More From The Wetlands

This post is kind of a continuation of the last. I’m still spending time walking through what is really a huge wetland area, and of course I’m seeing many things which like that kind of environment. This particular visit started off quite foggy, but this photo was taken just as the fog began to break. You can still see it; gray and soft off in the distance.

These weren’t raindrops; they were condensed fog drops. It was that kind of morning.

This place is a place of water drainage and every now and then all that water drains into a low spot and becomes a pond, and they are always full of life. I’ve seen beavers, snapping turtles, great blue herons, and too many smaller birds to name here. Right now the yellow bullhead pond lilies are blooming and for the first time I’ve seen a strange thing happenig; some type of bird flies down and lands on a leaf and then hops from leaf to leaf. I think the birds that do this are red winged blackbirds but I can’t be sure yet. Whatever the birds are, they must be looking for insects.  

One of the smaller birds I met at the pond was a Kingbird, which is an amazing acrobat. It is one of the flycatcher clan. It would find a good perch and sit for a bit and then it would be off, swooping high and low and left and right before coming back to the same perch, much like a dragonfly would. That means it’s easy to anticipate where it will land and get set up for a shot of it but even so, without a tripod this was the best I could do. According to what I’ve read Kingbirds get their name from how aggressively they defend their territory, even against hawks. They are king of the hill in birdville and they have no fear of anything, humans included. Its scientific name Tyrannus tyrannus even hints at it being a bit of a tyrant, but they landed and perched near me many times as if I wasn’t even there. I watched this one catch dragonflies in mid air, which it once did so close to me I could have touched it.

Out went the wings, up came the feet and like a rocket this bird was gone so fast I didn’t even know it had left. This shot was taken purely by accident; when I clicked the shutter I think the bird was still sitting on the branch. Since plants don’t fly away I don’t need stop action camera settings so it’s just a blur. Luckily I’m not out to win any photography awards; I’m just here to show you the beauty of nature and this shot, even though blurry, shows you something not often seen. Between my old beater camera that I’ve fallen on too many times to count and my cataract dimmed eyes I’m lucky to be able to post any photos at all, so I can’t complain.

I was happy to find the oval leaves of floating pond weed floating just off shore. That meant that, though I couldn’t reach them, I could get a close look at the plant’s small, cigar shaped flower heads.

This is a better shot than I’ve ever gotten from a wave rocked kayak. I think you can just get a side glimpse of a couple of the tiny white flowers toward the top, but the rest had all gone to seed already. At least, that’s what I think this shows. If nothing else it shows the seed head, which is something you don’t see every day. Another thing you don’t see is the plant’s second set of leaves, which are grass like and stay underwater.

I was leaving the pond when this cute little thing flew past and landed on this leaf in front of me, just as you see it here. It was if it was saying “I’m ready for my photo shoot,” so here it is. Google lens says it’s a common ringlet butterfly. I looked at other examples online and it seems to be a match. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen one before; at first I thought it was a cabbage white but once I saw it on the computer I saw that there really wasn’t a lot of white on it.

For a long time I had read and heard about the wonderful scent of our beautiful fragrant white water lily but since they were always offshore just out of reach, I doubted I’d ever smell them. After all, how can you smell a flower you can’t get near? I had given up the thought of ever smelling them until one day a few years ago I walked around a pond with hundreds of them growing in it, looking for that perfect photo, when a breeze blew across the pond. Here was the delicate, fruity scent of hundreds of these beautiful flowers, as light as the breeze that carried it, and it was wonderful.

George Washington loved orchard grass because, he said: “Orchard grass of all others is in my opinion the best mixture with clover; it blooms precisely at the same time, rises quick again after cutting, stands thick, yields well, and both cattle and horses are fond of it green or in hay.” I like it because of its simple beauty. It will slowly turn purple as it ripens and become even more beautiful.

Nature is always full of surprises; that’s one thing you can count on. How, I wondered, could I have spent the better part of 60+ years outside, and even walked by this very spot for at least two decades and not seen this grass? It’s all about being in the right place at the right time, and apparently I’ve just never been here when this grass was flowering. It is called June grass, and it’s beautiful. If nothing else this illustrates why it’s a good idea to walk the same places again and again. Nature is in a state of constant change so you can’t expect to walk a trail once and think you’ve seen all there is to see.

I’ve wondered for a long time if I was seeing sheep laurel or bog laurel. The keys to identification I read weren’t really clear, and to make matters worse sheep laurel is able to grow in bogs, and bog laurel can grow on dry land. But then I found clarity: sheep laurel leaves have a stem, called a petiole, which attaches them to the main stem. Also, 3 leaves usually form a whorl around them stem. Bog laurel leaves have no leaf stem; they are sessile on the main stem and two leaves grow opposite each other. Sessile means no petiole or leaf stem. So, all of that is a long winded way to say the beautiful flowers in this shot belong to sheep laurel.

Thanks to the Maine Natural History Observatory for clearing that up.

This little mother wood duck seems to be wearing a joyful expression but the actual moment was quite different. I was walking a trail around a pond when she came gliding out of the woods and landed off shore. Then she swam in circles, whistling and hooting loudly, as if frightened. Soon I saw why; 7 or 8 little ducklings swam out from some pickerel weeds very near where I had just been walking. I walked right by them without seeing them and wouldn’t have done more than take a photo if I had, but their mother didn’t know that and she was about as agitated as a bird could be. They all swam off while I stood there watching, and it happened so fast I never did get a good shot of the ducklings.

Female wood ducks don’t quack; they kind of whistle or squeak with an urgent sound that’s very hard, if not impossible to describe. It’s also one of those sounds that, once heard you don’t forget. It’s easily found online if you’re interested.

I was thinking as I looked at this shot of a tachinid fly how, if I had taken it in a cemetery I could have said “fly on the family stone” but since it wasn’t, I won’t. It landed on a stone in a stone wall and walked around in circles as if looking for something. It might have been on the trail of a caterpillar, because they lay eggs on young caterpillars. The eggs hatch and the fly larvae begin to drink the “blood” of the caterpillar. That means the caterpillar won’t go on to become what it should have. Some call this fly the enemy of butterflies for that reason but I see it simply doing what it has evolved to do. That’s what it does and it really doesn’t matter what we think about it; nature doesn’t know or care about good or bad.

