Early August Flowers
August 10, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

Burdock (Arctium lappa) is blooming and it hopes you’ll come by later and give it a ride. The plant a good example of a biennial plant. In the first year of life it grows leaves and in the second year it flowers, sets seeds, and dies. This is what biennials do, so we know that its tubular flowers with purple stamens and white styles signal that it is close to finishing its journey. There is no reason to grieve though, because the germination rate of its seeds is high and there will surely be burdocks for many years to come, especially if you (or your dog) help spread them around.

Burdock is said to have been introduced from Europe because it was noted in 1672 by self-styled naturalist John Josselyn, who wrote that it had “sprung up since the English Planted and kept Cattle in New-England.” He said the same thing about the dandelion, but fossil evidence proved him wrong. Native American tribes across the country had many uses for burdock, both as a medicine and food, so some form of the plant had to have been here long before European settlers arrived. 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. As the above photo shows, when fully open long white styles grow from the dark purple flowers.

No matter how many times I see the Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I don’t see a monkey, but whoever named it obviously did. This plant gets about knee high and likes to grow in wet, sunny places, and it isn’t all that common. I usually have a hard time finding it. This year though, for the first time, I found several plants growing beside the river in Keene.

Allegheny monkey flowers have square stems and are also called square stemmed monkey flowers. The throat is partially closed and bumblebees are one of the few insects strong enough to pry it open to get at the nectar. Native Americans and early settlers sometimes used the leaves as an edible green.

I’ve searched for years for floating heart plants (Nyphoides cordata) growing close enough to shore to get photos of and this year I finally found them. In fact I found hundreds of examples of this tiny native waterlily very close to shore. They have small, heart-shaped, greenish or reddish to purple leaves that are about an inch and a half wide, and that’s where their common name comes from.

The tiny but very pretty flowers of floating heart are about the size of a common aspirin, but are still every bit as beautiful as the much larger fragrant white water lily blooms they resemble. They grow in bogs, ponds, slow streams, and rivers. I was very happy to finally see them up close.

Showy tick trefoil (Desmodium canadense) is a legume in the bean family. This plant gets part of its common name from the little barbed hairs that cover the seed pods and make them stick to clothing like ticks, much like enchanter’s nightshade. The “showy” part of its common name comes from the way that so many of its small pink flowers bloom at once. As the plant sets seeds its erect stems bend lower to the ground so the barbed seed pods can catch in the fur of passing animals. I saw these examples in an unmown meadow.

Showy tick trefoil has pretty flowers that are obviously in the pea / bean family. It is also called Canada trefoil. One odd fact about this plant is that there are no known uses of it by Native Americans or colonials. From my experience that’s rare among native plants in this area. Maybe they just picked the beautiful flowers and used them to decorate their homes.

I saw these striking daylilies in a local children’s park. The plant breeders are obviously still trying to breed a black daylily but they haven’t quite got it yet.

They grow an ornamental datura (Datura metel) at the local college. I’ve seen Datura many times, but never as beautiful as these. I think this one is a black Datura hybrid called Datura metel Fastuosa “Double Purple Blackberry.” A native Datura found here is called Jimson weed, which is a corruption of the original Jamestown weed, signaling where it was first found. Each blossom opens in the evening and lasts until about noon the following day.

I’ve gone to see them several times this year but I can’t find a blossom fully opened, so this will have to do. these datura blossoms are doubled with many ruffles and they never really seem to be fully open. Bees in the know crawl in from the side and then down into the trumpet but I didn’t see any on this day. Datura contains several powerful toxic compounds and even the honey made from its flowers can sometimes lead to poisoning.

The seeds and flowers are the most toxic parts of the datura plant, but they were used in sacred rituals for many thousands of years by Native American shamans and the plant is still called “Sacred Datura” by many. Native Americans knew the plant well though, and knew what dosages would and wouldn’t kill. Many with less experience have died trying to test the hallucinogenic effects of the plant. This is the strange, spiky seed pod of this datura.

Zinnias grow in the same garden as the datura and this one caught my attention. These flowers are usually swarming with painted lady butterflies but I haven’t seen a one yet this year.

But I have seen plenty of garden phlox! It’s another of those flowers that whisper of autumn’s approach. I pretend I’m deaf for as long as I can though, and just admire their beauty.

Slender fragrant goldenrod (Solidago tenuifolia) is a goldenrod that’s easy to identify because of its long slender, willow like leaves and its pleasant, vanilla like fragrance that is impossible to describe. The only other similar goldenrod is the lance leaved goldenrod (Solidago graminifolia) but its leaves are wider and have 3 to 5 veins as opposed to the single vein in a slender fragrant goldenrod leaf. It is also called flat topped goldenrod. Insects of all kinds swarm over slender fragrant goldenrod and you have to be careful that you aren’t going to inhale one when you smell it.

Whorled white wood aster (Oclemena acuminata) gets its common name from the way its leaves appear to grow in whorls around the stem from above. In botany, a whorl is an arrangement of at least three sepals, petals, leaves, stipules or branches that radiate from a single point around the stem, and the leaves of this aster really don’t fit the definition. Looking at them from the side the tiers of whorled leaves would appear flat like a plate, but these leaves appear randomly scattered up and down the stem’s length. The plant is also called sharp leaved aster and grows to about a foot and a half tall. It’s one of the easiest asters to identify because of its early bloom time. The plant can take quite a lot of shade and I usually find it growing alongside the edges of woodland paths.

Tall blue lettuce (Lactuca biennis) can get very tall indeed and often towers over my head. A cluster of small, pencil eraser size, 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.

