Late May Flowers
June 1, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions
If you’re tempted to pass by what you think are violets you might want to take a closer look, because our beautiful little fringed polygalas (Polygala paucifolia) have just started blossoming. Their color and the fact that they sometimes grow beside violets has fooled me in the past. The small 3 inch tall by inch and a half wide plants usually bloom in pairs as can be seen in the photo above. Fringed polygalas are in the milkwort family and are also sometimes called flowering wintergreen and / or gaywings. The slightly hairy leaves were once used medicinally by some Native American tribes to heal sores.
You can see where the name “gaywings” comes from in this photo. They look as if they’re ready to take off. Each blossom is made up of five sepals and two petals. The two petals form a tube and two of the sepals form the little wings. The little fringe at the end of the tube is part of the third sepal, which is mostly hidden. When a heavy enough insect (like a bumblebee) lands on the fringe the third sepal drops down to create an entrance to the tube. Once the insect crawls in it finds the flower’s reproductive parts and gets dusted with pollen to carry off to another blossom. I usually find this one in shady, mossy places and I think it prefers moist ground. Some mistake the flowers for orchids and it’s easy to see why. They’re a beautiful and unusual flower that I always look for in May.
I’ve never seen violets like we have this year!
Painted trilliums (Trillium undulatum) are the third trillium I look for each spring. Usually as the purple trilliums fade and nodding trilliums have moved from center stage along comes the painted trillium, which is the most beautiful among them in my opinion. This year though, like the last two years, both nodding and painted trilliums are blooming at the same time. Unlike its two cousins painted trillium’s flowers don’t point down towards the ground but face straight out, 90 degrees to the stem. With 2 inch wide flowers it’s not a big and showy plant, but it is loved. Each bright white petal of the painted trillium has a reddish “V” at its base that looks painted on, and that’s where the common name comes from. They like boggy, acidic soil and are much harder to find than other varieties. Many states have laws that make it illegal to pick or disturb trilliums but deer love to eat them and they pay no heed to our laws, so we don’t see entire hillsides covered with them. In fact I consider myself very lucky if I find a group of more than three. Painted trilliums grow in the cool moist forests north to Ontario and south to northern Georgia. They also travel west to Michigan and east to Nova Scotia.
The flowers of rhodora usually appear just when the irises start to bloom but for the past couple of years they’ve been a little early. I often have to search for them on the banks of ponds because they aren’t common. Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense,) is a small, native rhododendron (actually an azalea) that loves swampy places. It is native to the northeastern U.S. and Canada and both its western and southern limits are reached in Pennsylvania. The flowers appear just before the leaves, but only for a short time in spring. By mid-June they will have all vanished.
The rhodora flower looks like an azalea blossom but it’s the color of this one that sets it apart from other azaleas, in my opinion. This plant was brought from Canada to Paris in March 1756 and was introduced to England in 1791. It is said to have been a big hit, but it must have been difficult to grow in English gardens since it likes to grow in standing water and needs very cold winters.
Another native azalea that can be hard to find in this area is called the early azalea (Rhododendron prinophyllum,) even though the Rhodora often blooms earlier. It’s also called roseshell azalea and I often find them by their fragrance, which is a bit spicy and a bit sweet. Finding a seven foot tall one of these blooming in the woods is something you don’t forget right away, and I think I remember the exact location of every one I’ve ever found. Unfortunately there aren’t many.
The flowers of the early azalea aren’t quite as showy as some other azaleas but I wish you could smell their heavenly scent. It isn’t overpowering but when the temperature and breeze are just right you can follow your nose right to them.
Another common name for the early azalea is wooly azalea, and it comes from the many hairs on the outside of the flowers, which you can see here. It is these hairs that emit the fragrance, which is said to induce creative imagination.
Starflowers (Trientalis borealis) are supposed to be a plant based on sevens; seven leaves, seven petals, seven sepals and seven stamens, but I’ve seen eight and nine petals on flowers, and I’ve seen many with six petals. These flowers don’t produce nectar so they are pollinated by pollen eating insects like halictid and andrenid bees. There can be one or several flowers on each plant and I always try to find the one with the most flowers. My record is 4 but I’m always watching out for 5. This year I’m seeing lots of plants with three flowers, which is unusual. Usually most of them have only two.
