’t any other plants nearby to support them.

This is what bugle weed’s seed pods look like when they’re forming. When ripe they will be brown and have clusters of four nutlets formed the shape of a square. Each nutlet will hold a single seed.

I was surprised to find a violet blooming at the edge of the woods. This is a flower I’d expect to see blooming with tulips, not with asters.

This garden aster, which I once hoped was a fragrant aster, is very slow to come along this year…

…but the bees are getting what they can from it nonetheless.

It’s time to say goodbye to coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea,) from what I’ve seen. The petals that haven’t fallen taken on that papery, pastel look that means they’ll fall too, soon. You can also see how yellow their foliage is getting in this photo.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a sedum do what this one was doing. Usually the plants I see have much smaller flowers. I like its foamy, fuzzy look.

Red is a color that cameras don’t like but I was able to get a shot of this red phlox with my phone camera. Many cameras want to turn red into purple but that usually isn’t a problem unless you see a lot of red flowers. I haven’t seen a red phlox in many years. I wish I had sniffed to see if it had a fragrance.

I thought this was another willowleaf angelonia (Angelonia salicariifolia) growing in a local garden but it doesn’t have the right leaf shape, so now I’m not sure what it is. It grew in a pot and stood maybe a foot tall. The flowers were very pretty and looked just like those I saw recently on a willowleaf angelonia, I thought.

When I posted a shot of a rudbeckia that I found in a local garden a while ago a reader thought it might be a gallardia instead. In my reply I said that I had grown gallardia for a client probably forty years ago and had found them to be a disappointment, but then I got thinking that my opinion wasn’t a fair one and maybe I should see what galardia are like these days. Maybe, I thought, they have come a long way. Well, maybe not. I found these plants in another local garden and remembered why they had been so disappointing; they never seem to open. Every time I’ve seen them, they have looked like this, as if opening fully was just too much work. When I saw them, I remembered that being the chief complaint of the lady I was gardening for at the time. “Next time” she asked, “could we get flowers that open?” Before I wrote this, I looked online and saw beautiful flowers fully opened, so I wonder what am I missing?

NOTE: Helpful readers have told me that these plants are gazania rather than gaillardia. I believe that I tried both back in the day when I was a gardener and I don’t remember being too impressed by either one. But it could be that they’ve improved a lot in the past 30-40 years, so why not give them a try?

The yellow fall blooming azalea I find in a local public garden at about this time of year also blooms in spring, I discovered this past spring. I don’t know its name but it seems that an azalea that blooms in both spring and fall would be a valuable addition to any garden.

What Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) lacks in flower size it more than makess up for in root size. Its roots can spread 20 feet in a single season and pieces of broken root will produce new plants, and for that reason it is taken care of quickly by farmers. As thistles go its flowers are small; less than a half inch across, even though the plant itself can reach 5 feet tall. The leaves are very prickly. It is native to Europe and Asia and has nothing to do with Canada except as an invasive plant, so I’m not sure how it came by the name.

Years ago I bought a bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora,) which is a native shrub. It does well in the understory and prefers partial shade so I planted it between two trees to use as a screen to screen out the neighbor’s yard beyond. Ten yeas or so later that shrub probably hasn’t grown six inches taller than it was when I planted it. But it has gotten wider, and it does flower, as this photo shows. I suppose I should count my blessings, because there is one at the local college and it is huge. If mine got half that size, it would have to come out, so I should be happy. Its leaves turn a beautiful yellow in fall, so I’m looking forward to that. 

Bottlebrush buckeyes produce nuts, I found recently when I visited the one at the local college. It blooms two months earlier than mine and it has these nuts all over it. The nuts are called buckeyes because they are said to resemble the eye of a male deer. I don’t see the resemblance but I did find out that the plant is related to the horse chestnut and its nuts are poisonous if eaten, as are the leaves and bark. The seeds inside the husks contain high quantities of saponins, I’ve read. Saponins make a good soap substitute, so if soap is the next thing I can’t find at the local market I’ll be all set.

Here are more of those roadside flowers, for your viewing pleasure. I hope you have scenes just like this where you are.

Silently a flower blooms,
In silence it falls away;
Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
The world of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming.
This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom:
The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.
~ Zenkei Shibayama

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Mid July Flowers

There wasn’t room in my last post on aquatics to include them all, but there are many other pond side plants blooming at this time of year. One of the prettiest is meadow sweet (Spirea alba.) This plant likes moist ground and I have found it near water more often than not but I’ve seen it in drier spots as well.

Meadowsweet flowers have long stamens that always make them look kind of fuzzy. Some people confuse this plant, which is a shrub, with steeplebush (Spiraea tomentosa), which is also a shrub, but steeplebush has pink flowers and the undersides of its leaves are silvery-white, while the undersides of meadowsweet leaves are green.

Meadowsweet is in the spirea family so I thought I’d show you this pink spirea I found in a local garden so you could see the resemblance. It also looks fuzzy because of the many stamens.  

Our native common elderberry bushes (Sambucus nigra canadensis) are blooming and can be seen dotted around the landscape, especially near brooks and streams, or swamps as this one was. Its mounded shape and flattish, off white flower heads make it very easy to identify, even from a distance.

Common elderberry flower clusters look similar to Queen Anne’s lace. Each flower is tiny at only 1/4 inch across, and has 5 white petals or lobes, 5 yellow tipped stamens and 3 very small styles that fall off early after blooming. Each flower will be replaced by a single black (dark purple) drupe. A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a single seed like a peach or cherry. Native Americans dried the fruit for winter use and soaked the berry stems in water to make a black dye for basketry.

Blue, bell shaped flowers all on one side of the stem can mean only one thing; creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides.) The pretty flowered plant was introduced as an ornamental from Europe and has escaped gardens to usually live in dry, shaded places but it will also grow in full sun. It is a late bloomer but is usually finished by the time the goldenrods have their biggest flush of bloom. It is considered an invasive plant in some places because it is hard to get rid of once it has become established. It can choke out weaker native plants if it is left alone. It isn’t considered invasive here in New Hampshire though, and in fact I usually have to look for quite a while to find it. When I do it is usually growing on forest edges.

Purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is in the rose family and it isn’t hard to tell by the flowers, but the big light gathering leaves look more like a maple than a rose. The big leaves give it a certain tolerance for low light, and that’s how it can grow in the shade so well. The fruit looks like a giant raspberry, about the size of the tip of your thumb. I’ve heard that it is close to tasteless but some say if you put a berry on the very tip of your tongue it will be delicious. I keep forgetting to try it.