Mad dog skullcap (Scutellaria laterifolia) almost always blooms in pairs on grassy hummocks near rivers and ponds and that’s where I always find them. The skullcap part of the common name comes from the calyx at the base of the flower, which is said to look like a medieval skull cap. The plant was once thought to cure rabies, and that is where the “mad dog” part of the common name comes from.

There is powerful medicine in both mad dog and marsh skullcap and when Native Americans wanted to go on a spirit walk or vision quest this was one of the plants they chose. The small blue and white flowers always grow in pairs in the leaf axils. Those of mad dog skullcap are slightly smaller.

You don’t need to be on a vision quest to see the beautiful light that shines from this purple morning glory (Ipomoea purpurea) that grows on the fence at the local post office. Unlike the wild bindweeds morning glory is an annual, so it grows new from seed each year. Postal workers must love it because I’ve seen the bed it grows in weeded down to bare ground, but the morning glories are always left to grow. I’m not surprised; how could anyone pull up something so beautiful?
Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. ~George Bernanos
Thanks for stopping in.
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Posted in Nature, Wildflowers | Tagged Allegheny Monkey Flower, Burdock Flower, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Datura metel, Daylilies, Floating Hearts, Garden Phlox, Keene, Mad Dog Skullcap, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Purple Morning Glory, Showy Tick trefoil, Slender Fragrant Goldenrod, Summer Wildflowers, Swanzey New Hampshire, Tall Blue Lettuce, Whorled White Wood Aster, Zinnias | 34 Comments
Just when I thought I’d seen every Monkey Flower that ever grew you show a picture of the Allegheny monkey flower! Sure is pretty!
Thanks Montucky! That flower is also on the rare side. I usually have to search to find it.
White Woodland Aster is also the common name for one of the few asters that actually got to stay an Aster (A. divariticus). Takes a lot of shade, as the name implies.
Yes, they’ve just started blooming here. They usually come along just after the whorled white wood aster.
Our woods are white for a while!
The floating heart plants are very pretty. I am glad you managed to photograph them at last!
I have that same glowing purple morning glory in my garden. I found them so difficult to germinate ten years ago; after about six weeks I only had about eight small plants! However, I don’t think I will ever be rid of them now. The seeds survive our winters and as soon as the temperature gets above 18C I find multitudes of seedlings coming up.
Thank you Clare. I never knew that morning glory was so prolific!
I had no idea either until I grew it myself!
Thank you as always for your great work! You have solved a question- i always a though the vanilla like fragrance in my home this time of the year was linden or boxwood trees out in the woods unseen. Now i think it is the slender goldenrod- out early it seems this year- surrounding my home. Thanks again! Chis
You’re welcome Chris, glad I could help.
I hope you went out and gave them a good sniff!
That morning glory is very beautiful. Thank you!
Goldenrod and asters are among my favorite harbingers of autumn. I have not seen the asters out in my area, or goldenrod, although I do have one goldenrod I purchased from a nursery.
I love to see goldenrods and asters but I don’t like to see summer end. Both plants have been blooming here for about a month but they won’t peak for another month probably.
It is becoming impossible to shut our eyes to autumn now but your excellent picture of the showy tick trefoil took my mind off it for a while so thank you for that.
You’re welcome. I always struggle with the passing of summer but the signs are everywhere you look so it’s hard to ignore.
Colorful post, Allen, thanks. I grew the purple morning glory (I know it as “grandpa ott’s) some years ago. Never again! Every time it rains 100s of seedlings still pop up, years later. And I have to pull them out or they’ll overtake the entire garden. However they are truly beautiful! I have a hard time imagining that at one time they were almost extinct. Anyhow, that’s how someone could pull it out, lol.
Thank you Ginny. I didn’t know that about this plant. I hope you liked them!
The swamp milkweed seeds hadn’t arrived yet as of this morning, but maybe they came today.
Maybe they’re coming via pony express? Worst case, I have more 😊.
I can’t say, but I’ll keep watching for them!
We had phlox, goldenrod, skullcap, Jimson weed, wild lettuce, morning glory, and bindweed growing in central Texas.
It occurs to me that so many plants come from Europe and elsewhere that the U.S. must have been bare ground, kinda like it was when the first plants came out of the ocean 450 million years ago. Same here in Chile.
On Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 4:11 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” Burdock (Arctium lappa) is > blooming and it hopes you’ll come by later and give it a ride. The plant a > good example of a biennial plant. In the first year of life it grows leaves > and in the second year it flowers, sets seeds, and dies. This is what > bienn” >
I’m always surprised by how many of the same plants that grow here also grow in the west and south.
I think a lot of the plants that are said to have come from Europe were actually already here in one form or another. Native Americans wouldn’t have known how to use them otherwise.
Perhaps so, but maybe just the same family. It was an awfully long time ago that the continents were connected.
Yes.
Oh, August! Surely, in northern New England, it is one of the sweetest months of the year.
It’s definitely the month with the most flowers in this part of the state!
Love the floating heart plants, something, despite a lot of time on the water, I’m not aware of having seen. The Tall blue lettuce really does get quite tall (7-8 ft) in central Ohio.
Your lettuce sounds like it grows like ours!
Floating hearts have short stems from what I’ve seen, so they usually grow just a few feet off shore, but still too far to reach without wading in up to your knees.
Thank you, I enjoyed my morning stroll and the beauties you pointed out.
You’re welcome Ben, I hope these flowers stirred your creativity!
Prime mulch. 🙂 Next comes patience.
Nature has taught me that!
And me writing. 🙂
Let’s all pretend we’re deaf for that season that follows the one we’re in. 🙂
I’m hoping we’ll have a long wait!
Glad you found your floating heart plants close enough to photograph at last, they were worth the wait!
Thank you Susan, they’re beuatiful little things.