The tree leaves have fully unfurled and the forests are shaded, and that means it’s time to get out of the woods and into the meadows where the sun lovers bloom.
There aren’t many flowers that say meadow quite like vetch. I think this example might be hairy vetch (Vicia vilosa,) which was originally imported from Europe and Asia to be used as a cover crop and for livestock forage. It’s now found in just about every meadow in New Hampshire. I think of vetch as very blue but this example seemed purple so I checked my color finding software. It sees violet, plum, and orchid, so I wasn’t imagining it. Maybe it is cow vetch (Vicia cracca,) which is kind of violet blue.
Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) is a native wildflower but it only grows in two New England Sates as far as I can tell; Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which seems odd but explains why I’ve never seen one in the wild. This example grows in a local park. The dried and powdered root of this plant was used by Native Americans as a laxative, and another common name is American ipecac. Nobody seems to know the origin of the name bowman’s root or whether it refers to the bow of a boat or the bow part of the bow and arrow.
The white flower petals of bowman’s root are asymmetrical and always look like they were glued on by a chubby fingered toddler. But they are beautiful nonetheless and dance at the end of long stems. And they do dance in the slightest movement of air. Some say that all it takes is the gentle breath of a fawn to set them dancing, and because of that another of their common names is fawn’s breath. A beautiful name for a flower if there ever was one.
I missed getting a photo of Solomon’s seal this year but there are plenty of false Solomon seal plants (Maianthemum racemosum or Smilacina racemosa) blooming right now. The largest example in this photo was close to three feet tall; one of the largest I’ve seen.
False Solomon’s seal has small white, star shaped flowers in a branching cluster (raceme) at the end of its stem. Soon the blossoms will give way to small reddish berries that provide food for many birds and other wildlife. It is said that a Native American tribe in California used crushed false Solomon’s seal roots and used them to stun fish. Others used the plant medicinally.
Humans have used common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in various ways for thousands of years. It is mentioned in the Chinese I Ching, which is said to pre date recorded history, and yarrow has also been found in an excavation of a Neanderthal grave site. Yarrow was known as the soldier’s woundwort and herbe militaris for centuries, and was used to stop the flow of blood. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today. Native Americans used it for everything from snake bites to deodorant.
After not seeing any goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis,) for a couple of years I recently found a good stand of it growing in a meadow in full sun. Luckily I was there in the morning because goat’s beard closes up shop at around noon and for this reason some call it “Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon.” A kind of bubble gum can be made from the plant’s milky latex sap and its spring buds are said to be good in salads. Another name for goat’s bead is meadow salsify.
Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) flowers are very small but there are enough of them so the plant can’t be missed. They grow at the edges of fields and pastures, and along pathways. The stems of this plant live through the winter so it gets a jump on the season, often blooming in May. This plant is a native of Europe and is also called chickweed, but there are over 50 different chickweeds. The 5 petals of the lesser stitchwort flower are split deeply enough to look like 10 petals. This is one way to tell it from greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea,) which has its 5 petals split only half way down their length. The flowers of greater stitchwort are also larger.
If the berries taste anything like the plant smells then I wouldn’t be eating them from a bittersweet nightshade vine (Solanum dulcamara.) It’s a native of Europe and Asia and is in the potato family, just like tomatoes, and the fruit is a red berry which in the fall looks like a soft and juicy, bright red, tiny Roma tomato. The plant climbs up and over other plants and shrubs and often blossoms for most of the summer. Bittersweet nightshade produces solanine, which is a narcotic, and all parts of the plant are considered toxic. In medieval times it was used medicinally but these days birds seem to be the only ones getting any use from it. I find that getting good photos of its small flowers is difficult, but I’m not sure why.
I can’t say if wood sorrel (Oxalis montana) is rare here but I rarely see it. Each time I find it it’s growing near water, and the above example grew in a wet area near a stream. It’s considered a climax species, which are plants that grow in mature forests, so that may be why I don’t often see it. It likes to grow where it’s cool and moist with high humidity. Though the word Montana appears in its scientific name it doesn’t grow there. In fact it doesn’t grow in any state west of the Mississippi River. It’s a pretty little thing that reminds me of spring beauties (Claytonia virginica,) thought its flowers are larger.
My grandmother had a great love of flowers that rubbed off on me at an early age. I used to walk down the railroad tracks to get from her house to my father’s house and when I did I saw flowers all along the way. One of those was spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana,) and I loved them enough to dig them up and replant them in our yard, despite my father’s apparent displeasure. He didn’t care much for the plant and he often said he couldn’t understand why I had to keep dragging home those “damned old weeds.” He said he wasn’t pleased about a stray cat that I brought home either but it wasn’t a week later that I saw the cat on his lap with him stroking her fur, so I think he really did understand why I kept dragging those damned old weeds home. Though he could have he never did make me dig them up and get rid of them. That’s why spiderwort became “dad’s flower,” and why every single time I see one I think of him.
Spiderworts can be blue, pink, purple, or white so I don’t know if this one growing in a local park is a native natural purple flowered variety or if it’s a purchased cultivar. It’s nice but I like the blue best.
