One colony of coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) that I used to visit was washed away in a flood last year and another much larger colony was plowed up by a logging skidder, but I found more growing alongside a dirt road near here. The Tussilago part of the scientific name comes from the Latin tussis, meaning cough, and ago, meaning to cast or to act on. Coltsfoot was originally brought from Europe by early settlers, to be used to treat coughs. I remember being given Pertussin cough syrup as a boy, but I don’t know if it had coltsfoot in it. I hope not, because scientists have found that the plant can cause liver tumors.
If you aren’t sure if you have found coltsfoot or dandelions just look at the stems. Coltsfoot stems are scaly and dandelion stems are smooth. Another clue would be that coltsfoot doesn’t grow leaves until after the flowers fade.
I saw a bug on a beech bud and spent quite a while trying to identify him, with little luck. I was able to get as far as learning that he was a beetle before asking the folks at bugguide.net for help. In no time at all they told me that I had found a diurnal lightning beetle (Ellychnia corrusca), which is a winter firefly that doesn’t light up. What he does do is drink sweet tree sap and is known to be a bit of a pest to maple syrup makers.
This beetle lives in the crevices of maple bark all winter, not leaving the tree until March. I’m not sure why he was on a beech. He crawled down the twig and turned to face me and there we were, eye to eye, each studying the other.
I used to drive for 45 minutes to see the one little colony of downy rattlesnake plantain orchids (Goodyera pubescens) that I knew of. Of course, you never know when a plant will bloom so I made this pilgrimage once or twice a week until I saw the flowers. Then, late last summer, I found a large colony of these beautiful plants not 5 minutes from my house. Proof once again that what we have been trying so hard to find is often right in front of us.
Years ago my grandmother had a large box elder tree (Acer negundo) in her front yard. Box elders are considered a weed tree but they provide excellent shade and that’s what my grandmother was interested in. They are very prolific as you can see by the photo of the flowers, and each tree grows thousands of very viable seeds. The seeds used to fall beside the foundation walls of my grandmother’s house and grow into small trees, so every year she would pay me a quarter to go around the house and pull them all up. One year I pulled up what I thought was a particularly fine specimen and I took it home with me. By the time I got it home the roots had dried out but I dug a hole and planted it anyway. That tree grew faster than anything I had ever seen and, at about 7 or 8 years old, gave me my first hint that plants and I just might get along.
Cheery little bluets (Houstonia caerulea) have suddenly popped up in lawns. These flowers can range from nearly white to dark blue and each year I try to find the ones with the darkest color. Those in the above photo were much darker than those on nearby plants, so I chose them. Bluets are also, in my opinion, one of the hardest flowers there are to photograph. Rarely do I get a good sharp photo of them and on this day, 40 mile per hour wind gusts didn’t help.
I was poking around in a spot where I know that our native wild ginger (Asarum canadense) grows, looking for signs of life, when I found this single new, very downy leaf unfurling. Though it might have been only minutes old and was hardly bigger than a mouse’s ear, an insect had already eaten a hole through it.
Magnolia blossoms showed a tiny bit of browning from frost damage but they were still very beautiful, and fragrant enough to linger in memory long after the flowers were out of sight.
In a colony of tens of thousands of yellow trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) I stumbled onto one that had a bud. Why does this plant have a bud while none of the others do? Does it get more sunlight? Is it something in the soil? These are the kinds of questions that helped fuel my interest in plants at an early age. The answers have been few but I don’t mind. It’s the mystery that puts the magic in life.
Eastern spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) appeared overnight as they always seem to do. At this time of year I check the spot where they grow every couple of days and I’m always surprised to see them, because just a day or two earlier there was no sign of them. As I do with bluets, I always try to find the flower with the deepest color. I’ve read that it is the amount of sunlight that determines color in a spring beauty blossom. The deeper the shade, the more intense the color, so I look for them in more shaded areas. The same doesn’t appear to be true for bluets because I find dark colored ones in full sun.
I wanted to take another try at getting a shot of a female American hazelnut (Corylus Americana) blossom, the smallest flower I know of. I think this one came out better than the one I showed here two or three posts ago. I measure the bud on that last plant with Vernier calipers and found it to be only four thousandths of an inch in diameter (.004”), just about the same size as a single strand of spaghetti. You have to look up and down each stem very carefully to find these tiny things.
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis) had just unfurled its leafy cloak when I found it. The first open bloodroot flower of the season always tells me that May can’t be far away because bloodroot waits to be sure that it is really spring before it shows itself. Native Americans used the blood red sap of its root for war paint. I’ve always wanted to see it I’ve but I’ve never been able to convince myself that it would be okay to destroy one of these plants just to satisfy my curiosity.