A couple of years ago I found a small colony of long leaf speedwell (Veronica longifolia.) I’m happy to say there are more blossoms this year. I’ve never seen it growing in the wild until I found it here. It’s a pretty plant that is native to Europe and China and grows on steppes, grassy mountain slopes, meadows at forest edges and birch forests. Here in the U.S. it is commonly found in gardens but it has obviously escaped. It certainly doesn’t seem to be aggressive or invasive. I love its showy blue flower spikes.

Each tiny long leaf speedwell blossom is purple–blue or occasionally white, about a quarter inch across and 4 lobed with quite a long tube. Each has 2 stamens and a single pistil. Another very similar plant is Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) but culver’s root doesn’t grow naturally in New Hampshire.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows, usually in large colonies. This plant isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

I found this Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) in the tall grass from under a tree and was surprised to see it at two feet tall. They don’t always grow in the same large clumps as their cousins the maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) do, but I saw a few this day. They also don’t have the same bold, jagged, deep maroon ring near their center as maiden pinks do, and that’s a good means of identification. Both plants are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation. Maiden pinks seem to prefer open lawns and meadows while Deptford pinks hide their beautiful little faces in the sunny edges of the forest.

An irrigation system was put in a local park last year and a bed where Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis) grew was completely dug up. Since that is the only place I’ve ever seen it I doubted I would see it again, but this year there must have been a dozen plants where before there were two. That tells me it must grow from root cuttings, much like phlox does. I was happy to see so many because it is rare here. When I saw photos of the flower I thought it would be as big as a tradescantia blossom but it is only half that size. It is an introduced plant from China and Japan but it could hardly be called invasive because I’ve seen maybe 10 blossoms in 60+ years. I’d like to see more of them; I love that shade of blue.

Arrowleaf tearthumb (Polygonum sagittatum) is in the smartweed family, which gets its common name from the way your tongue will smart if you eat its peppery parts. Though the flower buds in this family of plants seem like they never open they do, sort of. They look like they only open about halfway though and I find the buds as pretty as the blossoms. This plant is a kind of rambler / sprawler that winds its way over nearby plants so it can get as much sunshine as possible. It often grows in deep shade but it will also grow in full sun, so it has covered all the bases.

Tearthumb got that name because it will indeed tear your thumb or any other body part that comes into contact with it. Many a gardener has regretted trying to pull it up without gloves on, because when the small but sharp barbs (prickles, botanically) along its stems slip through your hand they act like a saw and make you sorry that you ever touched it. They point down toward the soil so when you pull up on it you get a nasty surprise. The plant uses these prickles for support when it climbs over other plants, and they work well. Sometimes the stems and prickles are red but in this example they were green. Tearthumb is considered a wetland indicator because it likes to grow in very moist to wet soil. I almost always find it near water, often blooming quite late into summer.

Last year I found a place where quite a lot of Carolina horse nettle (Solanum carolinense) grew and I was surprised because it’s a plant that I’ve never seen anywhere before.  From what I’ve read it is not a true nettle, but instead is a member of the nightshade family. The flowers have five petals and are usually white or purple with yellow centers. There is a blue variant that resembles the tomato flower, which makes sense since tomatoes are also in the nightshade family. The flowers have no scent but the foliage has a certain odor that I find disagreeable.

Horse nettle’s stem and undersides of larger leaf veins are covered with spines and I can attest to their sharpness. It’s hard to grab it anywhere and I’ve been pricked by it several times just trying to turn a leaf over. This plant is native to our southern states, so why it is growing here is a mystery. It seems to like where it grows; there must be 30-40 plants growing there. I can see its spreading becoming a real problem.

You wouldn’t think that you’d get pricked by something that looks as soft and furry as motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) but the seedpods are actually quite sharp and prickly. The small furry white to light purple flowers are easy to miss. At a glance this plant might resemble one of the nettle family but the square stems show it to be in the mint family. The tiny flowers grow in a whorl around the stem in the leaf axils. This plant, originally from Asia, is considered an invasive weed but I don’t see it that often and I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 2 or 3 plants growing together.  It was brought to this country because of its long history of medicinal use in Europe and Asia. The ancient Greeks and Romans used motherwort medicinally and it is still used today to decrease nervous irritability and quiet the nervous system. There is supposed to be no better herb for strengthening and gladdening the heart, and it is sold in powdered and liquid form. I find it along roads and in fields.

Maleberry shrubs (Lyonia ligustrina) line the shores of the ponds and rivers along with blueberries, and sometimes it can be hard to tell the two apart. The flowers of maleberrry, though nearly the same shape and color, are about half the size of a blueberry flower and the shrub blooms about a month later. There are often berries on the blueberries before maleberrry blossoms.

Maleberry blossoms become small, hard brown 5 part seed capsules that persist on the plant, often for over a year. They make maleberrry very easy to identify, especially in spring; just look for the seed capsules and you’ll know it isn’t a blueberry. This is one of a very few plants which I can’t find a Native American use for, but I’d bet they had one.

Spreading dogbane’s (Apocynum androsaemifolium) bell shaped flowers are very fragrant and I love to smell then when I can find one without an insect in it. They’re also very pretty, with faint pink stripes on the inside. They remind me of lily of the valley flowers but are quite a lot larger.

Spreading dogbane is toxic to both dogs and humans, but insects love it. It’s closely related to milkweeds and has milky sap like they do. Monarch butterflies drink the nectar but I rarely see one on them. Though it is an herbaceous perennial its growth habit makes it look like a 3 foot tall shrub. The Apocynum part of its scientific name means “away from dog.” Not only dogs but most other animals avoid it because of its toxic sap.

I really do hate to say it but goldenrod is blooming already. Is it happening earlier each year or is it my imagination? In any event for me no other flowers except maybe asters whisper so loudly of the coming fall. Actually I love fall, it’s what comes after that I’m not looking forward to. When I was a boy summer seemed to stretch on almost without end but now it seems to pass almost in the wink of an eye.

Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slanted yellow light.
~Paul Monette

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More Late September Flowers

I wish I could say our roadsides looked like this right now but no, this is a garden aster that grows in a local park. I don’t know its name but it’s a huge plant with many hundreds of beautiful blossoms. The wild ones come close but they aren’t anywhere near as compact and bushy.

Here again is that hillside full of flowers that I drive by every morning. It’s hard not to take too many photos of something so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful time of year, when the wildflowers go out with a bang.