While I was at the park visiting the purple tradescantia I saw this saucer sized peony blossom. It was a beautiful thing to stumble upon and very easy to lose myself in for a while. When you’re taking photos of a flower or object it’s easy to become so totally absorbed by the subject that for a time there is nothing else, not even you.
Do roses smell like peonies, or do peonies smell like roses? Either way we win, but I smelled a rose before I even knew what a peony was because we had a hedge full of them.
Fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) is a beautiful native tree that few people grow. It’s one of the last to leaf out in late spring and its fragrant hanging white flowers give it the name old man’s beard. Male flowered trees are showier but then you don’t get the purple berries that female flowered trees bear. Birds love the fruit and if I had room I’d grow both. I’ve read that they’re very easy to grow and are pollution tolerant as well.
I showed a photo of blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) recently but here is one with seed pods. I’ve never seen them. Blue eyed grass is in the iris family and isn’t a grass at all, but might have come by the name because of the way its light blue green leaves resemble grass leaves. The flowers are often not much bigger than a common aspirin but their color and clumping habit makes them fairly easy to find.
Our viburnums and native dogwoods are just coming into bloom. The flowers above are on the maple leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium.) Each flattish flower head is made up of many small, quarter inch, not very showy white flowers. If pollinated each flower will become a small deep purple berry (drupe) that birds love to eat. What I like most about this little shrub is how its leaves turn so many colors in fall. They can be pink, purple, red, yellow, and orange and combinations of two or three, and are really beautiful. The Native American Chippewa tribe used the inner bark of this plant to relieve stomach pains.
I thought I’d tell local readers that the new wildflower guide by Ted Elliman and the New England Wildflower Society is in stores. I got my copy about a week ago and I find it really clear and easy to read. It also has photos rather than line drawings, which I like and another thing I like about it is how some of the more common non-native plants are also included. Some of my own photos can be found in it as well, and I feel honored to have had them included. I hope everyone will want a copy.
To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. ~Beverly Nichols
Thanks for stopping in.
Brilliant to have some of your photos included in the book. I wish we had one like that here.
Thank you. I was very surprised. There must be a guide book to British wildflowers, hopefully broken down into the various districts.
Congratulations! I’ll definitely be picking up a copy as scrolling through your blog while carrying my camera and binoculars is not always convenient 🙂 If I’m smart, I take a photo and then come in and scroll through hoping to ID it … but then I get carried away reading all your posts and forget what I’m looking for.
Thank you Jocelyn. I hope you check all my identifications in a guide just like this one, because I do make mistakes from time to time. I really appreciate your interest in the blog!
Congrats on your publications – I’m not even a tiny but surprised 🙂
I think there’s either lesser stitchwort or long-leaf starwort (Stellaria longifolia) growing in one of my paddocks, but it’s to take bright light and a hand-lens to figure out which. I haven’t yet remembered to take a hand-lens when I go out to feed the goats in the morning, but maybe now I will!
Thanks very much. I was really surprised!
You could also take photos of the stitchwort and then view it on the computer screen while you look it up in a guide. I do that a lot and it works well as long as you gets shots of the leaves and stem as well as the flowers.
Congratulations on the inclusion of your photos in the wildflower guide. I will check The Toadstool for a copy! How exciting! I’m not surprised however as your photos are excellent and as always I learn something new with every post.
Thanks Martha! I think you’ll like it. I bought mine at Toadstool in Keene.
love seeing all these gorgeous flowers come out, it’s like they have been hidden
throughout winter buried under snow and now they have their pretty faces out
Thank you Eddie. That’s actually close to what does happen. It’s so nice to see them again!
Beautiful photos! I think your vetch may be Vicia cracca which is also called tufted vetch in the UK
Thanks very much Philip. I think you’re right, since hairy vetch has hairy stems.
Congratulations on having some of your photos published! The ones in this post are certainly worthy of that as well!
I don’t know how you’re able to identify the flowers and plants so well, but I’ve never found you to be wrong. In my attempts to ID flowers, I find so many local names for the same flowers, or the same local names from different areas used for different flowers, and so on. For one of the flowers that I was trying to ID for my blog, I found so much conflicting information depending on the source that I wasn’t sure which source to trust, even though they’re all supposed to be dependable sources of information. One source said that the flowers were only native to northern Europe, but the Wisconsin DNR said that they were native to the Great Lakes region. Same generic name, same scientific name, yet two different ranges listed for the same plant. I’m so confused, I think that I’ll stick to birds. 😉
Thanks Jerry!
You never know who’s looking at your blog, I guess. The author of the wildflower guide just found me by chance.
I use guides like that one to identify plants because there’s just too much misinformation on line. I take shots of each plant I don’t know from several different angles so I get the flowers, leaves, stems etc. and then look them up when I get home. Once I get the name from the book then I go online and see if I can find anything that matches the book. It’s a long involved process and there are some that I’ve never been able to identify, so I know exactly what you’re saying!
