Temperatures are cooling quickly now, with overnight lows sometimes in the 40s F and daytime highs in the 60s and 70s. If you go out in the morning before the sun does its work at this time of year you find that bees are very sluggish. Sometimes you can even find them sleeping in flowers. That makes bee photography much easier and it was simple to capture this bee on a knapweed blossom.
The sun was coming up behind these New England asters early one morning, but the light reflected off the clouds and lit them up so the center of each one was lighter than the surrounding rays. They were very beautiful and I stayed with them until the light changed.
I saw a three-foot-tall alfalfa plant (Medicago sativa) growing by itself on the side of a road, so I had to stop and see its beautiful flowers. Alfalfa is an important crop used around the world for hay and silage. I’ve read that it needs a well-prepared seedbed so I’m not sure how it got there by the side of the road.
Alfalfa is a legume in the pea /bean family and you can see that as soon as you look closely at the flowers. They’re quite pretty.
Yellow hawkweed (Hieracium caespitosum) has seen the writing on the wall and knows its days are numbered, but I still see them here and there gently swaying in the breeze. The buds, stem, and leaves of the plant are all very hairy and the rosette of oval leaves at the base of the stem often turns deep purple in winter.
Beech drops (Epifagus americana) are strange plants which grow near beech trees. They are parasitic plants that fasten onto the roots of the beech tree using root like structures. They take all of their nutrients from the tree so they don’t need leaves, chlorophyll or sunlight. Beech drops are annuals that die off in cold weather, but they can often be found growing in the same place each year.
This year the plants had odd shaped flowers that looked to be fully open. Normally they look to be about half opened and point to the side, but this year they were cup like and pointed straight at the sky as if trying to catch the rain.
Some of the flowers were full of I don’t know what. Were they insect larva, crawling up the stem or were they parts of the plant, splashed out of the flower by the rain? I haven’t been able to find the answer online so if you know I’d love to hear from you.
NOTE: A helpful reader with a good library believes that the tiny white object seen here are indeed seeds, being splashed out of the splash cups by raindrops. Something rarely seen!
This is what beech drop flowers have always looked like every time I’ve seen them. Until now.
You might be thinking Oh no-not more jewelweed, but this photo of a jewelweed blossom from last August is just here to illustrate another fascinating fact about this plant.
This is a jewelweed seedpod, for those who have never seen one. When ripe at the slightest touch they will curl up and shoot the seeds in all directions with considerable force. This is where the name “touch me not” comes from. If however, you hold one in your closed hand and let it curl and explode, you’ll be able to catch the seeds. Why would you want to do that? Just read on.
Because this is what the seeds look like. A helpful reader wrote in to say that I should have a look because they were a beautiful robin’s egg blue. After 4 or 5 tries and finding immature seeds, there it was, and it was indeed a beautiful robin’s egg blue. You just have to rub the outer coating from the seed to find it. Nature is just awesome, and so are all of you who visit this blog. Thank you for enlightening us, Ann!
It’s time to say goodbye to crown vetch (Securigera varia) I think. I found a few plants blooming on a roadside and though this one will never win a prize in a flower show, it was the best of the lot. This is another member of the legume family and its bicolor flowers are very pretty, I’ve always thought.
False sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) is still blooming strongly. This native plant can sometimes reach 5 feet, and is decorated with pretty yellow, daisy like flowers. I often find it growing along the river as this one was. It also does well in gardens.
Sweet everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) is a funny little plant with maple syrup scented flowers that never seem to fully open. The plant’s common name comes from the way it lasts for years after being cut and dried. An odd name for it is rabbit tobacco, given to it by Native Americans because they noticed that rabbits liked to gather where these plants grew. Because of these gatherings they thought that rabbits must smoke the plant as a way to communicate with the Creator. They apparently decided to try smoking it too because it was and still is used in smoking mixtures by some Native people. It is said to be useful in treating asthma.
Here is a sweet everlasting flower that has opened but when they do this, they’re very dry and it seems as if they have gone or are going to seed. This stage is the end of the changes in appearance for them from what I’ve seen, and if you cut them and put them dry in a vase they’ll stay this way for a very long time.