I happened to drive through the company parking lot where I worked years ago and found these New England asters and many other plants growing up through the cracks in the asphalt paving. The owners of the building and grounds have been looking for a buyer for years with no takers, and now the place looks all but abandoned. As nature often does it saw a blank canvas and wanted to fill it with color. I sometimes parked my car right where these grew.

Most jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) plants are finished for the season but I still see plants blooming away here and there. There are still plenty of pollinators about too, and I’m sure they’re happy to see more flowers blooming. This plant typically blossoms right up until a frost but as day length shortens the plants will produce smaller, closed flowers with no petals and no nectar. They self-pollinate and their sole purpose is to produce plenty of seeds.

And they have produced plenty of seeds. Right now I see far more of these seedpods on jewelweed than I do flowers. They look like little pea pods.

And if you touch those seedpods this is what happens. This plant gets its common name touch me not from the way its seed pods snap and release the seeds at the slightest touch. The edible seeds can fly as far as 4 feet. Other names include orange Jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, and orange balsam.  The name “jewel weed” comes from the way that raindrops sparkle on its wax coated leaves.

Pee Gee hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) blossoms are turning into their fall pink and when that is done they will go to brown. Eventually each flower petal will start to disintegrate and for a short time will look like stained glass. If cut at the pink stage however, the color will hold for quite a long time. These huge blossom heads dry well and make excellent dried flower arrangements.

A story I’ve told here before is how there was a time when all red clover (Trifolium pretense) plants meant to me was more hard work. I didn’t like having to weed it out of lawns and garden beds but it was so unsightly with its long, weak flower stems and sprawling, weedy habit. And then one evening a single ray of sunshine came through the clouds and fell directly on a red clover plant at the edge of a meadow, and when I knelt in front of it to take its photo for the first time I saw how beautiful it really was. I saw that it had an inner light; what I think of as the light of creation, shining brightly out at me. I’ve loved it ever since, and since that day I don’t think I’ve ever truly thought of another flower, no matter how lowly, as a weed.

Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) were cultivated by Native Americans for thousands of years for their tuberous roots, which they cooked and ate much like we do potatoes. They are said to be starchy with a nutty flavor and they were immediately adopted by the early settlers. The tubers have fewer calories than potatoes and the plant’s carbohydrates and sugars can be assimilated by the digestive tract without insulin. This makes them an excellent choice for diabetics. I used to dig them for clients of mine that grew them for food and I’ll never forget how very tall these plants can be.

Shaggy soldier (Galinsoga quadriradiata) still blooms prolifically. How this plant got from Mexico to New Hampshire is anyone’s guess, but it seems to love it here. People however, do not love seeing it; everyone agrees that it’s a weed, even in its native Mexico. The plant is also called common quick weed or Peruvian daisy and is common in gardens, where it can reduce crop yields by as much as half if left to its own devices.

Shaggy soldier has tiny flowers that are about 3/8 of an inch across and have 5 white ray florets widely spaced around tiny yellow center disc florets. They are among the smallest flowers that I try to photograph.

Cow vetch (Vicia cracca) is a native of Europe and Asia that loves it here and has spread far and wide. According to the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States the vining plant is present in every U.S. state. Cow vetch can have a taproot nearly a foot long and drops large numbers of seeds, so it is hard to eradicate. It is very similar to hairy vetch, but that plant has hairy stems. I like its color and it’s nice to see it sprinkled here and there among the tall grasses.

Carolina horse nettle (Solanum carolinense) is a plant that I’ve never seen anywhere before.  From what I’ve read it is not a true nettle, but instead is a member of the nightshade family, like the black nightshade I showed in my last flower post. The flowers have five petals and are usually white or purple with yellow centers. There is a blue variant that resembles the tomato flower, which makes sense since tomatoes are also in the nightshade family. The flowers have no scent but the foliage has a certain odor that I find disagreeable.

The fruits resemble tomatoes and are sometimes called devil’s tomatoes. Unripe fruit is dark green with light green stripes, turning yellow and wrinkled as it ripens. Each fruit contains around 60 seeds but the plant spreads successfully by underground stems (rhizomes.)  All parts of the plant are poisonous and eating it, especially the fruit, can cause death. Pheasant, Bobwhite, Turkeys and Skunks are said to eat the fruit.

Horse nettle’s stem and undersides of larger leaf veins are covered with spines and I can attest to their sharpness. It’s hard to grab it anywhere and I got pricked several times just trying to turn a leaf over. This plant is native to our southern states, so why it is growing here is a mystery. It seemed to like where it grew; there must have been 30-40 plants growing there. I can see its spreading becoming a real problem.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows usually in large colonies but this one bloomed alone and I think it might be the last blossom I see of this plant this year. This plant isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

The last thing I expect to see at the end of September in New Hampshire is an azalea flower but here was a yellow flowered one that was blooming as if it were spring. I’ve read about azaleas that bloom in October in southern states but I didn’t know they would bloom that late here.

Dandelions are still blooming and I’m not surprised because I once saw one blooming in January when we had a mild winter. This one had a tiny visitor.

Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is our latest blooming shrub. I’ve seen it bloom as late as January in a warm winter, but I can’t remember ever seeing it bloom this early in September. Some Native American tribes steamed witch hazel twigs over hot stones in their sweat lodges to soothe aching muscles and others made tea from it to treat coughs. As is often the case Natives had a use for virtually every part of the plant and witch hazel is still in use today. It can be found as a lotion in almost any drugstore.

Witch hazel blossoms are pollinated by owlet moths, which are active in winter and are called winter moths. The moths raise their body temperature by shivering, and can raise it by as much as 50 degrees F. This allows them to fly and search for food when it’s cold. But it isn’t cold now, and this year the moths may have help from several other insects I’ve seen still flying. I’m still seeing bees, wasps, butterflies and dragonflies.

I thought I’d end with one more look at what I drive by every morning on my way to work. This will probably be the last time we see this for this year because most of these flowers have now faded. They were so beautiful!

