This is the time of year when our roadsides begin to look like Monet paintings. Purple loosestrife and goldenrod dominated this one, but the pink of Joe Pye weed and the white of asters and boneset often help brighten scenes like these.
There are enough different goldenrods (over a hundred it is said) which look enough alike to convince me that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to identify them all, but some are quite easy to identify. One of the easiest is gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis). It’s one of the first to bloom and its flower heads always look like they have been in a strong wind that blew them over to one side of the stem. The heavy flower heads also bend the stem so the plant almost always leans at an angle like those shown.
I’ve included this shot of a field full of many kinds of goldenrod for those who haven’t ever seen one. Sights like this were common when I was a boy but are getting harder to find now, mostly because of invasion by purple loosestrife. The Native American Chippewa tribe called goldenrod “sun medicine” and used it to treat fevers, ulcers, and boils. Many other tribes also used it medicinally.
After years of trial and error Thomas Edison found goldenrod to be the best domestic source of natural rubber and bred a plant that grew to twelve feet tall and contained about twelve percent rubber in its leaves. Henry Ford and George Washington Carver developed a process to make rubber from goldenrod on an industrial scale during World War II and the USDA took over the project until synthetic rubber was discovered a short time later.
I’ve been surprised to find over the past couple of years how some of the flowers that I love to see, like the tiny little forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) above, have somehow found their way into my yard. Since I haven’t done anything to encourage it how they get here is a mystery, but the list gets longer each summer. It’s such a pleasure to be able to see them each day without having to go and look for them, and I hope the trend continues.
Eastern forked blue curls have beautiful flowers that might make a half inch across on a good day and the entire plant barely reaches ankle high, so it’s a challenging plant to photograph. One unusual thing about the flower other than its unique beauty, is its four long, arching stamens that dust bees with pollen when they land on its lower lip. This plant is an annual that grows new from seed each year. It seems to like sandy soil and I find it growing along river banks and sometimes roadsides, and now in my own yard.
I know of only one place to find field milkwort (Polygala sanguinea) and it is always worth the walk to see them. The flowers are very beautiful and unusual enough to make you want to sit beside them for a while and study them, and that’s just what I often do. I find them growing in full sun in sandy loam.
On field milkwort flowers what look like petals arranged on a central stem are actually individual flowers packed into a raceme no bigger than the end of an average index finger. Each tiny overlapping flower has two large sepals, three small sepals, and three small petals that form a narrow tube. Several different kinds of bees help pollinate this plant. Its flowers can be white, purple, pink, or green and I’ve noticed that the color can vary considerably from plant to plant.
Tall blue lettuce (Lactuca biennis) can get very tall and often towers over my head. A cluster of small, pencil eraser sized, blue flowers sits at the tip of the long stem. This plant is very similar to the wild lettuce (Lactuca canadensis) which bears yellow flowers. Both plants were used medicinally by Native Americans but they should only be used by those who know them well, because it is said that they can cause death by cardiac paralysis.
The flowers of tall blue lettuce can be white, deep blue, or ice blue. The deep blue ones are always the hardest to find but also the most beautiful and worth the effort. I haven’t seen a single one this year though.
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 and butterflies love it too and will come from all over to sip its nectar.
There are 2 or 3 small lobelias with small blue / purple flowers that grow here, but though the flowers look alike the plants themselves have very different growth habits, and that makes them easy to identify. This lobelia is called Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) and the small flowers are about 1/3 of an inch long. It is the only lobelia with calyxes that inflate after the flowers have fallen and to identify it I just look for the inflated seedpods.
Indian tobacco gets its name from the way its inflated seed pods resemble the smoking material pouches that Native Americans carried. The inflata part of its scientific name also comes from these inflated pods. The pods form so quickly that they can usually be found on the lower part of the stem while the upper part is still flowering. Though Native Americans used this and other lobelias to treat asthma and other breathing difficulties they knew how to use what we don’t, and today the plants are considered toxic. They can make you very sick and too much can kill.