This blossom didn’t live up to the 7 theory with 8 petals. It also has 8 anthers. I have to wonder how many starflowers the person who said it is a plant based on sevens actually looked at though, because many I’ve seen have more or fewer and 7 flower parts seem as random as any other number.
Robin’s plantain (Erigeron pulchellus) is the earliest of the fleabanes to bloom in this area. Its inch and a half diameter flowers are larger than many fleabane blossoms but its foot high stalks are shorter. One way to identify this plant is by its basal rosette of very hairy, oval leaves. The stem and stem leaves (cauline) are also hairy. The flowers can be white to pink to lavender and are made up of ray florets surrounding yellow disk florets in the center. These plants almost always grow in large colonies and often come up in lawns. They’re a good indicator of where the flower lovers among us live because at this time of year you can see many neatly mowed lawns with islands of unmowed, blossoming fleabanes. I’ve seen several already.
The club shaped flower heads of white baneberry (Actaea pachypoda) have appeared a little late this year and they seem smaller than usual. This plant is very easy to confuse with red baneberry (Actaea rubra) but that plant’s flower head is spherical rather than elongated. The flower head of white baneberry is always taller than it is wide and if pollinated the flowers will become white berries with a single black dot on one end. That’s where the common name doll’s eyes comes from. The berries are very toxic and can be appealing to children but luckily they are very bitter so the chances that anyone would eat one are fairly slim.
I find purple dead nettle (Lamium maculatum) growing in a local park. It’s a beautiful little plant that makes a great choice for shady areas. It is also an excellent source of pollen for bees. Dead nettles are native to Europe and Asia, but though they do spread some they don’t seem to be invasive here. The name dead nettle comes from their not being able sting like a true nettle, which they aren’t related to. I’m guessing the “nettle” part of the name refers to the leaves, which would look a bit like nettle leaves if it weren’t for their variegation, which consists of a cream colored stripe down the center of each leaf.
The red horse chestnut (Aesculus × carnea,) is a cross between the red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum.) From what I’ve read I think this one, which blooms in a local park, is an example of that same tree. I’ve also read that bees and hummingbirds love the flowers. I had to zoom in on the blossoms quite far up in the tree while the wind blew them around so I’m kind of amazed that I even have this photo to show you. It’s a beautiful flower and well worth the effort.
Witch alder (Fothergilla major) is a native shrub related to witch hazel which grows to about 6-7 feet in this area. Though native to the southeast it does well here in the northeast, but it is almost always seen in gardens rather than in the wild. The fragrant flower heads are bottlebrush shaped and made up of many flowers that have no petals. What little color they have comes from the stamens, which have tiny yellow anthers at the ends of long white filaments. They do very well in gardens but aren’t well known. I’m seeing more of them now than in the past though.
A flower that comes with plenty of memories for me is the lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis.) My grandmother’s name was Lily and I used to bring her wilting bouquets of them when I was a young boy. She would always smell them before putting them in a jelly jar full of water, all the while exclaiming how beautiful they were. The plant is extremely toxic but, though she didn’t tell me it was poisonous I never once thought of eating it or putting any part of the plant in my mouth. I do remember smelling their wondrous fragrance as I picked them though, and all those memories came back whenever I smell them. Amazing how memories can be so strongly attached to a fragrance.
It’s lilac time here in New Hampshire and you can find them blooming in almost every yard. Though I like white lilacs I think the favorite by far is the common purple lilac (Syringa vulgaris.) It’s also the New Hampshire state flower, which is odd because it isn’t a native. Lilacs were first imported from England to the garden of then New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth in 1750 and chosen as the state flower in 1919 because they were said to “symbolize that hardy character of the men and women of the Granite State.” Rejected were apple blossoms, purple aster, wood lily, Mayflower, goldenrod, wild pasture rose, evening primrose and buttercup. The pink lady’s slipper is our state native wild flower. As a boy I used to like sucking the sweet nectar out of lilac flowers.
