Mid April Flowers
April 15, 2020 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

Since it has been so cool here over the past week or so flowers that looked like they were ready to open a week ago still haven’t, but that doesn’t hold true for the magnolias which are now in full bloom.

This one is one of my favorites. I like the purple on the backs of its petals.

These orange tulips, the first I’ve seen this year, bloomed in a very weedy bed.

Glory of the snow (Chionodoxa luciliae) bloomed in different colors this week. I looked closely and saw that there were only one or two flowers per stem, even though it looks like many more. I know of only one place to find these spring bulbs.

The scilla is beautiful this year. A mild winter seems to suit it well.

Many Forsythias have come into bloom, including this old overgrown example. It’s a hard shrub to keep up with but it blooms better if you do.

Japanese andromeda blossoms (Pieris japonica) look like tiny pearlescent glass fairy lights topped with gilded ormolu mounts, worthy of the art nouveau period. Japanese andromeda is an ornamental evergreen shrub that is very popular, and you can see why. Some think the blossoms resemble lily of the valley so another common name for the plant is lily of the valley shrub. Some varieties have beautiful red leaves on their new shoots.

I’ve seen exactly one horsetail so far this spring and this is it. The fertile spore bearing stem of a common horsetail (Equisetum arvense) ends in a light brown, cone shaped structure called a strobilus. Since it doesn’t photosynthesize at this point in its development the plant has no need for chlorophyll, so most of it is a pale, whitish color. When it’s ready to release its spores the cone opens to reveal tiny, mushroom shaped sporangiophores.

This horsetail had just started to open, revealing its spore producing sporangia. The whitish “ruffles” at the base of each brown sporangiophore are the sporangia. Once it has released its spores it will die and be replaced by an infertile stem. I should see many more of these as the season progresses, because they usually grow in large groups.

False hellebores (Veratrum viride) have appeared. They always remind me of rocket ships when they first come up.

False hellebore is one of the most toxic plants growing in a New England forest and people have died from eating it after mistaking it for something else. Even animals won’t eat them, but certain insects or slugs will, and usually by July the plant’s leaves look shot full of holes. They have small green flowers later in summer but I think the deeply pleated oval leaves are quite pretty when they first come up in spring.

For those who have never seen false hellebore flowers, here are some I found a few years ago. The small flowers aren’t much to look at, but it’s easy to see that the plant is in the lily family by their shape. These flowers are the same color green as the rest of the plant but have bright yellow anthers. There are nectar producing glands that ants feed on and when they do, they pollinate the flowers. These plants are hard to find in flower because they do so only when they are mature, which means ten years or more old. When they do blossom they do so erratically, so you never really know what you’ll find. When they finally bloom they carry hundreds of flowers in large, branched terminal clusters.

I usually see trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) blooming with spring beauties but this year even the leaves seem late; spring beauties have been blooming for two weeks. This plant takes its common name from its leaves, which are speckled like the body of a trout. The flowers will probably have appeared by next weekend and there should be many thousands of them in this spot.

A clump of sedge doesn’t look like much until you look closely. I think most people see it as just another weed that looks like coarse grass, but it can be beautiful when it flowers.

Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica) is blooming early this year; they usually bloom along with trout lilies. The female flowers look like tiny, wispy white feathers and they appear lower down on the stem, beneath the male flowers. What is odd about this plant is that the female flowers usually appear before the cream colored male flowers. That’s to ensure that they will receive pollen from a different plant and be cross pollinated. As the plant ages the male flowers will turn light brown and the female flowers, if pollinated by the wind, will bear seed. It’s a beautiful little flower that is well worth a second look.

For me flowers often have memories attached, and trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) always reminds me of my grandmother. She said that no other flower could match its fragrance and that was high praise, because she knew her flowers. We used to look for them when I was a small boy but I can’t remember ever finding any with her. That’s probably because so many of them were dug up by people who erroneously thought that they could just dig them up and plant them in their gardens. The plant grows in a close relationship with fungi present in the soil and is nearly impossible to successfully transplant, so I hope they’ll be left alone.