I saw another large clump of yellow irises along the river bank, so this makes two now in this general area. This is an iris from Europe that is quite aggressive. I found a small pond once that was absolutely choked with them so there wasn’t even room for cattails to grow there. I’m not sure what the plants get out of growing so thickly that they starve themselves enough to stop flowering, but that seems to be what they do.

But there is no denying the unique beauty of this iris. The featureless background in this shot is the river itself, but it looks like I was holding a gray card behind the flower. I’ve never seen this happen but we’ve had some strange light, what with smoke from wildfires and lots of clouds, so I was happy to get a shot at all.

Maiden pinks can now be seen blooming just about everywhere, usually in the color seen above or in white. Originally from Europe, they escaped cultivation almost immediately but they aren’t terribly invasive. They like dry, hot, sandy soil in waste places and that’s where I find them. The name “pinks” is supposed to come from pinking shears, which leave a serrated cut in cloth that is similar to what is seen on its petals, but since the flowers must have come along much earlier than the shears, I question that theory.

But anyhow, if you like them there are garden cultivars sold under the name “pinks” which can be found at any nursery. One old red flowered variety is called “flashing lights.” It’s a name I’ve always thought was appropriate for these little flowers. I see them flashing just about everywhere I go.

Orange isn’t a common color in nature where I live so it’s always nice to see orange hawkweed coming into bloom. It isn’t anywhere near as common as yellow hawkweed but I’ve seen it a few times lately.

The flowers of this plant grow on long thin stems (pedicels) and dance in the slightest hint of a breeze, and for that reason it was named fawn’s breath. Native Americans used the powdered root as a laxative and for that reason it is also called American ipecac. That takes a bit of the sweetness away from the name fawn’s breath, but that’s the way it is. It’s a beautiful thing unless you eat it, then any thoughts of beauty might just go down the drain.

A pretty, native wild honeysuckle that blooms after all the invasive honeysuckles have finished is glaucous honeysuckle. It is also called limber honeysuckle and I can understand why, because its long branches are so limber they flop on the ground rather than stand up. “Glaucous” means blue green in color, or covered by the natural, powdery bluish wax called “bloom.” The leaves are bluish green and the stems have the same bluish powdery bloom that blueberries have, so the name fits perfectly. It likes well drained, constantly moist soil and I find it growing in gravel at the base of a small hill. This plant is the only one I’ve ever found.

The pretty flowers of glaucous honeysuckle shout honeysuckle. I haven’t seen a true native honeysuckle flower yet that didn’t have that big red, mushroom headed pistil, and here it is on these flowers. What beautiful color both the flowers and flower buds have.

Every time I see Canada anemones bloom I think back to a woman who had just bought a house and had heard about me from others in the neighborhood and wanted to meet me. As we stood in her yard one day talking and planning she made it clear that if I were to be her gardener under no circumstances would I plant anemones. Of course I had to ask about the white flowers we stood beside which were in fact anemones, but they didn’t bother her. Though I worked for her for many years I never did find out why anemones bothered her, or even which anemones she was thinking of. Since she had been in the foreign service and had lived all over the world, they could have been anything.

Called one of the most invasive weeds worldwide, creeping thistle plants are shoots that grow from an extensive network of long, thick, underground roots. Trying to pull the plants just breaks them off the underground root and new plants soon take their place. Mowing all the above ground growth just makes the roots spread more, and they can spread as much as 10 feet in a season. The plant is originally from Europe but is also called Canada thistle. Its leaves have sharp spines all along the edges so just holding on to them on a windy day to get a photo is a challenge. I’ve taken photos of its flowers for years but this year I noticed how beautiful its buds were. As pretty as it is though, you don’t want this one growing in your yard.

I hadn’t seen any caterpillars yet so from a distance I was surprised to see what I thought were tent caterpillars swarming all over a stick. When I got closer I saw that it was instead a dead weed. But what a beautiful weed. I called it Rapunzel. It reminded me once again how there is beauty everywhere you care to look on this earth. Climb a hill, step behind a tree, dig a hole or roll over a log; no matter what you do or where you do it you will surely find beauty there.

To illustrate what I said about beauty being everywhere; I happened upon a spot where someone had lifted a log from the forest floor and revealed this bright orange mushroom mycelium that had been growing under it. I thought it was a very beautiful color, and so unexpected it stopped me in my tracks. It helps I think, to know that much of the beauty of life is found in small, seemingly insignificant things that might appear at any moment as you move slowly through nature. Even a pebble can sometimes be as beautiful as a jewel, so don’t just look; open your mind and heart and really see. Perceive the beauty of life using all of your senses. These wonders are all around us. It’s all there, just waiting for us to find it.

Green was the silence, wet was the light;
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.
~Pablo Neruda

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More Early June Flowers

Since I started the last flower post with blue flag irises, I thought I’d start this one with yellow flags (Iris pseudacorus.) There is a difference other than the obvious color difference; this one is originally from Europe and is very invasive, while blue flags are native. It was introduced in the mid-1800s as a garden plant but of course it escaped and began to naturalize and was reported near Poughkeepsie, New York in 1868 and in Concord, Massachusetts in 1884. Today it considered highly invasive and its sale and distribution is banned in New Hampshire. As you can see though, it doesn’t care a hoot about being banned and grows in the Ashuelot river in Keene. I’ve seen it take over entire ponds so only time will tell what it does in the river.

Just up the river bank from where the invasive yellow iris grow is a garden bed with more yellow iris in it, but these are not invasive; they were planted. I don’t know for sure but I believe they are a Japanese Iris called “Rising sun.” (Iris ensata v. Rising sun.) You can see how the petals have pointed ends, rather than the rounded petals on the yellow flags. It’s a beautiful thing.

You might not think that forget me nots would be water lovers but the largest colony of forget me nots I’ve ever seen was growing on a river bank that flooded regularly. This small clump also grew on the riverbank, maybe a foot from the yellow flags. It might become a large colony one day.

Last year a machine came along and cut the one bristly locust (Robinia hispida) plant that I knew of that grew along a rail trail, but when I went back this year there had to have been a dozen of them. I believe new shoots grew from the roots of the original plant, which is a habit that locusts seem to have. In any event I was happy to see them because the flowers are beautiful. Bristly locust is more shrub than tree, though it can reach 8 feet. What sets this locust apart from others are the bristly purple-brown hairs that cover its stems. Even its seedpods are covered by hairs.

