Posts Tagged ‘Rabbit’s Foot Clover’
Mid August Flowers
Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged Big Leaf Aster, Canon SX40 HS, Clethra, Common Arrowhead, Eastern Forked Blue Curls, Field Bindweed, Hancock New Hampshire, Hog Peanut, Keene, Liatris, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Northern Water Horehound, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Perennial Pea, Pickerel Weed, Rabbit's Foot Clover, Roadside Flowers, Rose of Sharon, Shasta Daisy, Summer Wildflowers, Swanzey New Hampshire, Wild Cucumber on August 19, 2020| 28 Comments »
It’s Showtime Folks!
Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Wildflowers, tagged !950s, Abandoned Places, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Hawkweed, Keene, Keene Drive In, Mullien, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Ox Eye, Rabbit's Foot Clover, Skipper Butterfly, St. John's Wort, Summer Wildflowers, Swamp Dewberry, Vetch on July 10, 2019| 31 Comments »
Anyone who has been to an outdoor drive in theater has probably heard the “It’s showtime folks!” announcement coming through the speaker that hung on their car window. It came right after the film clip showing all the delicacies found at the snack bar, I think.
Keene had a drive in theater and though this isn’t a photo of that screen it’s very much how I remember it. The drive in held 400 cars and once you paid the entrance fee you parked wherever you wanted. Each of the poles seen in this photo would have held 2 speakers. You parked beside a pole, rolled the window down about half way and hung the speaker on it. I don’t know how many people drove off after the film with the speaker still on their window but I’d be there were a few.
This is what the Keene drive in looks like today; an open meadow full of flowers, birds and insects. I decided to explore it last weekend just to see if I could find anything interesting. There is a gate that is locked but since there is a big missing part of the fence right next to the gate it was easy to walk right in. There were no signs telling me not to.
I found these few photos of Keene Drive In memorabilia, apparently uploaded by Charles Dean, online. I couldn’t find the date the drive in opened but it must have been in the 1940s after the war ended. That was a popular time for drive ins and that’s when many of them opened. The prices on this menu are certainly from a few years ago. I can’t remember ever paying as little as 35 cents for a hamburger.
But I was here to see nature doing its thing and I wasn’t disappointed. St. Johnswort plants grew here and there. I think these grew somewhere near where the projection booth originally was.
Drive ins did their best to keep people from sneaking in without paying but it was a right of passage for a teenage boy and I went through the main gate in the trunk of a car more than once. Many others did the same and I don’t think I ever heard of anyone climbing the fence. That’s a good thing, by the looks of all the barbed wire.
The grasses were waist high. Even yarrow couldn’t out grow them.
In this spot something had flattened the grass just like a bedding deer would, but it could have been a human. As few as 10 years ago this piece of land had grown up to be almost completely forested and a sizeable homeless population lived in here. I came through once a few years ago just to explore and found a small town of tents and tee-pees tucked into a back corner. The town (I think) came in and cut all the trees and brush and evicted the homeless and now the place is mown once each year. It’s a shame that anyone has to be homeless in this, the richest country on earth, but the reality is almost every town in America has a homeless population.
I could see the old crushed gravel parking surface in places.
But mostly all I saw were grasses and flowers, like this ox-eye daisy. I also saw more blue toadflax here than I’ve ever seen in one place.
Can you see the little hoverfly on the extreme right of the hawkweed blossom on the right? I saw lots of insects here including dragonflies, which seemed odd since there isn’t any water close by.
I saw my first mullein (Verbascum thapsus) blossoms of the year here. Native Americans used tea made from its large, gray green furry leaves to treat asthma and other respiratory ailments. It is also said to be useful as a relaxant and sleep aid.
I saw a paved area but I couldn’t figure out if it was part of the original entrance road or if it was where the screen stood. It’s hard to navigate when there are no landmarks to go by but I think I remember the screen being on this end of the lot.
There was just a single light pole left, with its light still on top. These lights used to ring the lot and when they were turned on you knew the show was over and it was time to go. There used to be 2 films shown but I can’t remember if the lights were turned on during intermission or not. I do remember some dark walks to the snack bar and then trying to find the car in the dark afterwards.
There were lots of bristly dewberry plants (Rubus hispidus) growing here. Bristly or swamp dewberry is a trailing vine blooms with white flowers that look a lot like strawberry flowers. The fruit looks more like a black raspberry than anything else and is said to be very sour. Its leaves live under the snow all winter. It is thought that staying green through the winter lets evergreen plants begin photosynthesizing earlier in the spring so they get a head start over the competition, and this plant certainly seems to benefit from it. Swamp dewberry looks like a vine but is actually considered a shrub. It likes wet places and is a good indicator of wetlands, but I’ve seen it growing in dry waste areas many times. It’s also called bristly blackberry because its stem is very prickly.
