Late May / Early June Flowers
June 8, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions
I thought I’d start this flower post where I left off in the last one and show you pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) in full bloom. I’m so glad that this native orchid is making a comeback after being collected nearly into oblivion by people who didn’t know any better. The plant interacts with a Rhizoctonia fungus in the soil and this fungus must be present for it to reproduce. If plants are dug up and placed in private gardens they will die if the fungus isn’t present so please, look at them, take a couple of photos, and let them be. They’re one of our most beautiful native orchids and everyone should have a chance to see them.
Botanically orchids are considered the most highly evolved of all flowering plants because of their unique reproductive strategy; they have both male and female reproductive structures fused into a single structure. Many different insects pollinate orchids but in lady’s slippers bees do the job. They enter the flower through the center slit in the pouch, which can be seen here. Once inside they discover that they’re trapped and can’t get out the way they came in.
There is only one way out for a bee trapped in a lady’s slipper blossom; guide hairs inside the flower point the way to the top of the pouch or slipper, and once the bee reaches the top it finds two holes big enough to fit through. Just above each hole the flower has positioned a pollen packet so once the bee crawls through the hole it is dusted with pollen. The flower’s stigma is also located above the exit holes and if the bee carries pollen from another lady’s slipper it will be deposited on the sticky stigma as it escapes the pouch, and fertilization will have been successful. Isn’t evolution amazing?
At a glance the leaves of blue bead lilies (Clintonia borealis) are often mistaken for those of lady’s slippers, but lady’s slipper leaves are deeply pleated and blue bead lily leaves are not, they’re smooth like those seen here. The two plants like the same conditions and often grow side by side.
It’s easy to see that blue bead lilies are in the lily family; they look just like small Canada lilies. I like seeing both the flowers and the blue berries that follow them. It’s been described as porcelain blue but it’s hard to put a name to it. I call it electric blue and I really can’t think of another blue to compare it to, but it’s beautiful.
For years I’ve heard of a very special place up in the woods of Westmoreland where endangered orchids, squawroot, hepatica, Dutchman’s breeches, maiden hair fern and other plants that love a lot of lime in the soil grow, so over Memorial day my daughter and I decided to pay this special place a visit. The terrain was rough, with climbs so steep you had to use ropes tied to trees to pull yourself along, but we made it through and didn’t see a single plant that was supposed to grow there. I did see a hepatica leaf, but that was about it. My daughter found this beautiful long spurred violet in bloom (Viola rostrata); the first example I’ve seen, but it isn’t even mentioned in the list of plants that are supposed to grow here.
This is a pretty little violet but I doubt I’d go through what we went through to see it again.
We also found a yellow violet just opening. This was only the second time I had ever seen one. I think it was a round leaved yellow violet (Viola rotundifolia) which likes to grow in rich woods. It might have also been a downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens,) which likes the same conditions.
Like most of the white spring flowering trees, chokecherries (Prunus) and chokeberries (Aronia) grow on the edge of the forest. Though they look alike from a distance, chokeberries and chokecherries are only distantly related in the rose family. The common name is the giveaway here: A cherry is a stone fruit with one seed, so the chokecherry will have one seed. A berry will have multiple seeds; in the case of the chokeberry 5 or fewer. Chokeberry flower clusters are smaller than chokecherry and kind of flat on top. Chokecherry flower clusters are usually long and cylindrical like a bottle brush. Positive identification between these two is important because chokecherry leaves and seeds contain prussic acid which can convert to cyanide under the right conditions, so it wouldn’t be good to eat too many seeds. The simplest way to be sure is by counting the seeds in a piece of fruit before picking and eating from the tree.
A close look at a chokecherry blossom.
Tiny new eastern larch flowers (Larix laricina) are beautiful and always worth looking for. They appear in mid to late May and are quite small. Their color helps me see them and a macro lens shows why I bother looking for them. They’re very beautiful so I hope you’ll take a look at any larch trees you might know of.
From above the flowers of eastern larch look like a rose, but at less than the diameter of a pea they are far less showy. Each beautiful little flower will become a small brown cone.
The waxy shine on the petals of a buttercup (Ranunculus) is caused by a layer of mirror flat cells that have an air gap just below them, and just below the air gap is a smooth layer of brilliant white starch. These layers act together to reflect yellow light, while blue green light is absorbed. Though the shine is easy to see it’s quite hard to capture with a camera. I’ve been trying since they started opening and I’d bet I had to try 10-20 times before getting it right.
Dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is an introduced plant that came from Europe in the 1600s but it doesn’t seem very invasive; the few colonies that I know of hardly seem to spread at all, and that’s possibly because they are biennials. This plant is in the mustard family, Brassicaceae. The young leaves of dame’s rocket are rich in vitamin C and oil pressed from its seed is used in perfumes.
Dame’s rocket flowers are sometimes mistaken for phlox, but phlox has 5 petals rather than the 4 petals seen on dame’s rocket. Phlox also has opposite leaves and those on dame’s rocket are alternate. The flowers are very fragrant in the evening and are said to smell like a mixture of cloves and violets.
There just happens to be a phlox plant or two growing near the dame’s rocket and I thought it was good chance to show how phlox blossoms have 5 petals. I’m not sure if these plants were wild phlox or garden escapees but I’m guessing they probably came from a nearby garden.
The yellow flowers seen in the first photo of Dame’s rocket are those of greater celandine (Chelidonium majus.) Pliny the Elder said chewing the root of greater celandine would relieve a toothache, but modern science has found that every part of it contains a range of isoquinoline alkaloids that makes it toxic if used in large amounts. When used in the correct dosage the plant’s yellow sap can be used against warts and moles. If used at all, all of the latex sap should be washed from the hands because it can cause irritation if rubbed into the eyes. Greater celandine is native to Europe and Asia but early settlers brought it with them to use medicinally, and it has found its way into all but 19 states in the U.S.
All the books will tell you that the flowers of greater celandine have four yellow petals but I’ve seen them with 5. When I was a boy we stained our hands with the plant’s yellow sap and called it mustard. Thankfully we never ate it.
Friends of mine grow this beautiful clematis in their garden. This is the first blossom of the summer, just opening when I took its photo.
Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) has leaves that grow in a whorl, much like an Indian cucumber root. This is a low growing summer wildflower with 4 petaled white flowers that seems to prefer the shade at the edges of forests. It makes an excellent old fashioned ground cover which, if given plenty of water, will spread quickly. The odoratum part of the scientific name comes from the pleasant, very strong fragrance of its dried leaves. The dried leaves are often used in potpourris because the fragrance lasts for years. It is also called sweet scented bedstraw and is a native of Europe. I don’t see it often and I’d call it rare in this area.
Wild geraniums (Geranium maculatum) have just started blooming. Other common names include alum root, old maid’s nightcap and shameface. In Europe it is called cranesbill because the seed pod resembles a crane’s bill. The Native American Mesquakie tribe brewed a root tea for toothache from wild geranium, but I’m not sure if it’s toxic. Much Native knowledge was lost and we can’t always use plants as they did. Somehow they knew how to remove, weaken or withstand the toxicity of many plants that we now find too toxic for our use.
In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them. ~Aldo Leopold
Thanks for stopping in.
Posted in Nature, Orchids, Wildflowers | Tagged Ashuelot River, Blue Bead Lily, Buttercup, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Chokecherry, Clematis, Dame's Rocket, Early Summer Flowers, Eastern Larch Flower, Greater Celandine, Keene, Long Spurred Violet, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Pink Lady's Slipper, Spring, Summer Wildflowers, Swanzey New Hampshire, Sweet Woodruff, Wild Geranium, Yellow Violet | 29 Comments
I have 2 chokecherries in our garden but I am still waiting for them to flower. We also have some of the red chokeberries but they are still quite small.
They usually flower when quite small here. Lack of sunlight might be holding them back.
What a pity you and your daughter made such an effort to get to that special area only to find that none of the plants that were supposed to be there were there! The long-spurred violet is lovely – I have never seen any other violet like it.
Your quote is so apt! There are so many flowers blooming this month!
Thank you Clare. That’s the thing about visiting new places, you never know what you’ll find. At least we saw that violet.
There sure are a lot of flowers blooming here now and I’m starting to see them just about everywhere I go. That should last right up until frost.
The only flowers that I recognize are the first and last, lady’s slippers and geraniums, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen any of the others.
Even though I don’t recognize the flowers, it was still great to see them and learn about them as always.
The place where you and your daughter visited sounds like Loda Lake, except for the difficulty in getting around. It’s supposed to be a great place for wildflowers, but I’ve found very few there. At least you found the rare violet for all your troubles.