All I’ve seen of trailing arbutus so far are these buds, but it won’t be long. The fragrant blossoms were once so popular for nosegays it was collected nearly to the point of extinction in New England, and in many states it is now protected by law thanks to the efforts of what is now the New England Wildflower Society. Several Native American tribes used the plant medicinally. It was thought to be particularly useful for breaking up kidney stones and was considered so valuable it was said to have divine origins. Its fragrance is most certainly heavenly and I’m looking forward to smelling them again.

The unusual joined flowers of the American fly honeysuckle (Lonicera canadensis) usually start blooming during the last week of April, so this plant is a little early this year. Its unusual paired flowers branch off from a single stem and if pollinated will become joined pairs of reddish orange fruit shaped much like a football, with pointed ends. Many songbirds love its fruit so this is a good shrub to plant when trying to attract them. I see it growing along the edges of the woods but it can be hard to find, especially when it isn’t blooming. This photo shows the buds, which were just opening.

The whitish feathery things seen here are the female pistils of the American elm (Ulmus americana.) If the wind brings it pollen from male anthers each female flower will form small, round, flat, winged seeds called samaras. I remember them falling by the many millions when I was a boy; raining down enough so you couldn’t even see the color of the road beneath them. You can still see the shriveled, blackish male flowers in this flower cluster as well.

I’m at a loss as to how to explain what these are. I know they’re maple seeds (samaras) forming but I don’t know if they’re red or silver maple seeds. For a while I was fairly sure they were silver maple but after looking in several books and spending hours searching online over the years, I’ve had no luck finding anything like them, so it will have to come down to leaf shape. Once I see the leaves I’ll know for sure because they’re very different between the two species.

These I’m sure of. They are the female flowers of a red maple (Acer rubrum) becoming seeds, and they look very different than the ones in the previous photo.

On some trees the male staminate red maple flowers are still going strong, but on others they’ve passed. Staggered bloom times helps ensure thorough pollination, and it does work well because there are many millions of seeds falling each year.

Vinca (Vinca minor) is an invasive plant from Europe, but it was brought over so long ago that many people think it’s a native. In the 1800s it was given by one neighbor to another along with lilacs and peonies and I’ve found all three still blooming beautifully around old cellar holes out in the middle of nowhere, as this plant was. I never knew that the flowers untwisted themselves from the bud as this one was doing. Spirals are found all through nature, even inside the human body, and here is another one.