Beauty is something that changes your life, not something you understand. ~Marty Rubin

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Mid July Flowers

Despite the heat and dryness many flowers continue to appear. Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) started blooming a while ago. This plant has a very long blooming period; I see them in early June blooming profusely and then sporadically through the following months, even into November. I usually find more of them in waste places but I see them just about everywhere I go. It is considered a pioneer species, meaning it is one of the first plants to grow in unused pastures, or cleared or burned areas. Woodchucks and rabbits will eat the leaves and stems. Native Americans made a tea from the plant which was used as medicine for digestive ailments. Fleabanes get their name from the way the dried plants repel fleas.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is one of my favorite summer flowers because of its large, easy to see flowers and beautiful blue color. It also comes with a message of summer’s passing because summer is just about half over when it blooms, and it is a reunion that is both happy and wistful for me each year. Unfortunately it likes to grow in places that get mowed regularly, like along our roadsides. I’m always dismayed when I see such beautiful flowers being cut down but I have seen normal size flowers blooming on a plant no more than three inches tall, so though the plants may get mowed they aren’t being killed.

Another plant that comes with a message of summer’s passing is the black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta,) and that message came earlier each year for a while. I think I saw it blooming in early June last year but this year it waited until July, and that’s more to my liking because I have always thought of it as a fall flower. It has a very long blooming period; often well into November, so I guess that’s why it says fall to me.

I don’t know what to say about this flower. It came as a surprise when it came up in a gravel parking lot where I work. I can say that it’s obviously in the same family as black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia,) but its flower is 4 times bigger with a lot of red on it. It’s quite pretty for a “weed.”

I have trouble seeing red against green due to colorblindness and that’s why you don’t see much red in these posts, but bee balm blossoms always stand high enough above the surrounding foliage to be clearly visible. The name bee balm comes from the way the juice from its crushed leaves will soothe a bee sting. Our native scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) is also called Oswego tea, because the leaves were used to make tea by the Native American Oswego tribe of New York. Early settlers also used the plant for tea when they ran out of the real thing. It’s a beautiful flower that I’m always happy to see. Hummingbirds and butterflies love it too and will come from all over to sip its nectar.

Blue, bell shaped flowers all on one side of the stem can mean only one thing; creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides.) The pretty flowered plant was introduced as an ornamental from Europe and has escaped gardens to live in dry places that get full sun. It is a late bloomer but is usually finished by the time the goldenrods have their biggest flush of bloom. It is considered an invasive plant in some places because it is hard to get rid of once it has become established. It can choke out weaker native plants if it is left alone. It isn’t considered invasive here in New Hampshire though, and in fact I usually have to look for quite a while to find it. When I do it is usually growing on forest edges.

The flowers of creeping bellflower are obviously in the campanula family, if you’re familiar with that family of plants.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows, and this one was blooming in what is a large colony near a pond. This plant isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

I’m seeing a lot of pale spike lobelia (Lobelia spicata) this year. The plant gets its common name from its small flowers, which are usually a pale blue to almost white, but I’ve seen many that are darker like these examples. There is also a purple variant but I’ve never seen it.

Native Americans had many medicinal uses for lobelia and one of them was as a treatment for asthma. The plant must have worked well because early explorers took it back across the Atlantic where it is still used medicinally today. It has to be used with great care by those who know how to use it though, because too much of it can kill.

This shy little Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) peeked out of the tall grass from under a tree. They don’t always grow in the same large clumps as their cousins the maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) do, but I saw a few this day. They also don’t have the same bold, jagged, deep maroon ring near their center as maiden pinks do, and that’s a good means of identification. Both plants are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation. Maiden pinks seem to prefer open lawns and meadows while Deptford pinks hide their beautiful little faces in the sunny edges of the forest.

No matter how many times I see the Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I don’t see a monkey, but whoever named it obviously did. This plant gets about knee high and likes to grow in wet, sunny places, and isn’t all that common. I usually have a hard time finding it. This year I’ve seen exactly one plant and I hope nobody picks it so it will get pollinated and go to seed.

Allegheny monkey flowers have square stems and are also called square stemmed monkey flowers. The throat of this flower is partially closed and bumblebees are one of the few insects strong enough to pry it open to get at the nectar. Native Americans and early settlers sometimes used the leaves as an edible green.

Showy tick trefoil (Desmodium canadense) is a legume in the bean family. This plant gets part of its common name from the little barbed hairs that cover the seed pods and make them stick to clothing like ticks, much like enchanter’s nightshade. The “showy” part of its common name comes from the way that so many of its small pink flowers bloom at once. As the plant sets seeds its erect stems bend lower to the ground so the barbed seed pods can catch in the fur of passing animals. I saw these examples in an unmown meadow.

Showy tick trefoil has pretty flowers that are obviously in the pea / bean family. It is also called Canada trefoil. One odd fact about this plant is that there are no known uses of it by Native Americans or colonials. From my experience that’s rare among native plants in this area. Maybe they just picked the beautiful flowers and used them to decorate their homes.

I know a place where the wild thyme grows sounds like something out of Shakespeare but I do know such a place and the thyme is blooming. Bees love thyme so I’m sure they are just ecstatic.

If you want to drive yourself crazy for a while try getting a shot of a single thyme blossom. Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming and the ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage, so it has been with us for a very long time.

Vervain (Verbena hastata) is described as having reddish blue or violet flowers but I see a beautiful blue color. Somebody else must have seen the same thing, because they named the plant blue vervain. Vervain can get quite tall and has erect, terminal flower clusters. The plant likes wet places and I find it near ponds and ditches.

Vervain flowers are quite small but there are usually so many blooming that they’re easy to spot. The bitter roots of this plant were used medicinally by Native Americans to relieve gastric irritation, as an expectorant, and to induce sweating. The seeds were roasted and ground into a flour or meal by some tribes, and the flowers were dried and used as snuff to treat nose bleeds. Natives introduced the plant to the European settlers and they used it in much the same ways.

There are enough goldenrods (over 100) that look enough alike to make me absolutely sure that I don’t want to invest much time in trying to identify them all, but some are easy. Gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis) is one of those. It’s one of the earliest to bloom and always looks as if a strong wind has blown all of the flowers over to one side of the stem. Even though it is one of the earliest to bloom this year it’s blooming even earlier than usual. Goldenrod blooming alongside purple loosestrife is a beautiful scene that I look forward to seeing all summer.

Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers. ~Lady Bird Johnson

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More Early September Flowers

A recent view along the shore of a local pond shows asters mixing in with boneset and narrow leaf goldenrod. The asters have just started and the others are just about finished blooming. I think the aster might be the purple stemmed aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum,) which is also called the swamp aster or glossy leaved aster, and I think that because it was growing near water and has a somewhat crooked, dark purple stem. The flowers are about half the size of those of New England aster.