The spicy fragrance of poet’s daffodil (Narcissus poeticus) reminds me of the paper white narcissus, which has a fragrance strong enough to make some people sick, but I love it. Poet’s daffodil is a plant that comes with a lot of baggage; it is such an ancient plant that many believe it is the flower that the legend of Narcissus is based on, and it can be found in botanical texts from as early as 371 BC. It is one of the first cultivated daffodils and is hard to mistake for any other, with its red edged, yellow corona and pure white petals. It has naturalized throughout this area and I find it in unmown fields after most other daffodils have finished blooming.
Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) blooms among the tall grasses. This plant is originally from Europe and is also called common or grass leaved stitchwort. It likes disturbed soil and does well on roadsides, old fields, and meadows. The Stellaria part of its scientific name means star like, and the common name Stitchwort refers to the plant being used in herbal remedies to cure the pain in the side that we call a stitch.
Here’s a sneak peak at the next flower post. One of our most beautiful native orchids, the pink lady’s slipper (Cypripedium acaule,) just started to show color on their flowers as I was finishing this post. The moccasin shaped flowers start life colored a yellowish off white and then turn pink. I’m seeing lots of them this year and you’ll see more in the next flower post.
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. ~Edgar Allan Poe
Thanks for stopping in.
Posted in Nature, Wildflowers | Tagged Ashuelot River, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Common Lilac, Early Azalea, Fleabane, Fringed Polygala, Gaywings, Lesser Stitchwort, Lily of the Valley, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Painted Trillium, Pink Lady's Slipper, Poets Daffodil, Purple Dead Nettle, Red Horse Chestnut, Rhodora, Robin's Plantain, Spring, Starflower, Summer Wildflowers, Swanzey New Hampshire, Violets, White Baneberry | 30 Comments
There are masses of Poet’s Daffodil at Lurie Garden. It’s near the top of my list for this fall’s bulbs. The Painted Trillium is just beautiful, and you have lots of other interesting wildflowers we don’t have in this part of the country.
The fragrance from all those daffodils must be heavenly! To some anyway, some people get sick from it.
So many beautiful flowers! I also wish that there was a way to transfer the scent of the flowers along with their image across the Internet, as this seems to be the time of year when the flowers with the best scents bloom.
Some of the flowers are supposed to be native to Michigan also, but I’ve never seen them. It may have to do with the fact that I live in the west side of the state, and the soil here is much sandier than the soil in the east half of the state. No matter though, I do keep an eye out for them though. On the other hand, we have flowers here that are rare or don’t grow at all in the other half of the state.
Thanks Jerry! Yes, if only people could smell some of these!
We have the same problem here. Yellow lady’s slippers grow an hour or two north of here but I’ve nevr seen them. It does seem odd!
One of my cherished childhood memories is a meadow full of Poet’s Daffodil at the base of Mount Pelister in Macedonia.
You’re very lucky to have seen such a wonderful thing. I can only imagine what the fragrance must have been like.
I am fortunate in having three or four red horse-chestnut trees near me to admire. They are very attractive trees indeed! There is such a variety of flower shape and form in in this post!
Thank you Clare. You seem to have hit the jackpot on what appears to be a rarely seen tree. You’re lucky; they’re beautiful flowers.
We’re just coming into that time when nature pulls out all the stops and there are flowers everywhere. The sheer variety of them boggles the mind but also makes my job as a nature blogger so much easier.
By coincidence, I took a picture of the red horse chestnut today. They are very decorative but I don’t see many of them round here.
I know of only this one tree, so they’re scarce here as well.
The lovely month of May! Has the pine pollen been flying in New Hampshire? Very thick in Maine.
Thank you Laurie. Yes, we’ve had our share of pollen but it doesn’t seem to be as bad this year. Probably because of all the rain we’ve had.
Pretty intense in central Maine. Until it is over, I will not hang laundry on the line.
I don’t blame you!
If only we had scratch and sniff for the pictures. Swamp azaleas, lily of the valley and poet’s daffodil. How wonderful. And the unscented but lovely painted trillium I looked for that every spring.Thank you so much..
You’re welcome and thank you. I hope you found them all this year!
It was a pleasure to see this array of beautiful flowers. Especially because only two of these, the lilac and the baneberry, are found in my region. The Gaywings are especially attractive to me!
Thanks Montucky! I like those gaywings too. It’s odd how many flowers haven’t made it coast to coast, but you still have some beautiful flowers that we’ve never seen, so I guess it all balances out.
