More Mid May Flowers

We’re seeing a little more sunshine and warmth now finally and sun loving plants like winter cress, also called yellow rocket, (Barbarea vulgaris) have started blooming. This plant is native to Africa, Asia and Europe and is found throughout the U.S. In some states it is considered a noxious weed but in other places it is eaten much like spinach. It is also known as scurvy grass due to its ability to prevent scurvy because of its high vitamin C content.

Winter cress is about knee-high when it blooms in spring and it stays green under the snow all winter. This habit is what gives it its common name. It is also one of the first flowers to bloom in our meadows.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many flowers on blueberry bushes as there are this year. Both highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum) and lowbush (Vaccinium angustifolium) blueberries are loaded and if all these flowers become berries we’ll have a great year. It is said that blueberries are one of only three fruits native to North America, the others being Concord grapes and cranberries, but the crabapple is a fruit which is also native so I disagree with that line of thought. Native Americans called blueberries “star berries” and used them medicinally, spiritually, and as food. One of their favorite uses for them was in a pudding made of dried blueberries and cornmeal.

This is the first time a peach blossom has appeared on this blog and it’s also the first time I’ve looked at one closely. This one blooms on a tree where I work. This is s a poor shot of a very pretty flower, but I was on a tractor when I took it.

Pears are also blossoming. This tree grows in the garden of friends of mine.

Hawthorns (Crataegus) have also just opened. I like their showy anthers. The blossoms aren’t much in the way of fragrance because of a compound called trimethylamine, which gives the plant a slightly fishy odor, but they’re big on beauty with their plum colored anthers. They are also important when used medicinally. Hawthorn has been used to treat heart disease since the 1st century and the leaves and flowers are still used for that purpose today. There are antioxidant flavonoids in the plant that may help dilate blood vessels, improve blood flow, and protect blood vessels from damage. There are over 100 species of native and cultivated hawthorns in the U.S. and they can be hard to identify. Native Americans used the plant’s long sharp thorns for fish hooks and for sewing. The wood is very hard and was used for tools and weapons.

The red trilliums (Trillium erectum) are loving the cool damp weather and have gone on and on but they can’t go on forever and most of the ones I’ve seen lately are well past their prime. This is the first of three trilliums that bloom here in the immediate area. It shouts “Spring is here!” to me each year and I love seeing it.

If red trilliums shout then nodding trilliums (Trillium cernuum) whisper. The flowers open beneath the leaves almost like a mayapple and they can be very hard to see, even when you’re standing right over them. This one grew on a slight rise so its flower was almost at eye level and that made it easier to spot.

My favorite thing about the nodding trillium blossom is its six big purple stamens. My least favorite thing is how hard they are to get a good photo of. When the buds form they are above the leaves but as they grow the flower stem (petiole) lengthens and bends, so when the flower finally opens it is facing the ground. At barely 6 inches from the ground there isn’t a lot of room for a camera.

Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) are another plant with flowers that look to the ground but since I like the bronze color on their backs I don’t try too hard to get a photo of their fronts. It’s time to say goodbye to this early spring friend but they’ve had a long bloom time this year. If pollination was successful on a trout lily plant a 3 part seed capsule will appear. The seeds are dispersed by ants, which eat the rich, fatty seed coat and leave the seeds behind to grow into bulbs.

Here is a mystery flower that I hope someone can put a name to. It was found growing near a swamp but I have a feeling it might be a garden escapee. I’ve looked in several wildflower books and haven’t seen it. It reminds me of some type of fruit like a dewberry but it isn’t that.

Here is the foliage of the mystery plant. It looks very familiar and reminds me of spirea, but I know it isn’t that. The stems are fall over weak and not woody, and if it could stand upright it would be about 2-3 feet tall.

The flowers on the mystery plant grow in a raceme about 8 inches long and in this view they remind me even more of flowers that would precede a fruit. If you know what this one is I’d love to hear from you.

It can take quite a long time to identify small yellow flowers so I usually pass them by for this blog, but these cinquefoils are blossoming all over right now. I think it might be a spring cinquefoil (Potentilla neumanniana) but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. It’s pretty, whatever its name is, and I know a place where hundreds of them bloom.

