Late September Flowers

Though this pond side view looks like we still have plenty of flowers blooming here in New Hampshire, they are getting harder to find now that we’ve gone into fall. In this view the off white flowers are boneset, nearly gone by, so the only flowers truly blooming are purple asters and goldenrod. There are still other flowers still blooming out there but at this time of year you have to search to find them.

I found a huge mounded colony of this white aster in an old field. Asters can be very hard to identify but I think it might be the small white American aster (Symphyotrichum racemosum) because of the way its lance shaped leaves are sessile on the stem. In this case sessile means leaves without a stalk (petiole.)

At about a half inch across the flowers on the small white American aster aren’t as small as some of the other white asters. For an aster the petals are arranged very symmetrically. There is a similar aster called bushy American aster that has blue flowers.

Pretty little blue toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis) must be one of the longest blooming wildflowers we have here. It usually starts blooming in May and I’m still seeing it in quite large numbers here in what is almost October. You can’t ask more from a flower than that. I love the shade of blue that it wears.

Another of my favorite shades of blue is found on bottle gentians (Gentiana linearis.) My color finding software sees both blue and purple in these blooms but colorblindness turns them all blue for me. I walked along the Ashuelot River to the spot where they grow and, though I thought they were finished for this year, there were one or two still holding onto their color. When they start to go by they turn very dark blue and then a kind of purple.

I took this photo of a bottle gentian so those of you who have never seen one would know what to look for. The flowers and growth habit look much like those on a narrow leaved gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) but that plant has narrower leaves.

Black eyed Susans are another flower with a long bloom time but they’re getting sparse now and you have to search to find them in this area. Though they start blooming in June I always think of them as a fall flower, so when I see them in June I always have to ask them do you have to remind me so soon? Summer just started! I forgive them for trying to make time pass so quickly though because they’re so cheery, even in June.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a European native that has been cultivated for centuries. The flat flower heads are made up of many button like disc flowers; almost like a daisy without the white ray flowers that we call petals. Tansy is a natural insect repellent and was used as such in colonial times. Dried tansy added to the straw in mattresses was said to keep bedbugs away. Most tansy plants are seen in gardens but it had naturalized itself in New England by 1785 and can still be occasionally found growing along roadsides. It’s a good plant to use in vegetable gardens for pest control. The ancient Greeks grew tansy for medicinal use but modern science has found it to be toxic.

Johnny jump up (Viola tricolor) is still blooming. It is plant that has been known for a very long time and goes by many common names. It’s said to have 60 names in English and 200 more in other languages. In medieval times it was called heartsease and was used in love potions. Viola tricolor is believed to be the original wild form of all the modern varieties of pansy. I’m lucky enough to have them popping up at the edge of my lawn. I always make sure I miss them with the lawn mower.

I saw this pretty bi-color phlox in a friend’s garden. Many phlox blossoms are very fragrant but I forgot to smell this one. What would a fall garden be without a phlox or two? They’re so beautiful, it’s hard not to love them.

I saw this view of deep purple New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and goldenrods along a roadside recently. In the past I’ve complained that there weren’t enough of these dark purple asters but this year I’m seeing them everywhere I go. I’ve noticed that bees seem to prefer the lighter colored ones but these still had hundreds of bees all over them. In fact every aster plant I’ve seen this year has been just swarming with bees of all kinds.

This is a close up of the same flowers that are in the previous photo, but the bright sunshine lightened their color.

I’ve never seen an aster with so many blooms on it. I don’t know its name but this is a cultivated aster that grows in a local park. It’s a very beautiful thing, and quite big.

At a glance this might look like an aster but it’s actually a chrysanthemum blossom. Mums are big business here and at this time of year nurseries sell them as fast as they get them. Though they are called “hardy mums” there are few that can really make it through a New Hampshire winter. I have a purple one that has come up for years and many of the white ones will survive. I used to work at a nursery that grew mums from cuttings; ten thousand of them each year, and I’ll never forget having to water them. It took all day, and I had to do it every day that it didn’t rain. I was very happy when they sold.

You might think I had found a blue lily but no, this is a hosta blossom. They’re very pretty things but hostas are grown more for their foliage than the flowers. This plant was in a local park and had hundreds of blossoms on it.

Sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) won’t be finished blooming until we have a freeze but it doesn’t start blooming as early as black eyed Susans and others do. If you crush a few blossoms and smell them they smell like maple syrup, and that helps identify the plant. Its common name comes from the way it lasts for years after being cut and dried. Usually the plant has many buds rather than open flowers, as this example shows. An odd name for it 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. I’ve never seen a rabbit near it.

It’s hard to tell when a sweet everlasting blossom is actually fully open, but this is what the seed pods look like after the seeds have been released. It’s as pretty as a flower.

Red clover (Trifolium pretense) is originally from Europe and was brought to this country by English colonials, who used it medicinally and agriculturally. It is a very beautiful thing that often glows with its own inner light, and I have to stop and admire it every now and then. Had I been an early settler I surely would have had a few of its seeds in my pocket. There are a lot of clover plants by the Ashuelot River in Swanzey and in the evening the cottontails come out to eat them. I’ve noticed that when they’re done eating the non-native red clover they go and hide in a thicket of another non-native plant-barberry. Neither man nor beast will follow them into that thicket, and they know it.

There are something like 70 species of Helianthus and it’s hard to know which one you’re looking at sometimes. I know this one isn’t the woodland sunflower but that’s about all I know. I like seeing them just the same, whether I can name them or not.

Our native purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are still blooming but they’ve slowed down quite a lot and are busier making seeds than new flowers. This plant is well known for its medicinal qualities as well as its beauty. According to the USDA the plant was used by many Native American tribes throughout North America to treat a variety of ailments. It was used as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, as a treatment for toothaches, coughs, colds, and sore throats. It was also used as an antidote for various forms of poisonings, including snake bite. Portions of it were also used to dress wounds and treat infections. Modern medicine has found it useful to combat bacterial and viral infections and as an immune system booster. I grow it because butterflies and bees like its nectar, birds like the seeds, and I like to admire its beauty.

Imagine; a sunflower turning its back to the sun. But according to an article on National Public Radio this is normal; scientists have found that once sunflowers mature like the one shown they stop following the sun and face east. When young they greet the sunrise in the east and then as the day progresses they follow it to the west until it sets. During the night time they slowly turn back to the east to again to wait for the next sunrise. They do this through a process called heliotropism, which scientists say can be explained by circadian rhythms, a 24 hour internal clock that humans also have. The plant actually turns itself by having different sides of its stem elongate at different times. Growth rates on the east side of the stem are high during the day and low at night. On the west side of the stem the growth rate is high at night and low during the day, and the differing growth rates turn the plant.

Isn’t nature amazing?

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. ~Luther Burbank.

Thanks for coming by.