I was surprised that there wasn’t more vetch growing here. I saw just a few plants. Hairy vetch (Vicia vilosa) was originally imported from Europe and Asia to be used as a cover crop and for livestock forage. It’s now found in just about every meadow in New Hampshire. This might have also been cow vetch (Vicia cracca,) but I didn’t check the stems for hairs. Cow vetch is also invasive.
There was lots of rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense.) You have to look closely to see the almost microscopic white flowers poking out of the feathery, grayish-pink sepals on these flower heads. These feathery sepals are much larger than the petals and make up most of the flower head. This plant is in the pea family and is used to improve soil quality. It is originally from Europe and Asia and is considered an invasive weed. It gets its name from the fuzzy flower heads, which are said to look like a rabbit’s foot.
You can see the tiny white flowers in this shot. This bee (I think) was gathering a lot of yellow pollen from the clover plants. Its pollen sacs looked to be full of it.
Other clovers attracted other insects. I saw this little skipper on a red clover but I haven’t been able to identify it.
This program is from the year I was born but I don’t remember ever seeing any of these films. The only drive in movie I remember seeing at the Keene Drive In was the original Star Wars. Since it came out in December of 1976 I’m guessing it must have been the summer of 1977 when I saw it. For its time it was an amazing movie. I think I was driving a Volkswagen Beetle at the time. I like the way the program says “Air conditioned by nature,” which was a good thing since my Volkswagen didn’t have air conditioning. Unfortunately it didn’t have heat either so winters were a little more exciting than usual.
In the 1950s, there were around 4,000 drive-in theaters around the United States. Today, there are only an estimated 300 left, and only two or three are in New Hampshire. Most closed because film companies went digital and stopped delivering the films on 35mm reels. Digital film projectors cost many thousands of dollars and many drive in owners simply couldn’t afford the changes. The Keene drive in closed in 1985 and the screen, snack bar and projection booth were removed shortly after. Now it’s a meadow which, if it was no longer mowed, would return to the original forest that was here before the drive in was built. And it wouldn’t take long; I saw it go from drive in to forest to meadow in my own lifetime.
It’s amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing. ~Scott Westerfeld
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Mid August Wildflowers
Posted in Nature, Orchids, Wildflowers, tagged biennial plant, Bottle Gentian, Broad Leaved Helleborine, Bull Thistle, Burdock, Canon SX40 HS, Fireweed, Forked Blue Curls, Henry David Thoreau, John Josselyn, Native American tribes, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-527, Purple Coneflower, Purple Flowering Raspberry, Purple Loosestrife, Rabbit's Foot Clover, Rosebay Willowherb, Slender Fragrant Goldenrod, Summer Wildflowers, Virgin's Bower on August 20, 2014| 53 Comments »
One of my favorite wildflowers is the tiny eastern forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) and it has just started blooming. The plant barely reaches 6 inches tall and the flowers might make a half inch across on a good day, so it’s a challenging plant to photograph. One unusual thing about the flower, other than its unique beauty, is its four long, arching stamens that dust bees with pollen when they land on its lower lip. This plant is an annual that grows from seed each year. It seems to like sandy soil and I find it growing along river banks.
Nature must have been in a secret revealing mood as I drove down an old dirt road recently. This very beautiful rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) grew just off the side of the road at the edge of a swamp. At least, I think it is rosebay willowherb; I’ve never seen it before and there seems to be some confusion among sources about the regions it grows in. According to the USDA it doesn’t grow in New England, but the University of Maine lists it in its database. Another name for the plant is fireweed and Henry David Thoreau mentions seeing great stands of it in 1857, so I’m wondering if the USDA map is be incorrect. If you live in New Hampshire and have seen this plant I’d love to hear from you.
Just look at those thorns. They felt the need to remind me how sharp they were when I was trying to take this photo. Bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) originally hails from Europe. It is thought to have been introduced in the colonial era and has spread throughout the United States, much to the dismay of farmers and cattle ranchers. It is also called spear thistle, with good reason. I wonder if it was imported intentionally or accidentally.
Another European import is the broad leaved helleborine orchid (Epipactis helleborine.) Imported as an ornamental in the 1800s, it escaped cultivation and found a new home. It could hardly be called invasive in this area though; I know of only two places where it grows and in one of those places there is just a single plant. It grows to about knee high in deep shade, making it a challenge to photograph.