Though last winter was the coldest in 10 years I saw my first purple trillium this week. It has bloomed earlier than the trilliums did both last year and in the spring of 2012, even though that spring was the 4th warmest ever. Whenever you start to think that you have plants all figured out they do something totally unexpected to remind you that you don’t.
There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as if everything is.
~Albert Einstein
Thanks for coming by.
[…] I find wondrous colonies of wildflowers, I always think of my friend over at New Hampshire Garden Solutions. Last week he blogged about some of the spring flowers he’s been seeing. Ever since I read […]
Thanks for the pingback Laura.
Thank you for sharing NHGS. We are in Missouri and share many of the same flora. Your photos are pleasing .
Thank you Lenora. I’m surprised to hear that we have much of the same flora, though I’m not sure why. I hope you haven’t seen any of the bad weather that we’ve heard about in Missouri
Hello! I stumbled across your website, and I am enthralled. I live in upstate New York, and follow the spring progression ..same flowers are appearing as you have posted, and am THRILLED to see them. Please can you tell me, what type of lens do you use for your wonderful, marvelous, enchanting, invigorating closeups?
Hello Mary and thank you, I’m glad you like what you see. For close up photos I use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7 and for landscapes and everything else I use a Canon Powershot SX-40 HS. The Panasonic has a Leica lens and gets closer than any lens I’ve ever had.
Are you serious?? I have been using a Panasonic Dz6 for 2 years (it has now gotten dirt inside the lens, not quite sure what to do)–Your photos seem so much more…more.! So, no 600 dollar macro lens, eh? Hmm..
anyway, I so am enamored of your comments and photos. Thank you for the response.
Mary
You’re welcome Mary. I am serious-my entire photography outfit costs less than a good DSLR lens. I wasn’t familiar with your camera but when I Googled it I noticed that it had 10.1 megapixels, where mine has 14.1. Also, I never use the zoom feature. I always find a way to get closer to the subject and then crop if I have to. I don’t know if this is true but I tell myself the more you zoom the more noise you’re liable to see in your photo. Another thing is, I’ve been doing photography off an on for thirty years or more. Whether any of these things would make the difference you describe, I don’t know.
Do you read photography blogs? There are some good ones out there that deal with a lot of how to questions. I’ve learned quite a bit about digital cameras by reading them. Something as simple as adjusting your white balance can make a big difference in quality. Whatever you do, don’t give up!
Thanks again! I do use the zoom, and often it will not focus when you want to get so close up. I will try your suggestion. Unfortunately there is dirt ( I assume) in the lens now, so there are spots. I’ve looked up a couple videos on how to disassemble and and clean, but not sure if I’m up to That!! Do you have a suggestion on how to find some of those blogs? (I’m still not sure how I found yours!) I’m new to locating .. Again, so grateful for your blog!
I don’t think I’d take the camera apart. I’d take it to a camera store and see what they say. If it’s too expensive to fix then I’d just buy a new one. The Lumix I use was I think $179.00.
It could also be condensation and I’ve even heard of fungi growing on lenses. A good camera store will tell you what it is and what to do about it.
A good beginner photography blog is Beyond Megapixels and you can find it here: http://www.beyondmegapixels.com/getting-started-with-photography/
For others just Google “Photography Blogs.” Good luck Mary, I hope you find an easy and cheap solution to the camera problem.
The female hazelnut shot is a triumph.
It sure is. It took a lot of tries to get it.
All wonderful signs of spring! I have many purple trilliums in my yard. When I first saw them, I thought how lovely they would look closer to the house. I did a bit of research and found I’d never be able to transplant them. Later in catalogs I saw cultivated ones, but it just didn’t seem the same. I’ll walk out and enjoy the wild ones! Looking forward to more signs of spring!
Thanks Laura. No, trillium, like most wild flowers, don’t transplant well. What you can do though is take a ripe seed pod and sprinkle seeds where you’d like them to be. This might or might not work because they’re very fussy about where they’ll grow. If I was going to plant cultivated trilliums I’d get the white ones because they’re my favorite.
I love the story of the box elder. My grandfather, Pappy, got me interested in gardening, his favourite plant was the fuchsia and he grew lots of them.
What would we be without grandparents!
Great collection! I’m in awe of the Coltsfoot and the purple trillium. How beautiful!
Thanks Montucky. I’m really surprised that coltsfoot has never found its way to Montana. It seems to pop up everywhere. Also odd how certain trilliums will only grow in certain places. I never see native white trillium here, but we do have painted trillium, which will come along a little later.
