The pink turtleheads (Chelone lyonii) are blooming in my garden; one of the very last plants to do so. A friend gave me this plant many years ago and I think of her every time I see it bloom. That’s one of the best things about giving and receiving plants; they come with memories. I don’t know the origin of this plant and have never known if it was a native or a cultivar but it does very well and asks for nothing. Pink turtleheads are native to the southeastern U.S. and don’t seem to mind dryness in spite of naturally growing near water.
The white heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) is a plant that is so loaded with small white flowers along its stems that it doesn’t look as if you could fit one more on it. For that reason it has another common name; the many flowered aster.
There are many asters that look alike and to complicate matters they cross breed and create natural hybrids, so they can be hard to identify. One of the features that helps with the identity of the heath aster is how it has nearly every inch of free stem covered by a blossom, all of them on one side of the stem. The shrubby little plants are about knee high and I find them growing in unmowed fields and pastures.
White heath aster blossoms are fairly small; 1/4 to 1/2 inch across at best. Asters were burned by the Greeks to drive away serpents, and the Romans put wreaths made of aster blossoms on alters to the gods. In this country Native Americans used asters in sweat baths.
Beggar’s Ticks (Bidens) are plants that teach patience because they suddenly appear in late July and grow for several weeks before they flower. There are nearly 200 species in the genus and many of them look nearly identical. I think this one might be purple stemmed beggar’s ticks (Bidens connata.) The plant gets its common name from the way its barbed seeds cling to clothing. Books say that it reaches 3 1/2 feet tall but I’ve seen some get close to six feet. The one in the photo grew beside the Ashuelot River and shows the plant’s often open, branching habit and its purple stems. I’ve also seen these plants growing in water at the edge of ponds.
If you wait for the flowers of many beggar’s ticks to open more than what is seen in this photo you’ll be waiting a very long time, because this is about the extent of it for them. The yellow orange flowers have disc flowers but no rays like asters and daisies, so they always seem to be unopened.
Crown vetch (Securigera varia) is about done for this year but I did see a few in bloom recently. This one had a surprise.
The crown vetch flower head actually had an open blossom on it, which in my experience is rare. Tucked down inside the keel, which is made up of two of the five petals, are 10 male stamens and a single female pistil. Another petal stands vertically and becomes the standard, and the final two are lateral wings. Each pink and purple flower is around 3/8ths of an inch long. The plants are worth watching for. Large colonies of them are beautiful enough to stop me in my tracks.
Sweet everlasting’s (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) common name comes from the way it lasts for years after being cut and dried. An odd name for this plant is rabbit tobacco, given to it by Native Americans because they noticed that rabbits liked to gather where these plants grew. Because of these gatherings they thought that rabbits must smoke the plant as a way to communicate with the Creator. They apparently decided to try smoking it too because it was and still is used in smoking mixtures by some Native people.
This example had a fully open flower, which is something I don’t see that often. In this stage the plant is releasing its seeds, which are small and brown and attached to the fluffy bits in the center. What look like petals are actually papery bracts. The plant is said to smell like maple syrup when crushed, but I’ve never tried it. I find it in sunny, sandy waste areas and on roadsides.
Friends of mine grew some beautiful sunflowers this year.
There’s such an awful lot going on in there.
Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) hasn’t been affected at all by our drought as far as I can tell. This plant along with purple loosestrife is one of the worst invasives, because it spreads so fast and so thickly that it chokes out all other plants. It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world’s worst invasive species. A viable plant can grow from as little as .7 grams of rootstock so digging it does little good. Cutting or mowing also does no good. It just grows back bushier than ever.
The thousands of tiny white flowers and its resemblance to bamboo are why Japanese knotweed was imported from England back in the late 1800s. It has since spread to 39 of the 50 United States and is found in all provinces in Canada except Manitoba.
My color finding software sees just two colors in the ray florets of this aster; thistle and plum, so I guess it’s a blueish purple. Except for the stems, which are reddish purple, and that’s a good thing since its name is purplestem aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum.) Its branching stems are very hairy and can sometimes reach 6 feet high. The flowers are about an inch or maybe a little more across. It likes its head in the sun and its feet wet, like along a stream or river. I’m still waiting to see the New England asters. The Native American Ojibwa tribe used parts of the root mixed with tobacco as a smoking mixture used to attract game.
My last flower post ended with a photo of bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) that I had just found, but which hadn’t reached full color. I went back to see if their color had darkened any in a week.
They hadn’t darkened very much but I wasn’t surprised. I’ve waited several weeks for flower buds showing color to mature in the past. They were still very beautiful and well worth the hike, since this is only the second time I’ve seen them.
When the goldenrod is yellow,
And leaves are turning brown –
Reluctantly the summer goes
In a cloud of thistledown.
~Beverly Ashour
Thanks for stopping by.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 
The turtlehead and the crown vetch are beautiful flowers. The sunflowers looking good too.
I don’t suppose we’ll see any more of them until next year, though we still haven’t had a frost.
We have knotweed here in the Pacific Northwest as well. None in my immediate area, but sounds almost as bad as Kudzu in the south. It is beautiful though.
It is easy to get overrun here by non-native blackberry that throw 20 foot canes in a season, and have some really nasty thorns. Mowing keeps it in check, but where it grows up into trees it can be a bear to remove. At least the berries are tasty and it is significant part of the main honey flow in the Willamette Valley.
Thank you. Yes, knotweed is just about impossible to eradicate, much like kudzu, so once you have it you have it for a long time. I hope it doesn’t move in to your area.
I remember reading about your blackberries last year. They sound almost as bad as knotweed, but at least they have fruit and keep the bees happy.