Common burdock (Arctium minus) must have come to this country very early, probably tangled in a horse or cow’s tail, because it was noted as being widespread in 1663. In fact it was so common then that some who came later wrote that it was native. Its spread across the country from New England to the Pacific took about 270 years, because the Native Americans of western Washington State said it had been recently introduced there in the 1930s. Burdock’s tubular purple flowers are densely packed into round prickly flower heads, but though many are familiar with the flower heads few seem to ever notice the flowers. The examples in the above photo had just opened. When fully open long white styles grow from the dark purple anthers. In this flower head only the lower blossom shows the styles.
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’s easy to see how the plant came by the arrowleaf part of its common name.
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. 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 in summer.
Steeple bush (Spirea tomentose) seems more herb than shrub to me but it’s in the spirea family of many shrubs. Sometimes it gets confused with meadowsweet (Spirea alba) but that plant is a very woody shrub with white flowers in flower heads that aren’t as long and pointed as these are. A dense coat of white wooly hairs covers the stem and the leaf undersides of steeple bush, and that’s where the tomentose part of the scientific name comes from. It means “covered with densely matted woolly hairs.” I almost always find this plant at the water’s edge.
Five petaled, pink steeplebush flowers are about 1/16 of an inch wide and loaded with 5 pistils and many stamens, which is what often gives flowers in the spirea family a fuzzy appearance. Many different butterflies love these flowers. Native Americans used the plant medicinally in much the same way that we would use aspirin.
Pipewort (Eriocaulon aquaticum) usually grows in ankle deep water at pond edges with the lower stem submerged so it’s hard to see the entire plant, but last year’s drought let me see that each plant had a tiny tuft of sword shaped leaves at the base of the stem. The stem has a twist to it and has 7 ridges, and because of that some call it seven angle pipewort.
The plants grow in the mud and send up a slender stalk that is topped by a quarter inch diameter flower head made up of very tiny white, cottony flowers. For the first time since I’ve been photographing the plant I was able to see what look like black stamens on this example. Eriocaulon, the first part of pipewort’s scientific name, comes from the Greek erion, meaning wool, and kaulos, meaning plant stem. The second part of the scientific name, aquaticum, is Latin for a plant that grows in water, so what you have is a wool-topped stem growing in water, which of course is exactly what pipewort looks like. Pipewort is wind pollinated. It is also called hat pins, for obvious reasons.
Last year swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) started blossoming at the end of June and this year it waited until the end of July, a full month’s difference. Of course I started checking the two plants I know of at the end of June and have been waiting impatiently ever since to see this, in my opinion the most beautiful of all the milkweeds. Certain flowers can absorb me, and this is one of them. It’s one that I can sit and look at without thinking or caring about much of anything else for a time.
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Thanks for coming by.
I love the field of goldenrod photo, Allen. I have some in the garden here I bought from a nursery. I haven’t seen it growing wild in my area. Possibly it is too dry in summer. I did find I can root it in water from cuttings, and make more plants.
Thank you Lavinia. Interesting; I didn’t know goldenrod grew from cuttings. I wonder if you are always hearing about how goldenrod causes hay fever, which of course it doesn’t.
People often insist to me that it does, but I read a long time ago that it does not, and the explanation makes sense.
Goldenrod has very heavy, sticky pollen grains that cannot be wind carried, so it’s impossible for it to cause hay fever, even if you stick your nose right into a blossom. Ragweed on the other hand has dust like pollen grains that float freely on the wind, and they’re what cause allergic reactions.
The trouble is people don’t notice ragweed growing everywhere; they only notice goldenrod, so it gets the blame.
This is such a beautiful post, Allen! Your shots of all these wonderful plants are exquisite. I especially love the one of the field milkwort – it shines! I also agree with Jerry in suspecting you bring the seeds home with you.
Thank you Clare, it’s that time of year!
The field milkwort does shine. It’s another of those that seem to have their own inner light.
If I am bringing seeds home I’m not doing it intentionally, but it doesn’t matter as long as I can walk out my door and see many of the plants I’ve had to search for in the past.
Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) was the favorite plant of Samuel Thomson, who is considered by many to be the “Father of American Herbalism”.
http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/special_reports/some-medical-cures-in-the-past-were-worse-than-the/article_ad072917-7b79-57eb-90eb-c5aeffef9a8b.html
Thanks Al, that was an interesting article. I wonder if Thompson’s book can still be found. I’d love to see it.
I doubt it would convince me to try lobelia though!
I wonder if some of the plants are finding their way to your yard by way of the mud on the bottom of your boots, or otherwise attached to your clothes? Some of the preserves that I’ve visited the past few years have stations similar to those used by golfers to clean the cleats on their golf shoes, to prevent the spread of unwanted plants.
It is hard to believe that it’s August already, the summer is flying by. I loved all the flowers in this post, but I hope that you find cardinal flowers and turn your magic camera towards them. I’m always impressed by how well you’re able to photograph the tiny flowers that you see, such as the blue curls and the close-up of the pink steeplebush flowers.
Thanks Jerry! I’ve wondered that myself. I know I have had enchanter’s nightshade seed pods stuck all over myself and now that plant grows here. It could be the same with the others.
I’ve still never seen a cardinal flower. I think someone will have to lead me right to one before I can see it.
Those shots of the tiny flowers usually mean I have to try again and again to get it right. It ain’t easy!
I used to see them growing in wetter areas when I was a youngster. Check along drainage ditches and edges of streams or rivers.
Thank you, it isn’t that I don’t know where they grow. It’s because of colorblindness. I can’t see red when it’s anywhere near green. If a red cardinal lands in a green tree it disappears.
Wow, the number and beauty of the late summer flowers there is astounding! You are having a beautiful year!
Thanks Montucky! I think it must be all the rain. I don’t think we’ve gone more than a week without it.
We have a tremendous amount of meadowsweet but I would love to see the steeplebush.
Other than the shape of its flower heads it looks much like a spirea.
Maybe you talked to the plants and they realized they’d have a good home with you! Our red bee balm are blooming for a long time. Must be the rain and coolish weather.
Thank you Cynthia. I don’t remember talking to them but maybe they felt some good vibrations. They will have a good home here.
I think the rain and cooler temps have messed up the bloom time and length for a lot of plants. Bee balm is still blooming here too.
Oh, it’s too soon for August! Odd about the Swamp Milkweed, though. It bloomed rather late here as well.
I agree! Too early for goldenrod as well.
The only thing I can think of that would mess up the bloom time of so many plants is the cold wet spring we had. There are many with late blooms.
Allan, I’ve solved the mystery of what that little flower is that looks like the sand spurrey that we’ve been trying to figure out for a few years. Gypsophila muralis (low baby’s-breath), a non-native member of the Caryophyllaceae that occurs (usually) in human-disturbed habitats, like road edges and fields. Thanks to the botanist at Go Botany
Thank you David. Actually I put a note on that post saying that Al Stoops had found its name through a Facebook plant ID site that I didn’t know about.
I thank you for the effort though. Everyone agrees that that’s its name.
Nice! What a great quotation. So true.
Thank you Laurie, I think so too!
Thank you for another interesting post. It’s reassuring to know that native plants still thrive in some places.
You’re welcome Jane, and thank you. Yes, a lot of our native plants do very well here despite the invasives. Many non natives do well too and most are not at all invasive, so they all seem to coexist.
“I’ve been surprised to find over the past couple of years how some of the flowers that I love to see, like the tiny little forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) above, have somehow found their way into my yard. Since I haven’t done anything to encourage it how they get here is a mystery, but the list gets longer each summer. It’s such a pleasure to be able to see them each day without having to go and look for them, and I hope the trend continues.”
Enjoy the sweet mystery. 🙂
Thank you Ben, I do!
I had a feeling … 🙂
Reblogged this on Poltrack Pix.
Thank you John.
You know so much about the beautiful and interesting plants you photograph, I liked the blue curls the best and am pleased that they have found their way into your backyard.
Thank you Susan. I love the color of the blue curls. I’m happy they’ve found their way here too and I hope all of their friends will join them.