Congrats on having some of your images published!!! I’ve got spiderwort growing all over in my yard. I can understand why you like it, but I am now a fan and it is all but impossible to get rid of! And oh how I’ve tried!!!!
Thanks!
I know why my father called spiderwort a weed. It’s probably still growing in the yard I planted it in 50 years ago!
Your photos are beautiful. Congratulations on having some of them included in the field guide! Thanks for letting us know about the book.
That Fringe tree caught my eye. I checked, and those do grow here in Oregon.
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ldplants/chvi1.htm
Thanks very much Lavinia.
That photo is a good example of a fringe tree. It’s well worth growing if you have the room and good light. I’d plant a couple here but I have neither.
June is a month of beautiful flowers. I have never seen Bowman’s Root growing wild, though there is some in the Lurie Garden. I have some False Solomon’s Seal, it has spread slowly over the years.
I’ve never seen it in the wild either. It’s uncommon in these parts.
False Solomon’s seal is just finishing it’s bloom period right now.
Beautiful photos, as always. But, what struck me the most this time was your dazzling description of the bowman’s root flower. You left the perfect image in my mind, even without the photo. Such a pleasure to read.
Thank you Judy. I love the thought of a fawn breathing on flowers to see them dance!
I love the spiderwort, dad’s flower and the story which goes with it. Again beautiful flowers in your post so not surprised your photos feature in the new wildflowers guide. I should get a copy!
Thank you. Many flowers come with memories attached, and spiderwort always says dad to me.
I hope you will get a copy of the guide. The wildflower society does a lot of good work and they can use all the help they can get.
I am not surprised that someone has chosen to use your photographs. They are exemplary for their clarity.
Thanks very much. I think they would have done just as well if they had chosen photos from any of the various blogs I read, especially yours.
It’s nice to see some familiar favorites like spiderwort and a few others that I can identify, like blue-eyed grass, but, as usual, you’ve managed to find and feature lots of new species for me. This is a wonderful time of the year for flowers.
Thanks Mike. I hope you might see more of what you see here out in the field. I think most of our wildflowers probably grow as far south as Virginia, but unfortunately we’re too cold for yours to visit us.
It is a great time for flowers and this year they seem to be doing very well.
I suspect that I am seeing a number of them without having them register on me (I tend to focus more of my attention on birds and bugs). I’ll try to pay a bit more attention to them.
I do the same thing with birds and bugs. There’s only so much we can absorb!
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays and commented:
Lovely blooms, Allen. Congrats that your photos are in the wildflower guide book. Am so very happy for you. Thank you for sharing your part of the world with us. Happy Weekend. Namaste
Thank you Agnes. I was very surprised that some of my photos were chosen!
Happy weekend to you as well!
Congratulations on having some of your photographs included in the new guide!
There is so much I want to comment on in this lovely post but to save your patience I will limit myself to a couple! I love the Sisyrinchiums and at present I have Sisyrinchium striatum and want to get the blue-eyed grass I had in a previous garden. Once you have them in the garden you are sure of them always because they seed prolifically; at least that is what I have found.
I am also very fond of the Stellarias, though most people overlook them or get rid of them quickly if they appear in their gardens. The Greater Stitchwort has almost finished now and the Lesser Stitchwort is appearing in our ‘lawn’ (which is a bit of a grand title for our grass!). You are right about the number of Chickweeds there are though here in Britain we don’t usually refer to the L. Stitchwort as Chickweed as that might cause yet more confusion!
Your photographs are really so lovely I am not surprised at their inclusion in the new book. I love the look of the Fawn’s Breath and the Fringe Tree and the rose and peony flowers are beautiful. I like the Beverley Nichols quote. I have his book ‘Down the Garden Path’ which is very amusing (written in 1922) and also the book ‘Garden Rubbish’ written 1936) by W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman in which Nichols is lampooned most dreadfully.
I appear to have gone over my limit.
Thank you Clare. I was surprised when the author contacted me wanting to use my photos. He simply found me online, so keep clicking that shutter!
I’ve never heard of the Sisyrinchium striatum. It’s very different from it’s cousin the blue eyed grass. Blue eyed grass does seed itself prolifically but it doesn’t seem to stay in the same place for very long. I had them in one part of the yard for a couple of years and now those are gone and new ones have appeared in the lawn. I just mow around them and any stitchworts that appear. Just about any flower can always find a home here.
I’ve never heard of either of those books, which are most likely out of print. I spend a good amount of time in used bookstores though, so you never know.
There’s no limit here! Thanks again.
I have grown Sisyrinchium striatum for many years (I think it originates from South America) and all of sudden it is everywhere here and has become fashionable!
You were a trend setter!
Obviously! 😀
Congrats on you contribution to this new guide. I look forward to picking up a copy! -Susan
Thanks very much Susan, I think you’ll like it!
You photographed such delicate flowers. I loved the fringe tree.
Thank you Susan. I wish I’d planted fringe trees in this yard years ago. They’re a beautiful tree.
Luxuriously colourful images.
Thanks very much. It’s a colorful time of year here!