There is one upside to the Japanese knotweed. It is great source of nectar for honeybees in the early fall and apparently produces a tasty red honey.
Thank you. I’ve read that bees like it but I didn’t know about the red honey. The plants must also produce many thousands of seeds.
Crown vetch is a native plant here but I’ve never seen it. I can’t be looking in the right places! Japanese Knotweed is a real problem here too and it is now illegal to plant it in our gardens. We are expected to report any Japanese Knotweed plants we see to the authorities. There are companies that can be hired to control this plant either by digging it out and disposing of the waste, or by controlling it by injecting the stems with herbicide and encircling the plant with a barrier to stop it from spreading further. It takes a few treatments of herbicide for the plant to die. I think this must cost rather a lot of money. I also wonder how deep they dig to get rid of the plant and are you then left with an enormous crater in your garden?
Crown vetch is used here for erosion control so we see it on embankments a lot, but the escaped plants tend to grow in dry, sandy soil in full sun or sometimes at the edges of meadows.
I can see why you’ve spent millions trying to control knotweed! I’m guessing that it would be up to you to fill the hole once a plant was dug out. That’s certainly the way it would work here if they bothered to dig them up, but our answer seems to be to just ignore the plant completely.
We have found it can’t be ignored. It grows up through concrete pavements and up through buildings. It spreads and spreads!
The plants that I have been given by friends as tiny cuttings or seeds always mean so much more to me and get special attention as they grow. You recall the friend each time you pass by. Such wonderful places gardens! Amelia
Thank you Amelia. I agree!
You have an amazing number of flowers still in bloom! We are down to a very few in the valley, more higher up on the mountains.
Thanks Montucky! We have some still blooming but I can always tell when we’re nearing the end because I have to start looking for them instead of their being everywhere like they are in summer.
I hope you’ll have a chance to get some shots of what you have left!
I think that I have looked at literally millions of crown vetch flowers, and I’ve never seen one open as you showed. I never knew that there was more to the flower that usually remains hidden. I guess that I’ll have to look at a few million more, not that it’s a bad thing. 😉
Asters are another group of flowers that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love their beauty, but their appearance means that we’re moving closer to winter.
There was a large patch of Japanese knotweed growing near the parking lot of the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve, but I noticed earlier this year that it was gone, at least for the time being. I’ll have to remember to look to see if it’s growing back again. The bad thing is that I’m seeing it in more places this year. The flowers are lovely, and bees seem to love it as well, too bad that it’s so invasive.
Thanks Jerry! I know what you mean, I rarely see open crown vetch flowers. Bees must have to force their way into them like they do with some gentians.
Yes, I feel the same about asters. They’re beautiful but come with a message!
I wonder if that knotweed is gone for good. You’ll have to ask them what they did if it is. I’m also seeing it in more places and I’m not thrilled about that. In this part of the world the authorities seem to do little about it, so it’s free to spread at will.
I love fall flowers – sunflowers, goldenrod, asters, gentians. Although I hate Japanese knotweed.
I don’t hate knotweed but I’m not happy with the way it takes over.
I’m enjoying your beautiful flowers and identifications very much. I know how hard it is to capture tiny wildflowers with the camera.
Thank you Virginia. Yes, it can be hard to capture them. I often have to go back again and again to get a useable photo.
But it’s very interesting and educational. I think I learn something each time.
LOve it! It’s great to find a new post in my mailbox.
But what will you write about in winter?
Thanks very much Cynthia. In winter I write about what I see, just like at other times of year, but of course what I see is very different. Mosses, lichens, liverworts, swelling tree buds, all kinds of beautiful things!
The knot weed is a real problem here, along with Himalayan Baslam which has colonised the riverbanks, both have their beauty but they are terribly invasive. We also ha e lots of vetch along the riverbank but most is over now and has set seed for next year.
I’ve heard about the balsam but didn’t know the knotweed was a problem. I’ve heard that it’s bad in Scotland too, so it’s probably a worldwide invasive now.
Most of our vetch plants have also gone by but I still see flowers now and then.
Very informative as usual! My turtlehead are blooming too! I love them as well. I’d have to pull out my white mountain wild flower book but I believe we have some white turtlehead that is native and I have seen it here and there.
Thank you. It’s turtlehead time alright. You’re right about the native white variety. I see it quite frequently growing in roadside ditches and other wet areas.
Reblogged this on Poltrack Pix and commented:
Flowers in spite of the drought
Thank you John!
It’s too bad the Japanese knotweed is so invasive since its flowers sure are pretty. I heard of people trying to burn down stands of it and attacking it with herbicides to no avail. I’ve heard the spring shoots are quite tasty.
It does have pretty flowers but they’re tiny little things. Governments have spent many millions trying to get rid of Japanese Knotweed but I’ve never heard of a single successful effort.
I’ve had people tell me that they’ve eaten its shoots in spring and that they were very good. Maybe if we all started eating it, it would disappear.
What a pretty colour the crown vetch is as are so many of the flowers that you photographed.
Thank you Susan. I love crown vetch flowers but many people don’t. They’re considered a weed here.
What a shame.
Yes!
Your colour software is doing well as I see bluish purple too.
I thought that you might like to know that the blackbirds are half way through the good crop of berries on the mountain ash in our garden.
Thank you, I’m glad the color software is working.
I keep forgetting to look at the mountain ash trees that I know of, but at last look they hadn’t been touched.
It’s great to see that so many flowers are still blooming there as we move into fall. Yesterday as I was wandering in my favorite local park I saw lots and lots of asters, many of them of a purple variety but some also were light blue.
Thanks Mike. If you ever try to get serious about identifying flowers don’t start with asters! They cross breed and produce hybrid varieties that can be very beautiful, but are also nearly impossible to put a name on.