I can’t think of a single time that I have found northern water horehound (Lycopus uniflorus) growing away from water. It’s an odd little plant that might get knee high on a good day, and often leans toward the water that it grows near. Its tiny flowers grow in round tufts at each leaf axil and remind me of motherwort, which has the same habit. It is in the mint family and has a square stem as so many of the plants in that family do. It is also closely related to American water horehound (Lycopus americanus) and the two plants are easily confused. Paying close attention to leaf shape helps tell them apart. The foliage is said to be very bitter and possibly toxic, but Native Americans used the tuberous roots for food.

The flowers of northern water horehound are pretty little bell shaped things, but they are small enough to need a hand lens (or macro lens) to really appreciate them. I think it must have taken me at least 5 or 6 tries to get a useable photo of them. The tiny things are pollinated by bees, wasps and flies and each one will become 4 small nutlets.  I don’t know what birds or animals eat the seeds, but muskrats love the roots. Another name for the plant is northern bugleweed.

New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) have just started blooming. This is our largest and most showy aster, and also among the last of the aster family to bloom. Each blossom is about an inch and a half across and sits atop a four foot stem. The plants prefer full sun but will still bloom with less.

I always look for the darkest New England aster that I can find each year and so far this one wins the prize for 2017, but I know there are darker ones out there. They’re a very beautiful flower, no matter how dark they happen to be.

This nodding bur marigold plant (Bidens tripartita) grew along the river’s edge. As they age the flowers of the nodding bur marigold nod towards the ground and that’s how the plant comes by its common name. The flowers look something like a miniature sunflower and are supposed to be good for honey production. I like their deeply pleated petals. The plants grow to about knee high, often in standing water at the edges of rivers and ponds. Another common name is nodding beggar’s tick, because its seeds are barbed and stick to just about anything that happens by.

Though smooth gerardia (Agalinis purpurea) is also called false foxglove, I don’t see it. The flowers are tubular like foxglove but that’s where the similarities end. The flowers are much smaller than foxglove blossoms and point upwards instead of downwards like foxglove. I find gerardia every year on the flanks of Mount Caesar growing in hot, dry sand but these 1 inch long examples that grew along the Ashuelot River were twice as big as those.

I’ve never seen a foxglove blossom that looked like this. Two upper lobes, two side lobes, and a lower lobe spread from the mouth of a smooth gerardia blossom. The inside of each blossom is very hairy and has two yellow patches with dark purple spots that serve as nectar guides.

Sand jointweed (Polygonum articulatum) is a curious little plant that gets its common name from the way it that grows in pure sand, and from its many jointed stems. I know of only two places where it grows but each year there are many new plants. It is an annual so each year’s plants have to produce plenty of seed. They grow to about knee high and this year there are plenty of tiny white blooms, so hopefully strong seed production will continue.

The flowers are among the smallest that I try to photograph and each year I tell myself that I have no hope of getting a good photo of them, but each year I try again. One of these times I’ll get it right.

This is an example of the strange jointed stem of sand jointweed, for those who have never seen the plant.

I often find purple stemmed beggar’s ticks (Bidens connata) growing in the wet soil at the edges of ponds and rivers. This example was growing in standing water at the edge of a pond.

Purple stemmed beggar’s ticks have curious little yellow orange ray-less disc flowers that never seem to fully open and dark, purple-black stems. It is closely related to bur marigold (Bidens tripartita), and is also called water hemp because of the leaf shape. The name beggar’s tick comes from its barbed seeds that stick to fur and clothing like ticks. It is an annual that grows new from seed each year.

This is what the purple stem of purple stemmed beggar’s ticks looks like. The name fits.

White campion (Silene latifolia,) can also be pink, but I didn’t see a blush of it on this example. Just to confuse the issue red campion (Silene dioica) flowers can also be pink or white and it takes a botanist to tell them apart. Both are natives of Europe, Asia and Africa. The flowers have 5 deeply notched petals that have an easily seen fringe at their base.

Thanks to a friend sending me this photo I’m able to illustrate the difference between a male and female white campion blossom. The previous photo was of a male flower and this one is a female, and we know that because of the 5 long, curved styles. Male and female flowers are on separate plants.

If the square stems and tufts of tiny pink / purple flowers in the leaf axils don’t ring a bell, then one sniff of a crushed leaf will tell you immediately that the plant is wild mint (Mentha arvensis.) Mint has been used by man since the dawn of time and Pliny, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Charlemagne each wrote of its virtues. Each time we see it we are seeing one of mankind’s earliest memories.

White meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) is still blooming but its time is coming to an end. This plant likes moist ground and I usually find it near water. Its flowers have long stamens that always make them look kind of fuzzy.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows, and this is the last one that was blooming in what is a large colony near a pond. This plant isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

A single bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) blossomed along the Ashuelot River where I’ve never seen it before. I don’t think of this plant as being naturally attracted to water like many other plants, but maybe a bird dropped a seed or two along the shoreline. No matter how it got there, I imagine bull thistles will be seen along that stretch of river for a long time to come.

Bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) grow along a trail in Keene that I’ve hiked probably a hundred times or more, but I never saw them until just a couple of years ago. My only answer for having never seen them is I must have always been there at the wrong time of year. In any event they are relatively rare in this area and are well worth searching for. Their usual color when mature is a very beautiful deep violet purple. The flowers never open beyond what is seen here so it takes a strong insect like a bumblebee to pry them open and get at the pollen.

Flowers carry not only beauty but also the silent song of love. You just have to feel it. ~Debasish Mridha

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More Mid July Flowers

We’ve reached that point where you can’t walk through a field, drive down a road, or visit a forest without seeing flowers, because at this time of year they are everywhere. It is high summer and though I love spring I don’t see how any other season could be called more beautiful than this one.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows. It isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) that most of us have tangled with, but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

Noxious weed or not I like the flowers of Canada thistle. In a way they remind me of knapweed, which is another noxious weed. The plant isn’t considered invasive here in New Hampshire but it is on the watch list. Where I find them growing they haven’t spread at all, and in fact this year there were fewer plants than last year.

Pretty little fringed loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) is the last of the native yellow loosestrifes to bloom in this area. Great colonies of the knee high plant can be found along roadsides and wood edges, and along waterways. It might be confused with whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) if the two plants bloomed at the same time, but in this area fringed loosestrife blooms later. The flowers on fringed loosestrife are about the size of a quarter and nod to face the ground. On whorled loosestrife they face outward. The leaf arrangements on the two plants are also very different.