This post of beautiful flower photos would make a lovely coffee table book. 🙂
Thank you Judy. I plan on writing a book when I retire but there might not be many flowers in it. I think it’s going to mostly tell people how, when and where to look for all the strange and beautiful things you see on this blog.
So many pretty flowers!! And you’ve introduced me to a new one – the starflower. What a charmer it is, Allen. Do you have indian cucumber root in NH? The starflower leaves made me think of it.
I’ve noticed that everything in my garden seems especially tall, lush and floriferous this year, although the violets take the cake. I’m weeding them out of my garden beds by the 100’s before they go to seed! Do you keep “domesticated” gardens or just enjoy your flowers in the wild?
Thank you Ginny. We do have cucumber root but it blooms just after starflowers. I’m surprised that you don’t have starflowers. They’re blooming everywhere here right now.
Plants here are growing just like yours are; lush and big and flowering like crazy!
I used to have what most would think of as gardens but the last thing a professional gardener wants to do is come home and do more gardening, so they’ve been more or less let free from my influence, even though many of the plants continue to bloom beautifully each year.
Exquisite photos and very interesting information.
I didn’t realize that an azalea is a rhododendron. I have both in my yard. They are from nurseries. And, as to the Stellaria (chickweed) you photographed, we used to collect it in Calif. on our hikes, along with miner’s lettuce and mustard leaves, and eat them as a salad. Good and healthy!
A lot of trees and shrubs here in s. Chile are originally from Australia, Europe, and the U.S. Some, like blackberry, gorse, baccharis, eucalyptus, two different acacias, and three different willows, have proven to be highly invasive. Many of the flowers and grasses in long-settled areas are from those continents, too, like yarrow, dandelion, fleabane, and fescue, rescue, and Dallis grasses. And, in my native forest, I was surprised to find a Douglas fir and a Scotch pine growing in the middle of the coihue, roble, tepa, mañío, olivillo, canelo, avellano, and notro (firebush)!
I have a grove of eucalyptus as well. A lot of it here in the Valdivia area is logged not only for firewood, but also to be chipped and shipped on monster ships to Japan and China for press board. A dangerous logging truck on our two-lane highways every two or three minutes! Almost all of the trees you see on the hillsides by the highways are non-native replants. You have to go way back in the boondocks to find mostly native trees.
I am fortunate to have mostly native trees on my 20 acre place. They have grown back since they were logged 40 years ago. They are big and harvestable now, but I’m not going to sell them!
On Sat, Jun 1, 2019, 4:15 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions wrote:
> New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” If you’re tempted to pass by what > you think are violets you might want to take a closer look, because our > beautiful little fringed polygalas (Polygala paucifolia) have just started > blossoming. Their color and the fact that they sometimes grow beside v” >
Thank you Ron. I think both rhododendrons and azaleas were in seperate groups when the rhodora was named but though the rhodora was an azalea someone called it a rhododendron. In any event it doesn’t matter now because azaleas have been reclassified and are now in the genus rhododendron. The old way of telling the difference was to count the flower’s stamens. True rhododendrons have 10 or more stamens while azaleas usually have 5 stamens. It is said now that all azaleas are rhododendrons but not all rhododendrons are azaleas, which makes it very confusing.
It’s too bad most of the native trees have been cut there. I’m glad that you’re at least protecting some of them.
It’s also too bad that there are so many invasives there but it sounds like that might be true all over the world now.
It may well be and, thanks, I learn something new from every one of your posts.
You’re welcome Ron, and thank you. I learn a lot from your comments!
The dead nettle is called “Taubnessel” in German, which translates to “deaf nettle”. There are close relatives to it as the very common white version, a rarer yellow flowering “Goldnessel”., and a host of relatives in the lamium family. As a boy I loved to pluck the flowers from their stems and suck the sweet nectar.
Thank you Zyriacus. We have lots of yellow here but I’ve never seen a white one, so they’re kind of reversed from what you see.
I didn’t know they had nectar. I’ll have to try one! I used to do the same with lilacs.
It’s a great pleasure to scroll through all those wonderful close ups that you take, I can almost smell the scents!
Thank you Susan, I wish you could smell them!