A close look at a bristly locust shows that it is in the pea family. It is native to the southeastern United States but has spread to all but 7 of the lower 48 states, with a lot of help from nurseries selling it for ornamental use. The beautiful pinkish purple bristly locust flowers are very fragrant and bees really love them. Every time I’ve see it in bloom it is absolutely covered with bees but this year there were just a few buzzing around.

Fawn’s breath I think is a great name for a flower, and it has just come into bloom. The flowers dance at the end of long, slim stems in the slightest breeze, as in the breath of a fawn. It is also called bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) but though I search each year for the origin of that name I’ve never been able to find it. I like the asymmetrical appearance of the flowers. They look as if a chubby fingered toddler had glued them on. This is a native plant that really should be used more than it is, in my opinion. I know of just one place where it grows.

Ox-eye daisy blossoms (Leucanthemum vulgare) appear in June and very rarely before then, in my experience. It’s another European native that escaped gardens and is now found in meadows in every state in the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii. A vigorous plant can produce up to 26,000 seeds. In tests 82% of those seeds remain viable even after being buried for 6 years, so don’t look for this one on the endangered list any time soon. I see them everywhere and I’m happy that I do.

The highway department planted the daisy in the previous photo alongside a highway in town, and when they did, they also planted lupines. The daisies thrived but the lupines did not, and now there are only five or six plants left. The flowers in this photo may be the last I see in this spot but thankfully I do see them in other places.

I saw more single flowered pink roses but these had a white eye. I believe they are another rugosa, the old standby, and just about the toughest rose known.  

I saw a white allium but the Olympus macro camera saw it differently.

I’ve heard that pretty maiden pink flowers (Dianthus deltoids) get their common name from the way the petals look like they were edged with pinking shears, but did pinking shears exist when they were named? This plant is a European native that has escaped gardens and can be found in lawns and meadows in many states in the U.S. A very similar plant is the Deptford Pink (Dianthus armeria) but its flowers have much narrower petals and it blooms a bit later.

What I think might be cow vetch (Vicia cracca) is a native of Europe and Asia that loves it here and has spread far and wide. According to the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States the vining plant is present in every U.S. state. Cow vetch can have a taproot nearly a foot long and drops large numbers of seeds, so it is hard to eradicate. It is very similar to hairy vetch, but that plant has hairy stems. I like its color and I think it’s pretty. I enjoy seeing it sprinkled here and there among the tall grasses.

Arrow wood viburnums (Viburnum dentatum) have come into bloom. These shrubs get large, often growing to 6-8 feet tall and 10 feet wide at the edge of the forest, but each individual flower is hardly bigger than a pencil eraser.  An easy way to identify viburnums is to look for the five petals (or lobes) that they all have. Native dogwoods, which should be blooming any time now, will always have 4 petals.  The glossy, toothed leaves are a good indication that this plant is an arrow wood viburnum. The name “arrow wood” comes from just what you would expect; the straight, hard wood is excellent for making arrow shafts. The white flowers are followed by small, dark blue fruit that birds love.

Maple leaf viburnums (Viburnum acerifolium) have also started blooming. They and most of all the other viburnums are valuable plants to wildlife. Many songbirds eat the berries and beavers, rabbits, deer and moose eat the bark, twigs and leaves. What I like most about this plant is the way its leaves change colors in the fall. They can go from deep maroon to orange red to light, pastel pink and can be mottled with several different colors at once. Note how different they are from the viburnum dentatum leaves we saw in the previous photo. But also notice how alike the flowers are.

Clematis have also just started blooming. Unfortunately I don’t see many of these beautiful flowering vines.

Dutchman’s pipe vine (Aristolochia durior) has just started blooming but you have to search for the flowers under the very large, heart shaped leaves. The vine has historically been used as a privacy screen or for shade on porches and arbors. You can still see it used that way today, but most don’t see these small flowers. They’re mottled yellowish-green and brownish purple with a long yellow tube, and are visited by the pipevine swallowtail butterfly, and other insects.

But I think an insect would need a very long tongue to get in there. The heavily pebbled, rough surface must be to help insects hang on, I would guess. Dutchman’s pipe is native to some south eastern hardwood forests and has been cultivated in other parts of the country and Canada since the 1700s. All it needs is something strong to climb on. I would definitely not fertilize it, because once it gets going it grows fast.

I find goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis) growing in a meadow in full sun. This is an oddly behaving flower that closes up shop at around noon and for this reason some call it “Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon.” I remembered to go and see them at around 11:30 am, and many had already hung out their do not disturb signs. Why the one in the photo was still wide open, I don’t know. Another name for goat’s bead is meadow salsify and its spring buds are said to be good in salads, but since a kind of bubble gum can be made from the plant’s latex sap you may find your salad is a bit chewy. It is a biennial, which means it grows a low basal rosette of leaves the first year and then flowers and dies the second year. It is native to Europe, Central Asia and Turkey but it could hardly be considered invasive here; I have a hard time finding it. It has a large, fuzzy seed head similar to a dandelion seed head and that’s where the “beard” part of the name comes from.

Yellow hawkweed (Hieracium caespitosum) is blooming better than I’ve ever seen it this year and I’m seeing large clumps like this one wherever I go. They should bloom right into October.

There was a time when I hated having to deal with red clover but I once was blind, and now I see.

I found a small group of blue toadflax (Nuttallanthus canadensis) and every plant was covered with insect webs. They looked more like a spider mite than a spider web. I almost always find blue toadflax growing in hot sandy waste areas and along roadsides but I’ve even found it on mountain tops and in woodland clearings. It will bloom all summer, right up until a killing frost.

Common speedwell (Veronica officinalis) is blooming better than I’ve ever seen it. This creeping “weed” is a European native that is very common here in lawns, pastures and along roadsides, which is where I found the one in the photo. It has been used medicinally for centuries in cough medicine and its leaves have also been used as a tea substitute. In France they call it “Europe tea.”

The flowers are tiny, fused into a tube with the lower petal (lobe) smaller than the others as is common in all speedwells. They grow in a spike (raceme) and can be white, blue or purple with darker stripes. They are about 1/4 inch across and have 2 stamens and a single pistil. They’re very pretty little things and masses of flowers like I’m seeing this year can put on quite a show.

In this area fragrant white waterlilies (Nymphaea odorata) start to bloom in June, and I know of a pond near a highway that has many hundreds of them in it. I’ve noticed over the last two or three years that more and more people are showing up there when they come into bloom. Some just walk slowly, some fish, some take photos and some just sit. With a busy highway so near you couldn’t really call it a tranquil spot but still they come, and several of them have become regulars now, I’ve noticed. It’s always nice to see more people getting outside and I wouldn’t wonder that they’d come out to see such a beautiful thing.