Fringed loosestrife gets its common name from the fringe of hairs on its leafstalks, but sometimes the flower petals are also fringed like they are on this example. It’s a cheery, pretty plant that often gets overlooked because there is just so much in bloom at this time of year. The flowers of fringed loosestrife are unusual because of the way they offer oils instead of nectar to insects. The oils are called elaiosomes and are fleshy structures that are attached to the seeds of many plant species. They are rich in lipids and proteins. Many plants have elaiosomes that attract ants, which take the seed to their nest and feed them to their larvae. Trout lily is another plant with elaiosomes.

Though many people think the flowers are where the name fringed loosestrife comes from it is actually from the fine hairs that line the leaf stalks (petioles.) The ciliata part of the scientific name means “fringed with hairs,” and so they are. Native Americans used all of our yellow loosestrifes medicinally for various ailments, usually in the form of tea.

No matter how many times I see the Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I don’t see a monkey, but whoever named it obviously did. This plant gets about knee high and likes to grow in wet, sunny places, and isn’t all that common. I usually have a hard time finding it.

Allegheny monkey flowers have square stems and are also called square stemmed monkey flowers. I didn’t know at the time I saw this flower that it had so much moisture on it. That’s odd because it was a warm sunny day and I wonder if it was sweating. The throat of this flower is partially closed and bumblebees are one of the few insects strong enough to pry it open to get at the nectar. Native Americans and early settlers sometimes used the leaves as an edible green.

Vervain (Verbena hastata) is described as having reddish blue or violet flowers but I see a beautiful blue color. Somebody else must have seen the same thing, because they named the plant blue vervain. Vervain can get quite tall and has erect, terminal flower clusters. The plant likes wet places but even though we’ve had many inches of rainfall this year, I had a hard time finding it.

Vervain flowers are quite small but there are usually so many blooming that they’re easy to spot. The bitter roots of this plant were used medicinally by Native Americans to relieve gastric irritation, as an expectorant, and to induce sweating. The seeds were roasted and ground into a flour or meal by some tribes, and the flowers were dried and used as snuff to treat nose bleeds. Natives introduced the plant to the European settlers and they used it in much the same ways.

I used to see quite a lot of floating bladderwort (Utricularia gibba,) but I haven’t seen any in the last two years. Instead I’m now finding common bladderwort (Utricularia macrorhiza.) This plant also floats but when it’s ready for dormancy its bladders fill with water and it sinks, and I find it in the mud at the edge of a pond. Its flowers are much larger than those of floating bladderwort and though this shot isn’t very good they’re easier to get a photo of when they aren’t floating.

Common bladderwort can be distinguished from other bladderworts by the spur on the flower. The name bladderwort comes from the small inflated sacs on the plant’s roots that open to trap aquatic organisms. There are tiny hairs on the bladder’s trap door which are very sensitive. When an aquatic organism touches these hairs the door opens, the organism is sucked inside and the door closes, trapping it. This all happens in about 5 milliseconds and is one of the fastest plant movements ever recorded.

Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) grows in large colonies and is easy to find because of its shiny green leaves that shine winter and summer and last up to 4 years. Like other wintergreens it likes dry, sandy, undisturbed soil in pine forests. Pipsissewa was once used as a flavoring in candy and soft drinks, including root beer. Its name is fun to say. It’s a Native American Cree word meaning “It-breaks-into-small-pieces.” This is because it was used as a treatment for kidney stones and was thought to break them into pieces.

Pipsissewa flowers often show a blush of pink. Five petals and ten chubby anthers surrounding a plump center pistil make it prettier than most of our other native wintergreens. Pipsissewa and some other native wintergreens form a symbiotic relationship with the mycelium of certain fungi in the soil and are partially parasitic on them through a process called myco-heterotrophy. This means that, even though they photosynthesize, they supplement their diet with nutrients taken from fungi. That explains why they will only grow in certain places, much like native orchids.

Shasta daisies are blooming in gardens everywhere now. The Shasta daisy was developed by plant breeder Luther Burbank over 100 years ago and was named for the white snow of Mount Shasta. These plants are a hybrid cross of the common roadside ox-eye daisy and an English field daisy called Leucanthemum maximum. They are one of the easiest perennials to grow and, other than an occasional weeding, need virtually no care. Dwarf varieties are less apt to have their stems bent over by heavy rains.

My favorite part of the Shasta daisy flower is the spiral at its center, because it makes me wonder. Nature uses the spiral over and over; it’s in a snail’s shell, our galaxy is a spiral and spirals are even in our DNA. Horns, teeth, claws, and plants form spirals. Pine cones and pineapples have spiral scales and if you make a fist and look at it from above, it forms a spiral. Mathematically, the spiral in a nautilus shell is the same as that found in a spiral galaxy. The spiral also represents infinity, starting at a single point and revolving outwardly until the end of the universe. Because of this, the spiral is said by some to be a pathway to the afterlife. All of that is right here in a daisy, and that’s probably why Deepak Chopra said “If you really see a daisy, you see from here to infinity.”

Non-native rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense) is short enough to be forced to grow right at the edge of the road if it wants to get any sunshine, so the roads look like they have been festooned with fuzzy pink ribbons for a while each summer. It’s an annual plant that grows new from seed each year and the seedlings must be tough, because they don’t seem to mind being occasionally run over, or the poor dry soil found along the road side. In fact they seem to thrive in it; I see more plants each year. The plant is originally from Europe and Asia.

One of the things I like most about native pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea) is the way a child’s face will light up and break into a smile when they crush it and smell it. Usually when I tell them that it smells like pineapple they don’t believe it, so it’s a surprise. The conical flower heads are easiest to describe by saying they’re like daisies without petals, or ray florets. The flowers are edible and can be used in salads, and the leaves are also scented and have been used to make tea. The plant was used by Native Americans in a tonic to relieve gastrointestinal upset and fevers. The Flathead tribe used the dried, powdered plants to preserve meats and berries. It is said to make a nice pineapple flavored tea.

Last year I showed the flower of a plant I had never seen before and couldn’t identify in the hope that someone would recognize it. Apparently nobody could recognize it by the flower so this year I’m showing the entire plant. The flowers are tiny; about the same size as those on red sandspurry, and blossom on the ends of wiry stems. Its leaves are also small and sword shaped and very hard to see in this photo. This entire plant shown would fit in a tea cup with room to spare.