Thanks Jerry! I would have sworn you had larch flowers on your blog once, but that may be a false memory. In any case I hope you’ll find all of these.
I don’t know if we were too early or too late or if the lousy weather kept the plants from blooming but it was a difficult and disappointing trip. I’m sorry you had to go through it as well.
The violet was about the only thing that made that hike worth doing again someday.
Not only are the pink lady’s slippers beautiful, but their strategy of pollination is fascinating! I wasn’t aware of that before.
Thanks Montucky! Plants have many fascinating stories that most of us have never heard.
Thanks for another interesting and informative post! I knew buttercup flowers were shiny, now I know why they are shiny. The larch cones (flowers) are perfectly beautiful.
Thank you Chris! I was very surprised when I read what made buttercups shiny. I guess I never had thought much about it.
I love those little larch flowers but they’re hard things to get a good photo of, as I’m sure you know!
Same here, I guess I never thought of why they were shiny, so that’s good, your post got me thinking. We have larch here in our yard, probably 12 years old, but I don’t see any flowers. I have been lucky enough to catch them in other locations. We had our first 80 degree day yesterday, I have been enjoying the cool spring and I think some plants enjoyed it too!
If you see brown cones on the larch I’d say it must be flowering but they can be hard to catch and then to see once you do.
I’ve never seen plants bloom as long as they have this year. I didn’t enjoy the cool drizzly weather as much as they did but I enjoyed seeing the flowers.
Welcome to 80 degrees!
I am very sorry that your haul up the slope didn’t give you the reward that you deserved for the effort. Even so, your post contained a host of lovely images.
Thank you. That hike was deemed “moderate” but if that was moderate I’d hate to see “difficult.”
“Isn’t evolution amazing?”
Almost as amazing as these (blind) materialists who swallow the evolution myth.
I don’t concern myself much with what motivates people to think and behave the way they do and I’ve never heard of the “evolution myth,” but I do know that I’ve spent enough time in nature to know that certain flowers have evolved to cater to certain insects, and that’s no myth.
It definitely looks that way. And I am grateful for that beautiful appearance. 🙂 Amazing indeed!
Those lady’s slippers! Susan is so right about nature being clever.
Thank you Laurie, I agree!
We used to have a lot of bedstraw in the flower garden of my home in central Texas and a lot of often tiny European flowers in my lawn. I would have never been able to identify them if I hadn’t found the book European Wildflowers.
On Sat, Jun 8, 2019, 4:13 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions wrote:
> New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” I thought I’d start this flower > post where I left off in the last one and show you pink lady’s slippers > (Cypripedium acaule) in full bloom. I’m so glad that this native orchid is > making a comeback after being collected nearly into oblivion by people who” >
I think our childhoods ran parallel in a lot of ways Ron. I learned a lot from plant books!
I actually saw several lady’s slippers this week at a friend’s lakeside garden. They are so delicate and beautiful. Gorgeous photos as always. 🙂
Thank you Judy. I’d bet that the lady’s slippers grew in your friend’s garden on their own. I have about 7 of them here that just decided to move in right after I bought the place. They haven’t spread much but they haven’t disappeared either.
Oh, how pretty and dainty the spurred violet is! I’ve not seen it before (that I remember anyway, heh heh). How the moccasin flower gets pollinated is interesting. Mother Nature seems to have endless tricks up her sleeve with her numerous flower designs.
I’m reading a new book I bet you’d enjoy, Allen. The Nature of Plants, an introduction to how plants work by Craig Huegel (university press of Florida). Check it out. Horticulture Magazine had a contest to win a copy and I entered and won it, much to my surprise and delight. Have a good weekend!
Thank you Ginny. Yes, the pollination process on some flowers is so complicated it’s almost as if they didn’t want to be pollinated at all.
You must know your stuff if you won a prize from Horticulture Magazine! I read it for years but haven’t for a while now.
The book sounds like a good one. I’ll add it to my never ending list of books to read. Thanks for the tip!
Haha, it was not a matter of “knowing my stuff”, it was pure dumb luck.
I won a book from Norther Woodlands Magazine the same way!
Isn’t nature clever, I loved the story of the lady’s slipper and the bees. Thank you for the pictures that explain what happens.
You’re welcome and thank you Susan. Nature is amazing!