What a haul! I’ve not seen any of these yet this year. So far the only thing blooming on my place is the trailing arbutus.
It seems like I’ve seen almost everything but trailing arbutus. I’m still not even seeing buds!
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays.
Thank you Agnes for another re-blog. I hope you’re having an excellent weekend.
You’re very welcome NHGS. Yes, we had beautiful sunshine and some very strong wind, did some gardening, put up an arbor, moved some bushes around and I’m a happy girl. It’s very important for me to do some grounding with Mother Earth every now and then. After too many months of not doing much ..this is a very rewarding start. Hope that you and yours, are having a beautiful weekend too. Sending bright Reiki blessings your way. Namaste.
Thank you Agnes. It sounds like lack of ambition isn’t a problem for you! I agree that it’s important to get your hands in the soil and connect with the earth occasionally. We had rain most of the day here but sometimes a rainy day is good for the soul and that’s the way I felt about it. It let up enough by late afternoon to get out and explore the wet woods, so I was happy.
Nice macro shot of Ellychnia corrusca. This is the first year I’ve noticed it. I’ve been sleuthing flora with my macro lens for years, but since I been doing more insect hunting, I found it. It spends the winter in the crevices of tree bark, moving very little and never leaving the tree until March. In March, it begins flying again. mating season is April and May. The adults die in late spring, sometimes prematurely by drowning in the sap collection buckets of those tapping maple trees. The larvae live in rotting wood and are predators, likely eating grubs and slugs that are also found in or on rotting wood.
Thanks David for all of the information on this little critter. Getting a photo of him was easy because the bud he was on was right at eye level. If he had been a little higher or lower I probably wouldn’t have seen him.
It’s so good to see flowers here again rather than ice and snow! Not that your photos weren’t good, but I’ll take spring over winter anytime. 😉
Speaking of your photos, after having tried a few macro photos of my own this week, I have a new appreciation of how good of a photographer that you are!
If you could only find a way to include the scent from some of the flowers in your posts. 😉 That’s okay, the flowers around here are beginning to fill the air with their scent, one of the really great things about spring!
Thanks Jerry, I can’t wait to see the photos from the new macro lens of yours-especially tour white trilliums. You can’t be afraid to get down on your stomach in the dirt to get flower photos, as I’m sure you know.
It is nice to have something besides snow and ice to take a few shots of isn’t it? I agree, scents are one of the great things about spring. I can’t wait for the lilacs!
It’s hard to imagine how quickly these flowers have appeared after such a cold winter. I love the hazelnut flower. I’ve been looking at my hazlenuts with no luck. Amelia
I agree, it’s as if they appear over night. Unfortunately many of them disappear just as quickly so you have to be quick if you want to see them.
I wasn’t sure if European hazelnuts had the same type of female blossom so I Googled them and found that they do. You have to start looking for them as soon as the long male catkins turn yellow / green and start releasing pollen. This is another event that doesn’t last long.
Interesting story about the coltsfoot — I have never heard of this plant but will be on the lookout for something that otherwise looks like a dandelion! I suspect the one blooming trout lily has a bigger reserve in its root/bulb than the others do, which it utilizes to produce flowers. I love your selection of spring “things” to profile!
Thanks Sue. The only thing coltsfoot and dandelions have in common is the color and anything more than a passing glance will reveal many differences. They like to grow along drainage ditches beside dirt roads and other damp places. According to the USDA Minnesota is as far west as they grow, so you should be able to find them.
You could be right about the trout lily, and if I were a plant breeder this one would be my choice to breed.
I am amazed that you were able to find an insect to photograph (and you did a great job in doing so), but I am not surprised to see you were able to find so many beautiful spring flowers–you seem to know exactly where to look.
Thanks Mike. That lightning bug seemed kind of sluggish, as if he had just woken up. I’ve seen a few other insects, including butterflies, since. Wildflowers tend to grow in the same spot year after year if they aren’t disturbed, so it’s just a matter of remembering where you saw them last year. Sometimes not as easy as it sounds!
Enjoyed your pictures! I’m particularly envious of the purple trillium but probably most fascinated by the American hazelnut flower. Certainly a call to us all to look closer!
Thank you. I’m not sure if purple trillium grows in Ohio, but I suspect not. Yes, you have to look very closely to find those hazelnut flowers. They are so small that I’m surprised that I can even see them.
Your photographs take my breath away.
Thank you Susan, I’m glad you liked them. I try to get face to face with them when I can.
Those plants we connect with as a child, always seem to be the most poingnant. Lovely post.
Thank you Julie. I remember many of these from when I was a child as well, growing here almost forever probably.