Here is the pretty little flower of the unknown plant. I find them growing in the sand on roadsides in full sun, much like a sandspurry would. They don’t seem to mind dry soil but they must also like water because I’m seeing more of them in this rainy summer than I ever have. I’ve searched all my wildflower books and online off and on for over a year with no luck, so if you know its name I’d love to hear from you.

NOTE: With a little help from some friends Al Stoops has identified this plant as low baby’s breath (Gypsophila muralis.) It is an annual plant native to Europe and available commercially, sold as cushion baby’s breath. Thanks Al!

Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag. ~Chet Raymo

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Early July Flowers

We’re coming into high summer now and though we still haven’t had any really beneficial rain, flowers continue to bloom. This shy little Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) peeked out of the tall grass at the edge of the forest. They don’t always grow in the same large clumps as their cousins the maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) do, and this was the only one I saw. They also don’t have the same bold, jagged, deep maroon ring near their center as maiden pinks do, and that’s a good means of identification. Both plants are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation. Maiden pinks seem to prefer open lawns and meadows while Deptford pinks hide their beautiful faces at the sunny edges of the forest.

I have trouble seeing red against green due to colorblindness and that’s why you don’t see much red in these posts, but these bee balm blossoms stood high enough above the surrounding foliage to be clearly visible. The name bee balm comes from the way the juice from its crushed leaves will soothe a bee sting. Our native scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) is also called Oswego tea, because the leaves were used to make tea by the Native American Oswego tribe of New York. Early settlers also used the plant for tea when they ran out of the real thing. It’s a beautiful flower that I’m always happy to see. Hummingbirds love it too and will come from all over to sip its nectar.

Driving home from work one evening I saw a flash of what looked like blue on the side of the road out of the corner of my eye so I turned around, hoping that I’d found another stand of chicory plants. Once I’d driven back to where I saw the plants I found that not only hadn’t I seen blue flowers, I hadn’t seen chicory either. But I wasn’t disappointed, because the mallow plants I found there were beautiful. I think they might have been musk mallow (Malva moschata.) Since it’s another plant that is originally from Europe it was probably a garden escapee, but you could hardly call it invasive. I see them once in a blue moon, even less than the elusive chicory that I’m always hoping to see.

I thought the mallow flowers were pink but my color finding software sees lavender. I love looking at such beautiful flowers, especially those that I rarely see. I’m sure there were many people who drove by that day wondering why I was kneeling on the side of the road, but it wasn’t the first time for that.

I had to stop working on this post and go out for a while and when I did, just after writing that I rarely see chicory (Cichorium intybus,) there was a large stand of it beside the road. Actually the road was a very busy highway and I wasn’t sure about stopping but in the end I did and was glad that I had. Chicory is a large, inch and a half diameter flower that is a beautiful shade of blue. Unfortunately it’s rare in this area and I’m lucky if I see it at all. I always hope the plants that I do see produce plenty of seeds but its habit of growing so close to roads means it gets mowed down a lot.

Many plants that can tolerate a lot of shade have large, light gathering leaves and the shade tolerant purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is one of those. This plant is in the rose family and the 2 inch wide flowers might look like a rose at first glance, but one look at its large, maple like leaves will show that it isn’t. Flowering raspberry has no thorns like roses or raspberries but Japanese beetles love it just as much as roses and it’s common to see the large leaves looking like they’ve been shot full of holes. The fruit looks like a large raspberry but is on the tart, dry side. Native Americans had over 100 uses for this plant, both as food and medicine.

I thought I’d show a rose blossom so those who have never seen a flowering raspberry flower could compare the two of them. The flowering raspberry really doesn’t look anything like a rose except maybe in size of bloom, but they do get confused occasionally. This rose grew at the edge of the woods so I don’t know anything about it except that it was beautiful and fragrant enough so I wished it grew in my own yard. There was a sun shining radiantly at its center.

When I get a new camera like I did recently one of the first things I do is look for the smallest flowers that are blooming at the time so I can try out its macro ability, and they don’t come much smaller than enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutetiana canadensis.) This woodland plant is a shade lover and I notice it along trails only when it blooms in July. It gets its scientific name Circaea from Circe, an enchantress in Homer’s Odyssey with a fondness for turning men into swine. There are similar plants native to Europe and Asia.

Each tiny 1/8 inch wide enchanter’s nightshade flower consists of 2 white petals that are split deeply enough to look like 4, 2 green sepals, 2 stamens, and a tiny central style. The new camera surprised me on this day; I’ve never gotten such clear shots of this little flower.

At the base of each flower there is a 2 celled ovary that is green and covered with stiff hooked hairs, and this becomes the plant’s bur like seed pod, which sticks to just about anything. When a plant’s seed pods have evolved to be spread about by sticking to the feathers and fur of birds and animals the process is called epizoochory. The burs on burdock plants are probably the best known examples of epizoochory.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) that most of us have tangled with. Though it does have spines along the leaf margins and stem, they are quite small. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

I’ve grown a lot of beans but I’ve really never paid that much attention to the flowers. They’re unusual and quite pretty I thought, when I saw them in a friend’s garden.

Vervain (Verbena hastata) is described as having reddish blue or violet flowers but I see the same beautiful blue color that I saw in the chicory flower. Somebody else must have seen the same thing, because they named the plant blue vervain. Vervain flowers are considerably smaller than chicory, but there are usually so many blooming that they’re as easy to spot as chicory is. Vervain can get quite tall and has erect, terminal flower clusters. The bitter roots of this plant were used medicinally by Native Americans.

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is one of those flowers that take me out of myself. In my opinion it’s the most beautiful of all the milkweeds and is one of those flowers that I most look forward to seeing each summer.

How could you not look forward to seeing something so beautiful? I could look at it all day.

I walked down a trail through a swamp that I didn’t know well one day and there growing beside it was a two foot tall purple fringed orchid (Platanthera psycodes.) It was one I’ve never seen; it looked like a flock of beautiful purple butterflies had landed right beside me.

Once I came to my senses I moved closer and knelt beside the plant. Struck dumb by its beauty, all I could do was gaze and admire, so very grateful that I had found such a wondrous thing.

Later, after I left the swamp I thought of John Muir, who wrote of finding the beautiful calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa) after being nearly lost in a swamp all day:

I found beautiful Calypso on the mossy bank of a stream… The flower was white and made the impression of the utmost simple purity like a snowflower. It seemed the most spiritual of all the flower people I had ever met. I sat down beside it and fairly cried for joy… How long I sat beside Calypso I don’t know. Hunger and weariness vanished, and only after the sun was low in the west I plashed on through the swamp, strong and exhilarated as if never more to feel any mortal care.

