Mid July Flowers

Off in the distance in the underbrush I spotted yellow Canada lilies (Lilium canadense) poking up above the choking growth. To get to them I had to fight my way through a tangled mass of grape vines, Virginia creeper, oriental bittersweet, and virgin’s bower, and once I reached the lily plants I was in undergrowth up to my shoulders. I was surprised to see that the lily plants were at least seven feet tall-easily the tallest lilies I’ve ever seen.

After fighting my way through the closest thing to a jungle that you’ll ever find in New Hampshire I visited a local cemetery and found Canada lilies growing everywhere, just at the edges of the mown lawns. They’re beautiful enough to warrant having to work a little harder to get close to, I think. They were big, too-this single bloom must have been 5-6 inches across.

I visited the three places that I know of where swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) grows and the plants were either gone completely or weren’t flowering, but then I found a new colony that looked good and healthy. These are extremely beautiful flowers that seem to glow from within when the light is right. They are of the kind that you can lose yourself in and suddenly discover that you’ve been admiring their beauty for far longer than you had intended. Time might slip away but as the bees taste the nectar, so can you taste the place of deep peace from which flowers come.

Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) is small flowered thistle native to Europe and Asia and has nothing to do with Canada except as an invasive, noxious weed. It is taken care of quickly by farmers because once it becomes established in a field it is almost impossible to get rid of. Its roots can spread 20 feet in a single season and pieces of broken root will produce new plants. 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.

One of my favorite blue flowers is chicory (Cichorium intybus,) but none of the plants that I’ve seen in the past grew this year. I found this one growing beside a road and it’s now the only chicory plant that I know of. I’m hoping that it will produce lots of seeds.

 

Red flowers can be tough to get a good photo of and this year I found that the background played an important part in the end result. Green seemed to work well for this bee balm (Monarda didyma,) but so did an old weathered gray board. The Native American Oswego tribe (Iroquois) showed early colonists how to make tea from bee balm leaves, and it has been called Oswego tea ever since. Its leaves are also used as an ingredient in other teas as well.

It really is too bad that purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is so invasive. It’s hard to deny its beauty, but I’ve found it on the banks of the Ashuelot River poised to turn them into a monoculture. It would be a terrible thing to lose the diversity that is found along that river, so my admiration of its beauty is tempered by concern for the native plants that have lived there for so long.

One way to tell that you have a creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) rather than another campanula is by noticing the curious way the flowers all grow on one side of the stem, and the way that the stem almost always leans in the direction of the flowers. This plant is originally from Europe and is considered an invasive weed. It can be very hard to eradicate.

 

Nobody really knows why, in the center of some Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) flower heads, a purple flower will appear. Botanists have been arguing over the reason for over a century and a half, but none have an answer. Some believe the purple flowers are there to fool any insects flying by into believing that there is another insect on the flower head. Since what is good for one is good for many, they land and help to pollinate the flowers. But that is just a theory. Some ancients believed that eating the purple flower would cure epilepsey.

I had quite a time getting both the flower and leaf of this dewdrop (Rubus dalibarda) in focus. I thought it was important though, because someone once thought its leaves looked like violet leaves, and from that comes another common name: false violet. It likes to grow in moist coniferous woodlands and doesn’t need a lot of sunshine. This plant is quite rare in these parts. I know of only one small colony of plants in Fitzwilliam. It is considered extremely rare in Connecticut and “historical” in Rhode Island, meaning it is just a memory there. It is also threatened in many states, including Michigan and Ohio.

The odd thing about the dewdrop plant is how most of the flowers that appear above the leaves are sterile and produce no seeds. The fertile flowers appear under the leaves and can’t be seen, and every year when I take its photo I forget to look for them.

 

Humble little narrow-leaf cow wheat seems like a shy little thing but it is actually a thief that steals nutrients from surrounding plants. A plant that can photosynthesize and create its own food but is still a parasite on surrounding plants is known as a hemiparasite.  Its long white, tubular flowers tipped with yellow-green are very small, and usually form in pairs where the leaves meet the stem (axils). I find this plant growing in old, undisturbed forests.

 

No matter how I look at an Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I don’t see a smiling monkey’s face. This is a side view. I can’t help but wonder; if I came upon a wildflower that I had never seen before, would I be thinking of monkeys? I don’t think so. I rarely think of monkeys and I don’t think I’ve ever thought of them while admiring wildflowers. The way that flowers find their common names is an endless source of fascination for me. This little monkey likes wet, sunny places and is also called square stemmed monkey flower.

Even a front view of Mimulus ringens doesn’t show me a monkey’s face, but someone once thought so. The mimulus part of the scientific name means “buffoon,” but I don’t see that either. All I see is a very pretty little wildflower that I wish I’d see more of.

If you wish your children to think deep thoughts, to know the holiest emotions, take them to the woods and hills, and give them the freedom of the meadows; the hills purify those who walk upon them.  ~Richard Jefferies

Thanks for stopping in.