Mid May Flowers
May 18, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

I thought I’d illustrate our weather by showing these grape hyacinths, which should be done blooming by now. I saw the first ones blooming just a little over a month ago. Other bulbs like tulips and daffodils are also still blooming so they must be enjoying the cool, damp weather.

Trees with white flowers are everywhere and this one happens to be an apple tree. I think many people are surprised to learn that apple trees are not native to the United States. They have all come from old world stock brought over in the 1600s. Apples from Europe were grown in the Jamestown colony and the first non-native apple orchard was planted in Boston in 1625. Only the crab apple is native to this country and they were once called “common” apples. The Native American Abenaki tribe called them “apleziz” and used them for food as well as medicinally.

But it doesn’t matter where apples come from, because the fragrance is wonderful. Apple blossoms were one of my grandmother’s favorites and I remember bringing her arm loads of flowering branches when I was a boy. They were all you could smell in her house for days after.

Few of us think of creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) as a wildflower but it is actually native to the forests of North America. It is sometimes called moss phlox or moss pinks and April’s “pink moon” got that name from the way the “moss pinks” bloom in that month. It’s a plant that loves growing in lawns and luckily it doesn’t seem to mind being mowed. Even so many people wait until it’s done blooming to do their first spring mowing.

Individual creeping phlox flowers are quite pretty but I doubt many people bother to look at them. They see the mass display but not the individuals responsible for it.

Pin cherry flowers (Prunus pensylvanica) are quite pretty and are pollinated by several kinds of insects. They become small, quarter inch bright red berries (drupes) with a single seed which are also called bird cherries. The berries are said to be very sour but edible and are used in jams and jellies, presumably with a lot of sugar. Native Americans used the berries in breads and cakes and also preserved them and ate them fresh. The bark of the tree was used medicinally for a large variety of illnesses including coughs, stomach pains and as a burn salve.

I can remember picking lilacs for my grandmother on Mother’s day but not this year. I’d guess that they’re close to two weeks late. So far this small flower head is the only one I’ve seen but that’s probably because of the cool wet weather. We had a dusting of snow yesterday morning so if it’s cold enough to snow it’s cold enough to keep those buds closed. This one was small in size but not in fragrance. It’s great to smell lilacs again.

Johnny jump ups (Viola tricolor) have jumped up almost over night. This beautiful dark one was the first I’ve seen. This wild form of the modern pansy has been known and loved for a very long time. It is said to have 60 names in English and 200 more in other languages. In medieval times it was called heart’s ease and was used in love potions. Stranger names include “three faces in a hood.” Whatever it’s called I like seeing it appear at the edge of my lawn in spring. I always try to encourage it by letting it go to seed but it never seems to spread.

Just after many other magnolias lose their flowers this one with tulip shaped flowers starts blooming. Its name is “Jane” and though I’m not crazy about the flower shape I love its color. It’s later bloom time means less chance of damage by frost.

Vinca (Vinca minor) has come into full bloom now. The word vinca means “to bind” in Latin, and that’s what the plant’s wiry stems do. They grow quickly into an impenetrable wiry mat that other plants can’t grow through and I’ve seen large areas of nothing but vinca in the woods, still blooming beautifully 200 years after it was first planted. You can often find huge colonies of it near old cellar holes. Still, it is nowhere near as aggressive as many other invasive plants and people enjoy seeing its beautiful violet flowers in spring. Another name for it is Myrtle.

Sessile leaved bellwort (Uvularia sessilifolia) is also called wild oats and the plants have just come into bloom. They are a spring ephemeral and won’t last but they do put on a show when they carpet a forest floor. They are a buttery yellow color which in my experience is always difficult to capture with a camera. The spring shoots remind me of Solomon’s seal but the plant is actually in the lily of the valley family.

The word “sessile” in the name describes how the leaves of a sessile leaved bellwort lie flat against the stem, with no leaf stalk. The leaves are also elliptic and are wider in the middle than they are on either end.

A forest floor carpeted with sessile leaved bellworts makes an unforgettable sight. Many tens of thousands of them grow along the Ashuelot River in Keene.

Dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius) plants have three leaflets on each compound leaf and together form a whorl of three compound leaves around the stem. The plants are very small; each one would fit in a teacup with plenty of room to spare. Dwarf ginseng is very choosy about where it grows and will only grow in undisturbed ground in old hardwood forests. It is not the ginseng used in herbal medicine but it is quite rare in my experience, so it should never be picked.