John Muir was completely lost in the beauty of nature; totally absorbed by the flower before him. It’s a wonderful experience and anyone it has ever happened to longs for it to happen again, and it does. I hope everyone has the chance to experience it, at least once.

Maybe, beauty, true beauty, is so overwhelming it goes straight to our hearts. Maybe it makes us feel emotions that are locked away inside. ~James Patterson

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More Early July Flowers

Our aquatic plants have started blooming here in the southwestern part of New Hampshire and queen among them, at least in my opinion, is the fragrant white waterlily (Nymphaea odorata.) I happened to be with someone recently who crawled out on a fallen tree to smell one of these beauties. When I told him that people said they smelled like honeydew melons he agreed. Sort of-it was a hard fragrance to describe, he said, but a pleasant one.  I’m happy just seeing them; I like the golden fire that burns in their center.

Pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata) is another aquatic that has small purple, tubular flowers on spikey flower heads that produce a fruit with a single seed. Ducks and muskrats love the seeds and deer, geese and muskrats eat the leaves. If you see pickerel weed you can almost always expect the water it grows in to be relatively shallow and placid, though I’ve heard that plants occasionally grow in water that’s 6 feet deep. It’s a plant that often forms large colonies.

A small sampling of what was a very large colony of pickerel weed. Native Americans washed and boiled the young leaves and shoots and used them as pot herbs. They also ground the seeds into grain. The plant gets its name from the pickerel fish, which is thought to hide among its underwater stems.

One of my favorite aquatics is American burr reed (Sparganium americanum,) more for its quirky appearance than for any other reason. Its round, spiky female flowers grow at the bottom of the stem and the male flowers with yellow stamens above them. Burr reed usually grows right at the edge of ponds and rivers in waterlogged soil but it will sometimes grow in still water. Ducks and other waterfowl love the seeds.

Purple loosestrife is an invasive that came over from Europe in the ballast of a cargo ship in the 1800s. The beach sand ballast, loaded with purple loosestrife seeds, was originally dumped on Long Island, New York. The seeds grew, the plant spread and now it covers most of Canada and all but 5 of the lower Untied States. It likes wet, sunny meadows.

Purple loosestrife chokes out native plants and forms monocultures. These colonies can be so large that finding a single plant like the one pictured above is becoming very difficult. I read of an experiment going on in Dublin, a town east of here, in which the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture is releasing European beetles to feed on purple loosestrife. The thought is that the beetles will control the plant but my question is, suppose they do control the plant and suppose one day there isn’t any more purple loosestrife. What will the beetles feed on then, native plants? Will we be any better off?  I think we need to be very careful what we wish for.

Though it is much hated you can’t deny the beauty of purple loosestrife. I’ve worked for nurseries and have had people come in wanting to buy “that beautiful purple flower that grows in wet areas.”

Mad dog skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) gets its common name from the way that the calyx at the base of the flowers look a bit like a medieval helmet, called a skull cap, and how the plant was once thought to cure rabies because of its anti-spasmodic properties. Another skullcap, marsh skullcap (Scutellaria galericulata,) looks very similar and the two are difficult to tell apart. Both grow in full sun on grassy hummocks at the water’s edge.

There is powerful medicine in both mad dog or marsh skullcap and when Native Americans wanted to go on a spirit walk or vision quest this was one of the plants they chose. The small blue and white flowers always grow in pairs in the leaf axils. Those of mad dog skullcap are slightly smaller.

Meadowsweet (Spiraea Ulmaria) is another plant that I look for at the water’s edge, though it doesn’t usually grow close enough to get its feet wet. It grows in the form of a small shrub and is in the spirea family, which its flowers clearly show with their many fuzzy stamens. The flowers are fragrant and have a sort of almond-like scent. This plant was one of three considered most sacred by the Druids and has been used medicinally for many thousands of years. Here in America it is an introduced invasive, but little is heard about it and nobody seems to mind.

NOTE: The scientific name I meant to use for this plants is Spirea alba.

I find soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) growing along river banks. The plant gets its common name from the way the chopped and boiled leaves produce a soapy lather that is particularly good at removing grease. This plant is a native of Europe and is thought to have been brought over by colonists to be used as a soap substitute. It is said to be especially useful for waterproofing wool, and museum conservators use it for cleaning delicate fabrics that can be harmed by modern soaps.

Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) is just coming into bloom and I like its dusty rose pink color with the beautiful blue of vervain. I found them on the rocky banks of the Ashuelot River.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) that most of us have tangled with. Though it does have spines along the leaf margins and stem, they are quite small. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.

Along with lilacs and peonies, the common orange daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) is a plant you’ll find growing near old stone cellar holes out in the middle of nowhere and along old New England roads. It is also found in cemeteries often planted beside the oldest graves. It is one of those plants that were passed from neighbor to neighbor and spread quickly because of it. It is also very tough; my brother used to mow his when they finished blooming and they still came back and bloomed year after year. It is both loved for being so easy to grow and hated for being so common.

This plant was introduced into the United States from Asia in the late 1800s as an ornamental and plant breeders have now registered over 40,000 cultivars, all of which have “ditch lily” genes and all of which have the potential to spread just like the original has. If you find yourself doing battle with a particularly weedy daylily, no matter the color, there’s a very good chance that the common orange is one of its parents.

Phlox whispered that fall is on the way but I didn’t want to hear it. It seems like just yesterday that I was taking photos of spring beauties.

Herb Robert is a geranium that has never appeared on this blog because I’ve never found it in the wild until just recently on the banks of the Ashuelot River in Surry, which is north of Keene. My question, once I had identified it, was: Robert who? As it turns out Robert was a French monk who lived in 1000 AD and cured many people’s diseases using this plant, and that leads to another common name: Saint Robert’s Herb. If you crush its leaves they are said to smell like burning tires, so yet another common name is stinky Bob.

A very curious fact about this plant is how many people, scientists included, have discovered that it grows most abundantly in areas that have high levels of radiation. It is thought to absorb the radiation from the soil, break it down and disperse it. If I had a Geiger counter I’d go back and check the bedrock outcrop that I found it growing on.

Friends let their radishes go to seed this year and among the rows of plain white flowers was a beautiful pink one. Since Henry David Thoreau instilled a spirit of nonconformity in me when I read his words as a boy, I was happy to see this plant breaking ranks and doing its own thing. Many of the plants found in nurseries are those that have done the same.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau

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