Some of the plants you’ve seen in this post grow near this beaver pond, which was nearly as pretty as the flowers I was searching for, in my opinion. I hope you think so too.
Flowers carry not only beauty but also the silent song of love. You just have to feel it. ~Debasish Mridha
Thanks for coming by. I hope everyone had a very happy and safe Easter.
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Posted in Nature, Wildflowers | Tagged American Fly Honeysuckle, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Common Horsetails, Early Spring Plants, False Hellebore, False Hellebore Flower, Female Elm Flowers, Forsythia Blossoms, Glory of the Snow, Japanese Andromeda, Keene, Magnolia Blossoms, Myrtle, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Pennsylvania Sedge Flowers, Red Maple Flowers, Red Maple Samaras, Scilla, Spring, Swanzey New Hampshire, Trailing Arbutus, Tulips, Yellow Trout Lily | 30 Comments
How do I receive your blog. I friend has forwarded it to me.
Thank you for your interest Sylvia. If you click on this link https://nhgardensolutions.wordpress.com/ you’ll reach the home page for the blog. Once there scroll down until you see a box that says “Follow this blog” on the lower right. Just click there, add your email address, and you’ll receive the blog by email twice each week. Or you can simply open the blog on Wednesdays and Saturdays and read it that way.
All these beautiful flowers and new shoots! I agree with Ben Naga; the feeling of joy and wonder after reading your words and looking at your photographs is overwhelming! Thank you, Allen.
You’re welcome Clare. I think we could all use a little more joy right now!
Yes!
Hi there, this is my first time to visit your blog. Just wanted to say hello.
Lovely garden, I wonder how it feels to live a place with a garden around. I live the urban area in some part of the Philippines. Unfortunately, we don’t have a place to do gardening.
By the way, I am new in blogging and just made a challenge to myself to visit at least 10 blogs daily. During my visit, I will made a connection by leaving a comment and putting your link on my blog. Hope you can visit to check it out.
I followed your blog too.
Hello Vanessa. I’m sorry but I just found your comment in the spam folder, which doesn’t happen often.
What you see here for flowers aren’t in my garden. Many are wildflowers and others grow in parks.
It’s too bad you don’t have a place to garden, maybe one day you will. Thanks for visiting!
Gorgeous plants and flowers. Even the false hellebores. Trying to think if I’ve ever seen one here, but cannot recall. As for the trout lilies, you will have to show us the flowers when they bloom as mine are still young (that’s my excuse) and never bloom.
Thank you Cynthia, that’s a good excuse. Trout lilies, if I remember correctly, can take 10 years to bloom. But a colony of them can last over 100 years, so patience is what it takes!
False hellebores usually like low, damp places near rivers and streams but these plants just grow in the woods.
Thanks. We may have some false hellebores right near our stream, but since I never go down the hill, I wouldn’t know. good news that trout lilies last that long.
It’s not, for me, not so much about what I think of this post as what I feel. I am grateful that you nourished my evening. Some very unusual (for me) shapes and ways of blooming.
I’m glad I could do that for you Ben. Have a great evening!
It’s been fine so far. And there’s still an evening meal to come! 🙂
Same here!
It is good to see your flowers coming out. I will have to go back to where I saw horsetails yesterday and have a better look at them in a day or tow.
Thank you. Horsetails open slowly if the weather is cool but once they finally open they pass quickly.
I remember false hellebore. There was a lot of it in the area where I grew up. Red maple blossoms are still among my spring favorites!
I don’t see much false hellebore in this area but I do know where a few plants grow.
I love red maple flowers too!
I so enjoy your gorgeous posts and often share them with my Chicago granddaughter, who is a budding naturalist. I’m fortunate to live in Framingham, MA about two miles from Garden in the Woods, a magnificent botanical garden that is the headquarters of what was formerly called New England Wildflower Society. It is now Native Plant Trust, which more accurately reflects the whole of its mission as the nation’s first plant conservation organization.
Thanks very much Kay. I’ve heard of the Garden in the Woods and have always wanted to see it but I haven’t made it yet.
I didn’t know that the New England Wildflower Society had changed their name. Just a few years ago they, in collaboration with Ted Elliman, published the book “Wildflowers of New England” and a few of my flower photos were included in it. I wonder if people will still be able to buy it now.
I learn so much from your blog. Thank you for continuing it while we are mostly shut up indoors. It is a wonderful and beautiful distraction!
You’re welcome Emily. I’m glad you think so but I do hope you can get outside at least once in a while where you live and meet these beautiful things in person.
Lotsa spring pretties, Allen! It’s strange about the false hellebore, it’s leaves don’t look like hellebores, it’s flowers don’t either… So what am I missing here?? Ahhh, the scourge of vinca minor, the bane of many a gardener. Way back when, I innocently planted a charming variegated one. And, as often occurs, it stayed variegated for half a season, then went green. Been yanking it out for years! Easter was quiet and safe.
I know what you mean about the false hellebore Ginny. I’ve tried off and on for years to find out what the connection was. Hellebore is said to be poisonous as well, so maybe that’s all there is.
I also know what you mean about the vinca. You’d better be sure you really want it before you plant it!
I think we all had a quiet Easter and i hope we all had a safe one too. I’m glad to hear yours was.
When I lived in central Texas, I was trying to find some pretty flowering plant that the deer wouldn’t eat when they sneaked into my front yard at night.
Vinca did the trick!
On Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 4:08 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” Since it has been so cool here > over the past week or so flowers that looked like they were ready to open a > week ago still haven’t, but that doesn’t hold true for the magnolias which > are now in full bloom. This one is one of my favorites. I like the” >
That’s interesting Ron. That must be why I see so many plants in the woods!
Goats won’t eat vinca either.
Interesting!
I, too, liked the beaver pond and my favourite flowers were those of the female red maple. Thank for your good wishes and hope all is well still with you and your family.
Thank you Susan. Yes, we are all well and trying to stay that way.