Each dwarf ginseng flower head is about the size of a malted milk ball, or about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Individual flowers are about 1/8 inch across and have 5 bright white petals, a short white calyx, and 5 white stamens. In a good year the flowers might last 3 weeks, and if pollinated will be followed by tiny yellow fruits.

Pulmonaria usually has green leaves splotched with silver but this one I saw in a local park must be a new hybrid. Pulmonaria (Pulmonaria officinalis) is an old fashioned but pretty evergreen garden plant that originally hails from Europe and Asia. The silver mottled leaves were once thought to resemble a diseased lung and so its common name became lungwort. People thought it would cure respiratory ailments like bronchitis and the leaves were and still are used medicinally in tinctures and infusions.

The leaves and flowers are edible, and if you’ve ever had vermouth you’ve had a splash of pulmonaria because it is one of the ingredients. The plant does well in shade and has flowers of blue, pink, white, purple and red.

I finally saw the wild columbines (Aquilegia canadensis) blooming and thankfully Ii was a nice uneventful hike out to see them. I’ve found that my bear encounter of a couple of weeks ago has taken a lot of the shine off this hike. It’s hard to relax when you know you need to be on your guard.

But as always the columbines were beautiful and I lost myself in them for a while. I took shot after shot, trying to get the best view I could. Much like people flowers have a best side, and your job as a nature photographer is to find it. If you want to really see nature like you’ve never seen it before, look at it through a camera lens.
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. ~Dorothea Lange
Thanks for stopping in.
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Posted in Nature, Wildflowers | Tagged Apple Blossoms, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Creeping Phlox, Dwarf Ginseng, Early Spring Plants, Grape Hyacinth, Johnny Jump Ups, Keene, Lilac, Magnolia, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Pin Cherry, Pulmonaria, Sessile Leaved Bellwort, Spring, Swanzey New Hampshire, Vinca Minor, Wild Columbine | 32 Comments
I think I read that apple trees originated in the mountains of Kazakhstan in Central Asia. I love that forest floor covered with the Uvularia, though I think I like U. grandiflora as a garden plant.
I’ve never seen the grandiflora. I’m not sure it grows here but I like it too.
I love, love, love following your posts. We have a family home in northern NH (we spend half our time there) but this spring we are stuck closer to the city, for medical care. Your posts help me pretend I’m up amongst my favorite spring flowers. I’m so sorry to miss the incredible hobblebush–one of my favorite trails is quite a sight when hobblebush blooms. Thanks for your posts, always but especially this spring!
Thanks very much Jamie. I’m happy to bring you as many spring flowers as I can and I’m sorry to hear that you can’t see them yourself this year. I hope it’s nothing serious.
Take care.
I loved all the beautiful flowers in this one, and you’re right, everything seems to be blooming later in the season this year. I checked out the apple trees I saw this week, and not one blossom was open yet, and I too love their scent.
I think that my favorite flowers from this post are the creeping phlox, other than Aman Park, I know of no places near me where I can find large displays of flowers like you often find, like the phlox. I know that I spend most of my time outside looking for birds and other wildlife but I’d notice large clumps of flowers like that if they were around.
One more thought, I’m finding that with the flowers being as late as they are this year, the insects are also late as well, and I’m wondering if you’ve noticed a lack of butterflies and bees also this spring?
Thanks Jerry!
Our apples and crabapples are in full swing now but with 80 degrees today they probably won’t be for long.
I don’t see many huge displays of flowers. That phlox display is actually on the side of a road. I do see some big displays of that plant in spring because everyone seems to grow it.
I haven’t seen a butterfly yet or a dragonfly, but I have seen a few bees and hornets. And black flies!
It is nice to hear the happy memories of your grandmother and flowers. Many of the plants here seem to be blooming better and longer this spring. The forsythia especially, even the hepatica and some other spring wildflowers seem to keep on blooming. The lilac are just starting to bloom.
Even though I don’t go to Tulip Time in Holland Michigan, just 20 miles south of here, the tulips have kept flowering longer than usual. One of the tulip farms boasts the planting of 5 million tulips!
Thanks for the post, I learned some new things and enjoyed the photos.
Thanks Chris!
The same thing is happening here. They’re going on and on and that’s okay with me.
I saw tulips today but nothing even approaching that kind of display. It must be an amaxing thing to see!
You are having a beautiful May! It makes enduring winter worthwhile!
Thanks Montucky! Yes, but the anticipation can sometimes make winter seem even longer!