I’ve seen great blue herons, geese, ducks, all kinds of songbirds, and even a mink here. I know there are beavers here too, though I’ve never seen one. The naked flower stalks with all the flowers and leaves gone tell me there is also a woodchuck living here and I always hope to see it. Of course I also come to see the waterlilies, and I always look for that one might be tilted just right so I can see the beautiful golden flames that burn in its center. I can’t say why the others come but I come for the beauty of the place and I always find it, in all seasons.

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

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Early to Mid June Flowers

Our beautiful fragrant white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) have just started blooming but as this photo shows, the leaves are already being eaten. Each blossom lasts only 3 days before the stems coil and pull them underwater to set seeds, but there are so many of them constantly coming into bloom it seems like the flowers last all summer. This is the most beautiful of all our aquatics, in my opinion. Some say the scent reminds them of honeydew melon. 

I don’t know if I could think of a more beautiful name for a plant than “fawn’s breath.” This plant (Gillenia trifoliata) gets that name from the way that its very pretty flowers dance at the ends of long stems at even the hint of a breeze. Even presumably, the breath of a fawn can set them dancing. It is also called bowman’s root but I’ve never been able to discover why. This is a native plant which grows in 21 of the lower 48 states but here I have to find it in gardens. The roots of the plant were used as a laxative by Native Americans so it is also called Indian physic.

My color finding software calls this color “plum,” “rose,” or “orchid” but many websites call it pink. Since the plant is named maiden pink (Dianthus deltoids) that would make sense, but colorblindness means my opinion doesn’t really matter. Whatever color it is that these eyes see is beautiful.

And whatever color you choose to see them as will be beautiful as well. Maiden pinks are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation but they aren’t terribly invasive. They seem to prefer the edges of open lawns and meadows but they will also grow in abandoned lots and other waste areas in almost pure sand. I’ve read that the name “pinks” comes from the way the outer edges look as if they were cut with pinking shears but I don’t know how true that is. I’m sure the flowers have been here longer than pinking shears.

You might have noticed some small yellow flowers in that photo of maiden pinks. They were the flowers of silver leaved cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea.) It is not silverweed (Potentilla anserina) and shouldn’t be confused with that plant. It comes from Europe and is considered invasive but it is quite pretty and it can often be found in the same areas that maiden pinks grow in. The leaves are silvery white on their undersides, and that’s where the common name comes from.

In this part of the state the only lupines that could be thought of as wild are the ones that grow along the sides of highways, but they are not truly wild because the seed was put down by the highway department when the roadsides were redone. I knew of two places where these highway lupines grew but this year there wasn’t a sign of them, so this one comes to you from a local park. Tame or wild doesn’t matter really. It’s their beauty that matters and these had lots of it.

It’s clematis time and I like this one very much. It comes from the bud dark as you see here and over the course of time it lightens to a paler blue with a darker stripe down the center of each petal.

I believe its name is Ramona.

And here is Loreley. (Lorelei) The name refers to the sirens that would perch on cliffs along the Rhine and entice sailors to their doom with their enchanting song, much like the sirens who lured Ulysses and his crew in the Odyssey. It was introduced in Germany in 1909 and its beauty has been pleasing people ever since. Indeed this iris has pleased me my entire life. My mother planted it before she died and if I were to search my memory for a flower as far back as I could reach, this is the one I would find there. I’ve carried both the memory and the actual plant with me throughout my entire life.

This iris lives in the water at the edge of ponds and rivers and though it might have enticed a sailor or two it has pleased few people in this country, because it is very aggressively invasive. I once saw a small pond that was so full of them nothing else could grow there so that’s why, even though it is exceedingly beautiful, it is hated by many. It is the yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) and it is originally from Europe. It was introduced here in the mid-1800s as a garden plant. Of course it escaped and began to naturalize and was reported near Poughkeepsie, New York in 1868 and in Concord, Massachusetts in 1884. Today it considered highly invasive and its sale and distribution is banned in New Hampshire. As you can see though it distributes itself, and how do you ban that?

Orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) is also from Europe and is also considered invasive but the difference between it and the yellow flag iris is that it isn’t aggressive. I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one orange hawkweed and I’m not sure why that is. The color orange is virtually invisible to bees so that might account for its relative scarcity here. In fact orange wildflowers as a group are hard to find. The only other orange wildflower I can think of is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis.)

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is blooming and I love its dime size purple flowers with their ten anthers all tucked into their own pockets. It is thought that by having the pollen bearing anthers in  pockets like they do laurels keep the pollen from being washed away by rain, but I don’t think that is a scientific fact. What is a fact is the anthers reside in the pockets under tension, so when a heavy enough insect lands on the flower the spring loaded anthers release from their pockets and dust it with pollen.

For years I’ve gone back and forth on whether these were sheep laurel or bog laurel. Since I kept finding them growing in standing water I thought they were bog laurels, but sheep laurels are the only ones that have flower clusters with new growth coming out below to grow up around them, and the photo above matches more than a handful of examples I have seen online. It took a while to see this clearly but luckily I have helpers who often gently prod me in the correct direction. I’m very lucky to have them and grateful that I do.  

I once gardened for a lady who absolutely despised anemones and forbade me to plant any in her yard. She never told me why she didn’t like them but she had spent considerable time in Europe and the Middle East so I assumed she must have foreign anemones (maybe windflowers?) in mind. When I pointed out that the white flowers that grew in one corner of her recently purchased yard were anemones she was surprised but she also thought they were pretty, and said they could stay. Of course they were native meadow anemones (Anemone canadensis.)

Meadow anemone is an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone. Though it seems to spread out in a garden it’s easy to control. It’s also called crowfoot because of the foliage and it is also known as Canada anemone. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and its root and leaves were one of the most highly regarded medicines of the Omaha and Ponca tribes. It was used as an eye wash, an antiseptic, and to treat headaches and dizziness. The root was chewed to clear the throat so a person could sing better, but I’d want to find out what toxins it might contain before I tried it.

Pretty little bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) has come into bloom. It is in the legume family and grows about a foot tall, and is a common sight along roadsides and waste areas. It gets its common name from its clusters of brown, 1 inch long seed pods, which someone thought looked like a bird’s foot. The plant has 3 leaflets much like clover and was introduced from Europe as livestock feed, but has escaped and is now considered invasive in many areas. It can form large mats that choke out natives.