I still see an occasional black eyed Susan blossom (Rudbeckia hirta) and I’m never surprised, because they’ll go right up until a freeze. Our first frost date is now about two weeks later than average so it could happen any time.
Bees are still happy that they’re open for business.
And then there is this; a “man-made” rudbeckia called Rudbeckia Henry Eilers (Rudbeckia subtomentosa.) It is said to “look like an asterisk” and to be a “standout among black eyed Susans” in nursery catalogs, and I would guess that both of those statements are true. It’s not really my cup of tea but I’m sure a lot of people must grow it. I find it in a tiny local garden along with many other unusual plants that I haven’t ever seen before.
I got there just a bit too late to see the Japanese anemones at their most beautiful but this one was still pretty, just the same. These have been planted in the gardens of a local park so I’ll have to remember to visit them next summer.
I’ve seen dandelions blooming in every month of the year, and I’m hoping to see them in December, January and February of this year.
This roadside view looks quite different now but when it was at its peak like it is here, I took so many photos I hate to let them go without showing them. Being there and walking among such beautiful flowers was like walking into an impressionist painting.
Every bird, every tree, every flower reminds me what a blessing and privilege it is just to be alive. ~Marty Rubin
Thanks for coming by.
you have flowers long after we do here in NW MT. Lovely to see all of yours! So interesting that those tiny bugs took over the flowers, poor flowers.
Thanks Tammie. I used to read a blog from Montana and loved it. Yours is a beautiful state!
The bugs in that flower turned out to be seeds, splashed out by the rain.
GREAT POST! I have taken a lot of Jewelweed photos, but I didn’t know they had blue seeds. Very interesting. Now I will have to see if I can get photos of their blue seeds. 🙂 Last week the Monarchs were swarming on the Missouri Ironweed. I had never seen so many in my life. It was quite a sight! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you. I had never heard that either. Someone else wrote in and said they tasted like walnuts, so now I’ll have to try them.
We don’t have ironweed here so I don’t know much about it but if the monarchs like it, so do I!
Years ago a friend used the beautiful robin’s egg-blue seeds of jewelweed as sprinkles on cupcakes for a party. They are edible and taste like walnuts. Lots of work to peel each seed, but a stunning display!
Thank you Cindi, that’s interesting. I knew they were edible but I didn’t know they tasted like walnuts. I’ll have to try them!
I must look at the seed pods of our balsam to see what they contain.
You might get a nice surprise but I don’t know your plants well at all.
Your beechdrop photo sent me down a very interesting rabbit-hole. Your photo is a white version of what I usually think beechdrops look like. After reading a lot of (mostly not helpful) descriptions in various Floras, here’s what I learned:
Beechdrops have two kinds of flowers. The big, striped ones grow at the top of the plant. They are mostly there in late summer/early fall. They have stamens, but are usually sterile. Below them on the lower part of the stem is what look like flower buds, but are actually the other kind of flower, cleistogamous ones, which will never open and will self-fertilize. They have a really weird petal form; they are fused together into essentially a little cap, just like on the fertile capsules of a moss, and the cap gets pushed off as the fruit starts to form.
The fruit has two valves, which start out whiteish but dry to woody and brown after opening. That is the main structure you photographed. But the really cool part is that the seeds are described as abundant, “yellowish-white, ellipsoid” and up to about half a millimeter long. I think you’ve photographed the seeds, something I’ve never seen before. The capsules seem to function as splash cups, not unlike in birds-nest fungi.
Very cool!
I don’t know where you found such detailed information on these plant Sara, but I’m glad you did. I think you’re right about the seeds and splash cups because it had rained not too long before I saw them. I also knew that they had to produce seed but I had never seen anything that looked like a seed. Now, thanks to you I know what to look for. They were very small.
Thanks very much!
mostly that was from Albert Radford et al. Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas.
That’s one I don’t have. Thank you. I’ve updated the blog entry and I’m happy that I finally saw this plant’s seeds.
THANK YOU .. not only delightful to view but informative as well .. so much to be grateful for and to appreciate.
You’re welcome Krys. I agree!
Despite the weather cooling you found plenty of colour still to cheer us up.
Yes, it’s unusual to have so many flowers still blooming here at this time of year.