I am glad you braved the bears for the photo of the columbines and am sorry to read you encountered another one ( bear not columbine!) today! The creeping phlox is so very pretty! I had never thought that it would be found growing in peoples’ lawns and could be mowed! We had it growing in pride of place in one of our raised flowerbeds in a former home!
Thank you Clare. Yes, we seem to have a bear population explosion going on. Either that or I have developed a knack for finding them. They keep you from daydreaming on the trail, that’s for sure.
Creeping phlox does get into lawns and sometimes you see more phlox than lawn at this time of year. Mowing doesn’t hurt it at all, though sometimes it can brown a bit in winter. I’m surprised your plants didn’t seed themselves around the yard. They certainly do here!
I don’t remember them seeding at all. I think I must try to get some seeds and grow them in our current garden.
You might be surprised! Once they get into the lawn they can be easily dug up and transplanted elsewhere.
You have convinced me!
[…] Cherry. After hunting all through my photos for one of it, I give up and will just send you over to New Hampshire Garden Solutions to see it and other flowers that are currently […]
Thanks very much for your referral.
Lovely colours, I especially enjoyed the creeping phlox and the wild pansy.
Thank you Susan. You picked two of the prettiest, in my opinion.
I encountered adult black bears on two occasions late last summer, on the same leg of the same trail (an old railway bed). Fortunately the bears were in clear sight when I rounded the bend, and far enough away that I didn’t surprise them. I backed off for a bit and then made hastier tracks back from whence I’d come. I must admit I didn’t walk that trail again last year, though it was one of my regular ones. I’m still a bit leery about taking that trail this year, despite the fact that I hadn’t seen any bears along there (except for the 2 last year) since I started walking the trail 10 years ago. But the fear does stay with you, that’s for sure.
I know what you mean Lee. It’s hard to think of anything else once you go back to where you encountered a bear. I ran into another one today when I was climbing a mountain. I don’t know what it is with all of this bumping into bears lately. You’d think 4.8 million acres of forest would be big enough for both of us!
Stay safe.
Thank you for sharing your local Springtime bounty. I’ve been away sharing with friends theirs. 🙂
You’re welcome Ben, I hope you saw a lot of spring beauty!
Thank you. Yes, plenty. 🙂
My lilacs are still in tight bud form, I have daffodils just now blooming, and I planted some columbine this week. 🙂
It sounds like you might be a little behind us Judy, but not by much. The warmth just doesn’t seem to want to come this year!
So nice to see a lovely bunch of spring wildflowers. They’ve long since come and gone in Maryland.
Malted milk balls! Haven’t had one in probably decades. Remember getting a box at the movie theater? Have a good weekend Allen. And now I’m reminiscing about various movie junk food…
Thanks for the morning laugh, Ginny. I do remember getting malted milk balls at the movie theater! I also remember getting caught trying to sneak in so I’d have more money for candy, but that’s another story for another day.
Have a good one!
Beautiful photos of the flowers in your area and, as always, I learn lots of new things about them!
Interestingly, a number of them can be found in Texas and Calif., where I lived and studied local plants as a hobby most of my life, and even here in s. Chile. It makes me realize that Europeans brought flowers and other plants to whatever continent they settled on.
I have apple and cherry trees on my 20 a. place here and they volunteer everywhere, in the open and in my forest. It’s two weeks from winter, yet I had a second round of pretty white flowers on one of my apple trees.
Still blooming in some places are blackberries, gorse, and yarrow, which the Germans brought here in the 1840s, the gorgeous fuchsia along my creek, and the arrayán, which grows everywhere and looks a lot like the Far West’s manzanita.
On Sat, May 18, 2019, 4:09 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions wrote:
> New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” I thought I’d illustrate our > weather by showing these grape hyacinths, which should be done blooming by > now. I saw the first ones blooming just a little over a month ago. Other > bulbs like tulips and daffodils are also still blooming so they must be > enjo” >
Thank you Ron. I always learn new and interesting things from your comments!
It does make perfect sense that Europeans would have brought plants wherever they went but for some reason I’ve never thought of it happening that way.
I’ve never heard of a re-bloom on an apple tree. You’re lucky to have it!
You paint a lovely picture of your area. I’d love to see creek banks covered with fuchsia.
Have a great day!
If I knew how to do it, I’d be happy to email you some photos of fuchsia and other native and naturalized plants that you and others there might be surprised are growing in the Valdivian Rain Forest here 40° south of the equator and 6000 miles away from you.
If you ever want to contact me by email just go to the “contact me” tab at the top of the page. When I write back you’ll have my email address and can email anything as usual.
My dream as a boy was to explore rain forests, so I’d love to see your photos.