The flowers on our native viburnums like the maple leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) shown will almost always have five petals, and the leaves though quite different in shape throughout the viburnum family, are usually dull and not at all glossy. In fact I can’t think of one with shiny leaves. Each flattish maple leaved viburnum flower head is made up of many small, quarter inch, not very showy white flowers. If pollinated each flower will become a small deep purple berry (drupe) that birds love to eat. This small shrub doesn’t mind dry shade and that makes it a valuable addition to a native wildflower garden. The Native American Chippewa tribe used the inner bark of this plant to relieve stomach pains. What I like most about this little shrub is how its leaves turn so many colors in fall. They can be pink, purple, red, yellow, and orange and combinations of two or three, and are really beautiful.

Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) has beautiful small white (rarely pink) flowers that are about an inch across but unfortunately it is very invasive and forms prickly thickets that nobody I know would dare to try and get through. It is from Japan and Korea and grows to huge proportions, arching up over shrubs and sometimes growing 20-30 feet up into trees. A large plant bearing hundreds of blossoms is a truly beautiful thing but its thorny thickets prevent all but the smallest animals from getting where they want to go. Its sale is banned in New Hampshire but since each plant can easily produce half a million seeds I think it’s here to stay.

I love to look deep into a multiflora rose blossom, and I love to smell their heavenly fragrance. It’s very easy to understand why it was originally brought here.

I am always reminded each spring that one of the great delights of wandering in the New Hampshire woods is the amazing fragrance of wild grape flowers that wafts on the breeze. Their perfume can be detected from quite a distance so I usually let my nose lead me to them.

I’m always surprised that such a big scent comes from such tiny flowers, each no bigger than the head of a match. Each will become a grape when pollinated. We have a few varieties of wild grape here in New Hampshire including fox grapes (Vitis  fruitlabrusca), and frost or river grapes (Vitis riparia.) The fruit is an important food source for everything from birds to bears.

Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has been used medicinally for nobody knows how long; it has even been found in Neanderthal graves. The scientific name Achillea comes from the legend of Achilles carrying the plant into battle so it could be used to staunch the flow of blood from his soldier’s wounds. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today.

Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) flowers are small but there are enough of them so the plant can’t be missed. They grow at the edges of fields and pastures, and along pathways. The stems of this plant live through the winter so it gets a jump on the season, often blooming in May. It is a native of Europe and is also called chickweed. The 5 petals of the lesser stitchwort flower are split deeply enough to look like 10 petals and this is one way to tell it from greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea,) which has its 5 petals split only half way down their length. 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. It is also called starwort and I love seeing its pretty flowers twinkling in the tall grasses that they grow among.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. ~Rumi

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More Mid June Flowers

Our locust trees are now in bloom. The one shown here is a bristly locust (Robinia hispida,) which is more shrub than tree, though it can reach 8 feet. What sets this locust apart from others are the bristly purple-brown hairs that cover its stems. Even its seedpods are covered by hairs. Bristly locust is native to the southeastern United States but has spread to all but 7 of the lower 48 states, with a lot of help from nurseries selling it for ornamental use. The beautiful pinkish purple bristly locust flowers are very fragrant and bees really love them. Every time I find one in bloom it is absolutely covered with bees, which makes getting photos a challenge.

Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) are also blooming and are loaded with white, very fragrant blooms. One way to identify the tree is by the pair of short spines at the base of each leaf. Like many other legumes its leaflets fold together at night and when it rains. You can just see some of them unfolding in this photo.

If you don’t know this flower then you don’t know beans. Or peas, or lupines, or chickpeas, or soybeans, or peanuts, or any other of the more than 18,000 species in the legume (Fabaceae) family. Most have flowers much like the black locust example shown here but some tropical species can resemble orchids. Only the orchid and sunflower families have a larger presence in the plant kingdom. The huge legume family is made up of shrubs, trees, vines, and herbs which grow all over the world and feed its populations. Many plants in the family like clover have nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots that convert inert atmospheric nitrogen into a form which is useable to other plants. That’s part of the reason Native Americans planted beans, squash and corn together. Legumes have fed mankind for thousands of years and this world would be a very different place without them.

You can see the same type of flower as the locust has on the puffy little bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus.) It is also in the legume family and grows about a foot tall, and is a common sight along roadsides and waste areas. It gets its common name from its clusters of brown, 1 inch long seed pods, which someone thought looked like a bird’s foot. The plant has 3 leaflets much like clover and was introduced from Europe as livestock feed, but has escaped and is now considered invasive in many areas. It can form large mats that choke out natives.

If you Google “Herb Robert” (Geranium robertianum) you find two very interesting things. First is how it is named for a French monk who lived in 1000 AD and cured many people’s diseases with it, and that leads to another common name: Saint Robert’s Herb.

Second is that many people, scientists included according to an article in The Healing Journal, have discovered that it grows most abundantly in areas that have high levels of radiation and is said to absorb radiation from the soil in powerline corridors. It is thought to absorb the radiation from the soil, break it down and disperse it. Obviously I can’t confirm that but it’s a story that I first heard years ago and which persists; I just heard about it again the radio the other day.

I’m sure everyone has seen a buttercup (Ranunculus) but I wonder how many have seen their shine? The waxy shine on the petals 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. All of these layers act together to reflect yellow light while blue-green light is absorbed. Capturing the shine in a photo is a challenge I’m glad I only face once each year because it means taking many photos before I get it right.

This yellow daylily (Hemerocallis) is very early, blooming just after the Siberian irises bloom. This plant was given to me many years ago by a friend who has since passed on and I have divided it many times for family and friends. Two things make this plant special: the early bloom time and the heavenly fragrance that smells of citrus and spices. I have a feeling this is a Lemon daylily (Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus) which is a very old species brought to America in colonial days and originally from China and Europe.  The Greek word Hemerocallis means “beautiful for a day,” and that’s how long each flower lasts. It’s a shame that many of today’s daylilies, bred for larger and more colorful flowers, have lost their ancient fragrance.

There are two times when our wild grapevines tickle my nose; once in the fall when their ripening fruit makes the woods smell like grape jelly, and once in the spring when their tiny flowers emit a huge fragrance that can be detected from many yards away. These flowers are so small that I really can’t come up with an accurate way to describe their size. When you smell them your first thought will probably be “no, that fragrance can’t be coming from these tiny things,” but it is.

Fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) is a beautiful native tree that few people grow. It’s one of the last to leaf out in late spring and its fragrant hanging white flowers give it the name old man’s beard.  Male flowered trees are showier but then you don’t get the purple berries that female flowered trees bear. Birds love the fruit and if I had room I’d grow both.

Here’s a closer look at the male fringe tree flowers. I’ve read that these trees are very easy to grow and are pollution tolerant as well.

I felt bad when I accidentally knocked a columbine (Aquilegia) flower off while mowing near it but once I got down on my knees to get a photo I felt nothing but joy, because by then I was lost inside its beauty. Evolution yes; flowers have evolved to be appealing to the birds, bats and insects they want to attract, but that doesn’t explain their beauty. Or maybe it does; do birds and insects see it as we do?  If not then why are they so beautiful? It’s easy to think that maybe all that beauty is there just to please humanity, but that might be too crooked a path to follow.

When I was a boy I read books like Ivan Sanderson’s Book of Great Jungles, and I dreamed that one day I’d go to those jungles as a plant explorer and I’d bring back plants with flowers so beautiful they would make the people of the world weep with joy. The plant shown here wasn’t quite as beautiful as all that and it might make you weep for different reasons, but my sharp intake of breath and quickening heart rate told me that I had discovered something I’d never seen before.

After some searching I found that these small white flowers belong to a plant called flowered cancer root, also called naked broomrape (Orobanche uniflora.)  The naked part of the name comes from its lack of leaves. It doesn’t need them because it is parasitic on the plants that surround it, in this case mostly raspberry, from what I could see. It pierces the roots of other plants and slowly sucks the nutrition from them, weakening them, so it isn’t as innocent as it might appear. The small flowers are white and fuzzy with a yellow center and tiny purple hairs around the outside that make it appear to have an aura in the right light.

According to a New York Times article by Dave Taft, there are records of medieval medical uses of the plant as an astringent healer of “old green wounds.” It is said that Native Americans used the plant to treat skin infections but little seems to be known about how they used it. According to Wildflowers of the United States, the broomrape name comes from the way a European cousin of the plant parasitizes certain species of broom, an old world name for vetch, and the orobanche part of the scientific name means “vetch-strangler.” According to Wikipedia this plant is considered rare or vulnerable in 17 states. In New Hampshire it is simply listed as “present” but since I’ve seen it exactly once in 60+ years its presence isn’t common. It is listed as rare in the Midwest.

It’s finally clematis time here in New Hampshire, and here is Ramona to prove it. She starts off with dark flowers…

…and then the flowers lighten as they age.

Orange is a hard color to find in wildflowers here in New Hampshire so luckily we have orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca.) I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one orange hawkweed and I’m not sure why that is. The plant might be from Europe but it’s far from invasive. Maybe their scarcity is due to the color orange being virtually invisible to bees. They do reflect ultraviolet light though, so that means that some insects must find them. The only other orange wildflower I can think of is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis.)

The maiden pink (Dianthus deltoids) in the above photo was found at the edge of a meadow. It might look like its cousin the Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria,) but that flower doesn’t have the jagged red ring around its center like this one does. Maiden pinks are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation but aren’t terribly invasive. They seem to prefer the edges of open lawns and meadows but they will also grow in abandoned lots and other waste areas. I see them by the hundreds.

Orchard grass (Dactylis glomerata) has just started flowering. Orchard grass seed heads are composed of spikelets that bear two to eight flowers which dangle from thin filaments (pedicels) and shimmer in the breeze. According to the book Grasses: An Identification Guide by Lauren Brown, George Washington loved orchard grass so much so that he wrote “Orchard grass of all others is in my opinion the best mixture with clover; it blooms precisely at the same time, rises quick again after cutting, stands thick, yields well, and both cattle and horses are fond of it green or in hay.”

It’s already time to say goodbye to one of our most beautiful native orchids, the pink lady’s slipper. As can be seen here New Hampshire’s state wildflower had a good year.

Humans have used common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in various ways for thousands of years. It is mentioned in the Chinese I Ching, which is said to pre date recorded history, and yarrow has also been found in an excavation of a Neanderthal grave site. Yarrow was known as the soldier’s woundwort and herbe militaris for centuries, and was used to stop the flow of blood. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today. Native Americans used it for everything from snake bites to deodorant.

If there is a sweeter name for a flower than fawn’s breath, I haven’t heard it. It comes from the way the flowers, which sit at the ends of long thin stems (pedicels,) will move and dance even in the gentle breath of a fawn. Since I’ve never seen a fawn near one I can’t confirm that but I do know that even the slightest breeze will set them all dancing. Of course that’s a flower photographer’s worst scenario but while I wait for the flowers to stop dancing I can admire their beauty.

Asymmetrical is what the flowers are, with petals that look like they were glued on by a chubby fingered toddler, but it gives the plant a certain charm I think. It makes me search the plant for that one flower that must be perfectly symmetrical, but of course I never find it. The plant is also called Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata.) It is a native wildflower but it only grows in two New England Sates as far as I can tell; Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which seems odd but explains why I’ve never seen one in the wild. The dried and powdered root of this plant was used by Native Americans as a laxative, so another common name is American ipecac. 

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. ~Henry Ward Beecher

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Early June Flowers

More and more flowers are appearing each day now and the roadsides are beginning to bloom, as these ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) show. This is just a small piece of what was miles of daisies along this road.

Ox eye daisies will always say June to me. I was married in June and because we couldn’t afford flowers from the florist we picked hundreds of Ox eye daisies. They wilted quickly and looked much better in the meadow than in a vase, so I don’t think I’ve ever picked one since. This is a much loved flower so it is easy to forget that it was originally introduced from Europe as an ornamental in the 1800s. It quickly escaped cultivation and has now spread to each of the lower 48 states and most of Canada. Since cattle won’t eat it, it can spread at will through pastures and that means that it is not well loved by ranchers. A vigorous daisy can produce 26,000 seeds per plant and tests have shown that 82% of the buried seeds remained viable after six years underground. I always like to see their spiraled centers.

Blue flag irises (Iris versicolor) are another flower that says June to me. The name “flag” comes from the Middle English flagge, which means rush or reed and which I assume applies to the plant’s cattail like leaves. In this instance they were growing right in the water of a pond, so they don’t mind wet roots.