The pencil eraser size flowers of broad leaved helleborine resemble our pink ladies slipper in shape but are mostly green with hints of purple. Some plants have flowers that are much more purple than others. Its leaves closely resemble those of false hellebore (Veratrum viride) but are much smaller.
Burdock (Arctium lappa) is a good example of a biennial plant. In the first year of life it grows leaves and in the second year it flowers, sets seeds, and dies. This is what biennials do, so we know that its tubular flowers with purple stamens and white styles signal that it is close to finishing its journey. There is no reason to grieve though, because the germination rate of its seeds is high and there will surely be burdocks for many years to come.
Burdock is said to have been introduced from Europe because it was noted in 1672 by self-styled naturalist John Josselyn, who wrote that it had “sprung up since the English Planted and kept Cattle in New-England.” He said the same thing about the dandelion, but fossil evidence proved him wrong. Native American tribes across the country had many uses for burdock, both as a medicine and food, so some form of the plant had to have been here long before European settlers arrived.
Many plants have had an extended bloom period this year and purple flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is no exception. I’m still seeing its flowers here and there, even though the plant usually stops blooming a month after it starts in mid-June. I’ve always liked its two inch, rose like blossoms. If you’re looking for a shade tolerant flowering shrub this one is a good choice.
Purple flowering raspberry is closely related to thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) and gets its common name from its large, raspberry like fruit. I’ve never eaten one but some say that they’re close to tasteless and others say they taste like dried raspberries. The plant is unreliable as a source of berries though; I’ve seen many clusters with no fruit at all and others that had 5 or 6 flowers bearing only a single berry.
Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace line the shores of a sea of purple loosestrife. This is a good example of how invasive purple loosestrife chokes out native plants and creates a monoculture. Not that long ago this area was full of native wildflowers but soon purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is all that will be seen here.
Though eastern purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is a native wildflower I don’t often find it growing outside of gardens. Native American plains tribes used this plant to treat toothaches, coughs, colds, sore throats, and snake bite. Something interesting that I read recently said that Native Americans got the idea that coneflower could be used medicinally by watching sick and injured elk eat the plants. I’ve always wondered how natives came to know if a plant was poisonous or not and thought that they must have simply used trial and error. Pity the one who had to try an unknown plant for the first time.
I usually stay away from goldenrod identification because there are so many of them that even botanists get confused, but slender fragrant goldenrod (Solidago tenuifolia) is easy because of its long, slender leaves and its fragrance. The only other similar goldenrod is the lance leaved goldenrod (Solidago graminifolia) but its leaves are wider and have 3 to 5 veins as opposed to the single vein in a slender fragrant goldenrod leaf. Still, I always smell them just to be sure.
Invasive rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense) is short enough to be forced to grow right at the edge of the road if it wants to get any sunshine, so the roads look like they have been festooned with fuzzy pink ribbons for a while each summer. It’s an annual that grows new from seed each year and the seedlings must be tough, because they don’t seem to mind being occasionally run over, or the poor dry soil found along the road side. In fact they seem to thrive in it. I see more plants each year.
Virgin’s bower (Clematis virginiana) has draped itself over the shrubs alongside our roads and its small white flowers are another reminder that fall is near. Another name for this vine is traveler’s joy, which it is. Native American used it medicinally but it is toxic and can cause severe mouth pain if any parts of it are eaten.
Twenty five years ago or so I was hiking along an old forgotten dirt road through a Massachusetts forest and came upon a single fringed gentian plant (Gentianopsis crinita.) That was the only gentian I had ever seen in my lifetime until just the other day, when I saw these bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) growing alongside the same road that the rosebay willowherbs were on. It’s a good thing there was no traffic because I jammed on my brakes and jumped out to admire them. They are extremely rare in these parts and I was as excited to see them as I would have been to have seen a field full of orchids.
NOTE: I’ve just discovered that these are narrow leaved gentians (Gentiana linearis.) I’m sorry about the confusion.
Bottle gentians are often called closed bottle gentians because the flowers stay closed just as they are in the photo, even when they are ready to be pollinated. Few insects are strong enough to pry the flower parts open to get at the nectar and pollen, but bumblebees are usually successful. Their selective method of pollination and the fact that most of their seedlings die off before flowering might account for this plant’s rarity. Since its seeds are too small to interest birds and its foliage too bitter to interest herbivores, it is said that bottle gentians have very little ecological value. It’s almost as if they’re here simply to be admired by humans.