Though Native Americans used blue flag irises medicinally its roots are considered dangerously toxic and people who dig cattail roots to eat have to be very careful that there are no irises growing among them, because the two plants often grow side by side. Natives showed early settlers how to use small amounts of the dried root safely as a cathartic and diuretic, but unless one is absolutely sure of what they’re doing its best to just admire this one. It’s an easy thing to admire.

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is also called creeping dogwood and bunchberry dogwood. Just like the dogwood tree flower the large (relatively) white bracts of bunchberry surround the actual flowers, which are greenish and very small. The entire flower cluster with bracts and all is often no bigger than an inch and a half across. Later on the flowers will become a bunch of bright red berries, which give it its common name. Even the plant’s leaves show the same veining as the dogwood tree. Native Americans used the berries as food and made a tea from the ground root to treat colic in infants. The Cree tribe called the berry “kawiskowimin,” meaning “itchy chin berry” because rubbing the berries against your skin can cause a reaction that will make you itch. Bunchberry is often found growing on and through tree trunks, stumps, and fallen logs but exactly why isn’t fully understood. It’s thought that it must get nutrients from the decaying wood, and because of its association with wood it’s a very difficult plant to establish in a garden. Native plants that are dug up will soon die off unless the natural growing conditions can be accurately reproduced, so it’s best to just admire it and let it be.

Dogwood (Cornus) blossoms have 4 large white bracts surrounding the actual small greenish flowers in the center, just like bunchberries. They have just come into bloom.

Every time I look closely at blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) I wonder why they didn’t call it yellow eyed grass, but that’s not all that’s wrong with the name because the plant isn’t a grass at all; it’s in the iris family. Its light blue green leaves do resemble grass leaves though. The beautiful little flowers are often not much bigger than a common aspirin but their color and clumping habit makes them fairly easy to find. I think they must be sun lovers because they’re a little late this year. Some plants liked the cool damp weather, but this wasn’t one of them.

I find goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis) growing in a meadow in full sun and that single spot is the only place I find them. Goat’s beard flowers close up shop at around noon and for this reason some call it “Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon,” but I saw these still blooming at around 1 PM. A kind of bubble gum can be made from the plant’s milky latex sap and its spring buds are said to be good in salads. Another name for goat’s bead is meadow salsify. It is native to Europe but doesn’t seem to be at all invasive here. In fact I often have trouble finding it.

Maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) have just started blooming and I found the one in the above photo  at the edge of a meadow. It might look like its cousin the Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria,) but that flower doesn’t have the jagged red ring around its center like this one does and it blooms later, usually in July. Maiden pinks are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation but aren’t terribly invasive. They seem to prefer the edges of open lawns and meadows. Their colors can vary from almost white to deep magenta. I have volunteers growing in my lawn and I mow around them. They’re too beautiful to just cut down.

Red sandspurry (Spergularia rubra) never looks red to me; it always looks purple. But whatever the color it always looks beautiful to me. When I can see it anyway. Red sandspurry was originally introduced from Europe in the 1800s but it could hardly be called invasive. It is such a tiny plant that it would take many hundreds of them just to fill your shoe.

This photo of a red sandspurry blossom over a penny that I took two years ago will give you an idea of just how tiny they are. Each one could easily hide behind a pea with room to spare. For those who don’t know, a penny is .75 inches [19.05 mm] across. I’m guessing you could fit 8-10 blossoms on one.

Our locust trees are blooming. The one shown here is a black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) loaded with white, very fragrant blooms. One way to identify the tree is by the pair of short spines at the base of each leaf. Like many other legumes its leaflets fold together at night and when it rains.

Locusts are in the same family as peas and beans and the flowers show the connection. Black locusts were prized by colonial Americans for their tough, rot resistant wood. In 1610 colonists found black locust trees planted beside Native American dwellings and thought the Natives were using the tree as an ornamental, so they decided to use it that way as well .They also used the wood for ship building, forts and fence posts while the Natives used it to make bows and blow darts. It was once said to be the toughest wood in all the world and was one of the first North American trees exported to Europe.

Bristly locust (Robinia hispida) is more shrub than tree, but it can reach 8 feet. What sets this locust apart from others are the bristly purple-brown hairs that cover its stems. Even its seedpods are covered by hairs. Bristly locust is native to the southeastern United States but has spread to all but 7 of the lower 48 states, with a lot of help from nurseries selling it for ornamental use. The beautiful pinkish purple bristly locust flowers are very fragrant and bees really love them. Every time I find one in bloom it is absolutely covered with bees, which makes getting photos a challenge.

In 2015 the highway department replaced a bridge over the Ashuelot River and widened the road leading to and from it. They put what I thought was grass seed down on the roadsides once the bridge was finished, but it was wildflower / grass seed mix containing lupines (Lupinus.) For a couple of years they were growing all along the sides of the road but this year I counted only three small clumps. That could be because they are an aphid magnet and I saw many in this colony covered with the sucking insects. I’ve always loved lupines and I’m always happy to see them come into bloom, but it doesn’t seem like they’ll survive much longer in this spot.

Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) is a native wildflower but it only grows in two New England Sates as far as I can tell; Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which seems odd but explains why I’ve never seen one in the wild. This example grows in a local park. The dried and powdered root of this plant was used by Native Americans as a laxative, so another common name is American ipecac. Nobody seems to know the origin of the name bowman’s root or whether it refers to the bow of a boat or the bow part of the bow and arrow. The white flower petals of bowman’s root are asymmetrical and always look like they were glued on by a chubby fingered toddler. But they are beautiful nonetheless, and dance at the end of long stems. And they do dance in the slightest movement of air. Some say that all it takes is the gentle breath of a fawn to set them dancing, and because of that another of their common names is fawn’s breath. I can’t think of a more beautiful name for a flower.

Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is in full bloom now and is a plant held in high regard for its hard to find clear blue color. This is another tough native plant that bees love. People love it too, and it is now sold in nurseries. The black seed pods full of loose, rattling, seeds that follow the flowers were once used as rattles by children. Not surprisingly, other common names include rattle weed and rattle bush. Native Americans made a blue dye from this native plant that was a substitute for true indigo.