He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul. ~Celia Thaxter
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late August Wildflowers
Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged August Wildflowers, Black Eyed Susan, Bladderwort, Blue Vervain, Burdock, Canon SX40 HS, Chicory, Ground Nut, Hog Peanut, Morning Glory, Mullien, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Panasonic Lumix DMC-S27, Rabbit's Foot Clover, rudbeckia hirta, Tansy, Wildflower Photography on August 31, 2013| 33 Comments »
Wildflower posts are bound to get shorter soon, but for now there’s still plenty to see.
Our native black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) can be found in all fifty states and all across Canada. It is believed that they got their start in the great prairies and moved to other locations from there. They were noted in Maryland in colonial times and became that state’s state flower. I saw my first one this year at the end of June and here they are, still blooming.
Blur vervain (Verbena hastata ) is almost done blooming. You can tell that by the way the flowers are at the tip of the flower stalk. They start at the bottom, a few at a time, and work their way up the stalk. Once done flowering the stalks look almost reptilian.
This is something I wasn’t expecting-a bladderwort growing in soil. Apparently, from what I’ve read, this aquatic plant will grow in soil if the conditions are agreeable, but what I don’t understand is how it gets any nutrition when it does. Bladders on its underwater leaves have small trap doors that open quickly to trap insects, making it a carnivorous plant, but if those underwater bladders are buried in soil, then how do they work?
This is a close up of the strange terrestrial bladderwort (Utricularia.) It looks like any other bladderwort.
Another thing that I never thought I’d see is chicory (Cichorium intybus) blooming in August, but here it is.
Burdock is another import that has escaped and is commonly seen on roadsides and in waste places. Its flowers aren’t real big and showy but they are beautiful. Once the flowers are finished the round, barbed seed heads that we all know so well appear. I read recently that burdock seed heads were the inspiration for Velcro. Unfortunately they can also act as snares and catch small birds that often aren’t able to free themselves.
Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus ) is known as a pioneer plant, meaning that it is often first to colonize burned or disturbed areas. Each plant can produce 100,000 or more seeds each year. Another name for it is flannel leaf because of its large, soft, fuzzy leaves. At one time the plant was thought to be useful in fighting leprosy and Pliny the Elder of ancient Rome used the warmed leaves as poultices for arthritis. Its tall persistent seed stalks really stand out in winter. These seed stalks were dipped in tallow and used as torches by Roman legionnaires. This plant is from Europe and is considered invasive.
The strange, brownish flowers of groundnut (Apios americana) remind me of the helmets once worn by Spanish explorers. Swollen underground stems on this vining plant form small tubers that look like potatoes but have three times the protein that potatoes do. Groundnuts were a very important food source for Native Americans and the Pilgrims survived on them when their corn supply ran out in 1623. Henry David Thoreau wrote that they tasted better boiled than roasted. The only thing keeping the groundnut from becoming a commercially viable food crop is the two to three years it takes for its tubers to form.
Native hog peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata ) flowers are small but beautiful. Like the groundnut in the previous photo the plant is a legume in the bean family. Like a true peanut, after pollination some of its flowers bury themselves in the soil and form a small, edible, bean like seeds that give the plant its common name. Mice collect these seeds and store them in large caches that Native Americans used to search for. They can be eaten raw or cooked. The plant also forms inch long, pea-like, above ground pods that contain three or four inedible seeds.
Hog peanut is a strong, wiry vine that can cover large areas of forest floor and choke out other plants. It is also good a tripping up hikers.
I found this morning glory (Ipomoea) growing at the town landfill. I love its deep blue color but I find the ones that have more white in their throat, like “heavenly blue” more visually pleasing.
Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a European native that has been cultivated for centuries. The flat flower heads are made up of many button like disc flowers-almost like a daisy without the white ray flowers that we call petals. Tansy is a natural insect repellent and was used as such in colonial times. Dried tansy added to the straw in mattresses was said to keep bedbugs away. Most tansy plants are seen in gardens but it had naturalized itself in New England by 1785 and can still be found growing along roadsides like the one pictured was doing. The ancient Greeks grew tansy for medicinal use but it should be considered toxic.
Rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense) has appeared here a few times, but not bejeweled with dew like this one.
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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Mid July Wildflowers
Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged Allegheny Monkey Flower, Bouncing Bet, Canada Thistle, Fragrant White Water Lily, Hedge Bindweed, Keene, Morning Glory, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Queen Anne's Lace, Rabbit's Foot Clover, Soapwort, Summer Plants, Summer Wildflowers, Swamp Candles, Tickseed Coreopsis, Upright Bedstraw, Wild Carrot, Wild Radish on July 20, 2013| 39 Comments »
Here are a few more examples of what is blooming in southern New Hampshire at this time of year.
Upright bedstraw (Galium album) is also called upright hedge bedstraw, and that name is perfect because it describes where this plant is found growing. Where the meadow meets the woods there can be found millions of tiny white, honey scented flowers lighting up the shade. Bedstraws hail from Europe and have been used medicinally for centuries. In ancient times entire plants were gathered and used as mattress stuffing and that’s where the plant gets its common name. The dried leaves are said to smell like vanilla in some species of Gallium and honey in others.
Tickseed coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) gets its common name from the way that its seeds cling to clothing like ticks. The plant is also called lance leaved coreopsis and that is where the lanceolata part of the scientific name comes from. Coreopsis is found in flower beds as well as in the wild and can form large colonies if left alone. The yellow flowers are about an inch and a half across and stand at the top of thin, wiry stems. This is a native plant with a cousin known as greater tickseed that grows in the south.
Our native swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris,) not surprisingly, like to have their feet wet most of the time and are common along the edges of ponds and wetlands at this time of year. They bloom at about the same time as whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) and that is because both plants are closely related. These plants stand about 2-3 feet tall and have a club shaped flower head (raceme) made up of 5 petaled yellow flowers.
Each yellow petal of a swamp candle flower has two red dots at its base that help form a ring of ten red dots around the five long stamens in the center of the flower. The stamens are streaked with yellow and red.
Wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) has pale yellow flowers similar in color to those of the sulfur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta) but they can also be white or pink. This plant is considered a noxious weed because it gets into forage and grain crops. I always find it growing at the edges of corn fields at this time of year, not because it likes growing with corn but because it likes to grow in disturbed soil. Wild radish is in the mustard family and is sometimes confused with wild mustard (Brassica kaber,) but that plant doesn’t have hairy stems like wild radish. Everyone seems to agree that this is a non-native plant but nobody seems to know exactly where it came from or how it got here.
Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) gets its common name from the way the chopped and boiled leaves produce a soapy lather that is particularly good at removing grease. This plant is a native of Europe and is thought to have been brought over by colonists to be used as a soap substitute. Another common name for this plant is bouncing bet. I’ve heard several stories about how this name came about but I like the one that claims that the curved petals catch the breeze and make the plant bounce back and forth in the wind. The flowers are very fragrant.
The feathery pink bits on rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense) are sepals that help hide the tiny white petals on this plant. The sepals are much larger than the petals and make up the larger part of the flower head. This plant is introduced from Europe and grows on river banks and in sandy vacant lots. Its common name comes from the flower’s supposed resemblance to a rabbit’s foot.
I didn’t think I’d see any native Allegheny monkey flowers (Mimulus ringens) this year because it usually starts blooming much earlier than it did. This plant likes sandy soil and sunny, wet places so I don’t see it that often. It is also called square stemmed monkey flower, for obvious reasons. The small but beautiful flowers are supposed to resemble the face of a smiling monkey, but I don’t see it. Does anybody else see a monkey here?
Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) is a small plant that is hated for its extensive root system that makes it almost impossible to get rid of in pastures. Not only does it have a taproot but also a large fibrous root system that can spread horizontally for several feet. Canada thistle isn’t anywhere near as large or prickly as other thistles, but it does have small prickles on its leaf margins. I didn’t see the crab spider on the underside of the blossom until I looked at the photo.
Everyone seems to be taking photos of Queen Anne’s lace from the backside this year, so since it is such a well-known plant that doesn’t need much in the way of explanation I thought I’d try it too. This plant is also called wild carrot and if you dig up its root and crush it, you’ll find that it smells exactly like a carrot. It should never be eaten unless you are absolutely certain of the plant’s identity however, because it closely resembles some of the most toxic plants known.
It was another day with bright, harsh sunlight, so I didn’t have much hope for flower photography, but this backlit hedge bindweed blossom (Calystegia sepium) stopped me in my tracks. This has been one of my favorite flowers for a long time-I can remember admiring it even as a small boy-but back then I called it a morning glory. Though it is in the morning glory family hedge bindweed is a perennial, while true morning glories (Ipomoea) are annuals.
I was determined to get close enough to a fragrant white water lily (Nymphaea odorata) to get a decent shot and I did, but I also got my feet soaking wet. I wish I could have gotten close enough to smell it, but I would have needed a boat for that. Each blossom of this plant opens for just three days to let insects visit and after that the stalk coils like a spring, dragging the flower under water where it sets its seed. After several weeks the seeds are released into the water so currents can carry them to suitable locations to germinate.
I should like to enjoy this summer flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one for me.~ Andre Gide
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