When I was just a young boy living with my father I decided that our yard needed a facelift. We had a beautiful cabbage rose hedge and a white lilac, and a Lorelai bearded iris that my mother planted before she died but I wanted more. I used to walk the Boston and Main railroad tracks to get to my grandmother’s house and I’d see these beautiful blue flowers growing along the tracks, so one day I dug one up and planted it in the yard. My father was quiet until I had planted 3 or 4 of them, and then he finally asked me why I was bringing home those “dammed old weeds.” He also walked the tracks to get to work and back, so he saw the tradescantia (Tradescantia virginiana) plants just as often as I did. Though I thought they were lost and needed to be rescued, he thought somebody threw them away and wished they’d have thrown them just a little farther. We had blue flowers in the yard for a while though, and today every time I see this plant I think of my father.  I know I tell this story every year at this time and longtime readers are probably bored with it but there aren’t many flower memories I can associate with my father, so I like to remember him through this one. It’s a beautiful flower that I wish he’d looked at a little more closely.

Plant breeders have been working on tradescantia; I find this purple flowered one in a local park. Interesting but I like the blue that I grew up with best. Bees, especially bumblebees, seem to like this one best though. Why that is, I don’t know.

Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), though beautiful, can overrun a garden. These flowers grow from a bulb and are native to southern Europe and Africa. The bulbs contain toxic alkaloids and have killed livestock, so they are now listed as an invasive species.

To just sit with a fragrant white waterlily (Nymphaea odorata) admiring its beauty for a while is enough for me sometimes, depending on the day. They’ve just started blooming and they dot the surface of ponds and slow flowing rivers throughout the region. They are such beautiful things with that golden flame burning in the center of each one. And fragrant too; they are said to smell like ripe cantaloupe. I was surprised to see that the new camera actually caught some of the submerged stems and even a round flower bud. I guess I’ll have to take back some of the bad thoughts I’ve had about it because I’ve never gotten a photo of these features before.

Live this life in wonder, in wonder of the beauty, the magic, the true magnificence that surrounds you It is all so beautiful, so wonderful. Let yourself wonder. ~Avina Celeste

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Early June Flowers

It’s hard to believe that it is iris time already, but here they are. This is a native blue flag (Iris versicolor) that I found growing near a pond. Such beauty, and all to convince the bees that this, more than any other, is the flower that they should visit.

If, when you look at a bunchberry plant (Cornus canadensis) it reminds you of something else, that’s because it is in the dogwood family. Like a dogwood blossom its large white bracts surround smaller flowers. Even the 2 larger and 4 smaller leaves look like a dogwood. In fact, an old name for the plant is creeping dogwood. They like moist, shady woods.

A closer look at tiny bunchberry flowers. If pollinated each flower will become a bright red, single seeded drupe, and the plant will then have the bunch of “berries” that give it its common name.

Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense,) is a small, native rhododendron 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 before the leaves, but only for a short time in spring. By mid-June they will have all vanished. On May 17, 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote “The splendid Rhodora now sets the swamps on fire with its masses of rich color,” and that is exactly what this beautiful little plant does.

Cow vetch (Vicia cracca) is a native of Europe and Asia that loves it here and has spread far and wide. According to the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States the vining plant is present in every U.S. state. Cow vetch can have a taproot nearly a foot long and drops large numbers of seeds, so it is hard to eradicate. It is very similar to hairy vetch, but that plant has hairy stems. I like its color and it’s nice to see it sprinkled here and there among the tall grasses.

I got married in June and we couldn’t afford flowers from a florist so we picked ox-eye daisy blossoms (Leucanthemum vulgare.) That’s when I discovered that they look much better along a roadside than they do in a vase. This one had a visitor.

Each strap shaped, yellow “petal” on a yellow hawkweed flower head (Hieracium caespitosum) is actually a single, complete flower. 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 turn deep purple in winter. The Ancient Greeks believed that hawks drank the sap of this plant to keep their eyesight sharp and so they named it hierax, which means hawk.

I’ve seen foxglove flowers (Digitalis) in the past which, even though they tried very hard to be white, were more off white or pale yellow, but those pictured were definitely white. Though eye catching, all parts of this plant are toxic and eating even a small amount can be fatal.

Though it is said that the spots on a foxglove flower are elfin finger prints, they are actually a kind of guide or “landing strip” for bees. In many foxglove blossoms the spots are fluorescent at night under black light and, since bees see in ultraviolet light, viewing the flowers under black light gives us an idea of what bees must see.

I love smelling the flowers of the black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia.) I think of them as a kind of poor man’s wisteria because their fragrance seems very similar to me. The flowers might also look familiar to vegetable gardeners because the black locust is in the pea family (Fabaceae.) One way to identify the tree is by the pair of short spines at the base of each leaf. Like many other legumes its leaflets fold together at night and when it rains.

These flowers also belong to the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia, ) but I believe that this tree is a cultivar called “purple robe” that has escaped cultivation. I find it in the woods occasionally and have been a little confused about its origin. It lacks the short spines at the base of its leaves and instead has bristly hairs on its stems. It always seems to be growing in small colonies when I see it and I’m hoping that a reader might know more about it. The flowers are very fragrant and bees really love this tree. Every time I find one in bloom it is absolutely covered with bees, which makes getting photos a challenge.

Note: Josh from the Josh’s Journal blog has identified this plant as bristly locust (Robinia hispida,) which is a native, shrubby locust. Thanks to Josh for putting several years of wondering about this plant to rest. This is a great illustration of how long it can take to correctly identify plants in rare cases.

I recently found the biggest colony of native blue toadflax plants (Nuttallanthus canadensis) that I’ve ever seen growing alongside a road. This plant seems to like sunny and dry, sandy waste areas because that’s where I always find it growing. It’s always worth getting down on my hands and knees to admire its tiny but beautiful blue / purple flowers.

Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) has many other common names, such as Indian physic or American ipecac, both of which tell me that I don’t want to be eating any of it. Native Americans dried the root and used it as an emetic and laxative so some of its common names make sense, but I’ve never been able to find out where the name bowman’s root originated. This two foot tall native plant makes an excellent addition to a partially shaded perennial border.

An unusual feature of bowman’s root is how the five petals on the beautiful white, star shaped flowers are never quite symmetrical.

Another common name for this plant is fawn’s breath and, though I don’t know its origin, these flowers sway in the gentlest hint of a breeze and I can imagine someone thinking that it didn’t take more than the breath of a fawn to get them dancing.

Pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule) are one of the most beautiful things you’ll see in the woods of New Hampshire in the spring. Their blooming period has nearly ended for this year, so I thought I’d show one more before next spring. This is the darkest colored one that I saw this year.

I often try to take a photo of the darkest flower in a group and then compare them at the end of the blooming period. I do this with many different kinds of flowers and the differences are sometimes quite surprising.

In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty. – Christopher Morley

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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