The flowers of invasive Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) hang down below the leaves just like its berries do. In 1875 seeds of Japanese barberry were sent from Russia to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1896 plants were planted at the New York Botanic Garden and the plant was promoted as a good substitute for European barberry (Berberis vulgaris,) which was a host for the black stem rust of wheat. These days it’s everywhere, including in our forests, where it tolerates shade and crowds out our much more valuable native plants.

The flowers of Japanese barberry grow in pairs just as you would expect if you ever saw the paired berries dangling from the stem in the fall. Birds love the fruit and that’s why this plant has been so successful.

Mayapple flowers (Podophyllum peltatum) are hard to get a decent photo of because they nod toward the ground under the plant’s leaves, but if you very carefully bend the stem back you can often get a fairly decent photo. I’ve read that once a mayapple produces flowers and fruit it reduces its chances of doing so in following years, but I’ve seen these plants bloom well for a few years now. This plant is also called American mandrake, which is legendary among herbalists for the root that supposedly resembles a man. Native Americans boiled the root and used the water to cure stomach aches but this plant is toxic and should never be eaten. Two anti-cancer treatment drugs, etoposide and teniposide, are made from the mayapple plant.

Can you see all the white flowers blooming under the hand size umbrella-like mayapple leaves? I didn’t think so. Neither could I until I got my chin on the ground.

Bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis) grow naturally in the forests of eastern Asia and they are plants that like cool, shady locations. They were collected from the wild and grown in pots in China for centuries before being successfully transported to and grown in England in 1846 by plant hunter Robert Fortune. From there they have spread throughout the world. Bleeding hearts will go dormant quickly when it gets hot and they can leave a hole in the garden but that trait is easily forgiven. It’s one of the oldest perennials in cultivation and it is called old fashioned bleeding heart. I’ve always liked them and they were one of the first flowers I chose for my own garden.

Friends of mine grow hellebores and theirs are the only ones I’ve seen in this entire area, and that’s too bad because as you can see that they’re very beautiful flowers. For a while I didn’t think I’d see them this year; I checked and checked and there was no sign of new growth but then finally there they were, almost a full month later than last year. Last year I posted a photo of this beautiful thing on May 2nd, which means that it bloomed toward the end of April. That says a lot about the cool, damp weather we’ve had. Still, I have noticed that once a plant blooms in this weather they often have an extended bloom time, so maybe these flowers will last.

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. ~Lydia M. Child

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Mid May Flowers

I thought I’d start this post where the last one left off, when I was looking for wild columbines (Aquilegia canadensis.) This time I found them in bloom but I had quite a time getting photos of them because of a nonstop wind. Anyone who knows wild columbines knows that the flowers dangle from long stalks and dance in the slightest breeze, and they danced on this day. Out of close to 75 photos I got two that are usable and here is one. It was all worth it to be able to see beauty like this, especially since it only happens once each year.

I gently bent one down onto the soft moss so I could get a shot looking into a blossom for those who have never seen what they look like. Columbines are all about the number 5. Each blossom has 5 petals and 5 sepals. Each petal is yellow with a rounded tip and forms a long funnel shaped nectar spur that shades to red. You can see up into these spurs in this photo. Long tongued insects and hummingbirds probe the holes for nectar. The oval sepals are also red and the anthers are bright yellow. All together it makes for a very beautiful flower and I was happy to see them again.

Spring, like fall, starts on the forest floor with the spring ephemeral flowers and then it moves to the understory before finally reaching the treetops. Now is the time for the understory trees and shrubs to start blooming and one of the earliest is the shadbush (Amelanchier canadensis.)

Shadbush gets its name from the way it bloomed when the shad fish were running in the rivers before they were all but fished out. The plants are more of a small tree than a bush but they cross breed readily and botanists have been arguing for years about all the different species. From what I’ve seen they all have white flowers with five petals and multiple large stamens. Each flower is about three quarters of an inch across and if pollinated will become a blueberry size, reddish purple fruit in June. Its roots and bark were used medicinally be many Native American tribes, and the berries were one of the main ingredients of pemmican. Shadbush flowers also signaled that it was time to plant corn.

After shadbushes come the cherries, closely followed by the crab apples and then the plums. The small tree shown here is a young pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica,) also called bird cherry and red cherry. This plant grows as a shrub or small tree and is very common.

Pin cherry flowers are quite pretty and are pollinated by several kinds of insects. They become small, quarter inch bright red berries (drupes) with a single seed. The berries are said to be very sour but edible and are used in jams and jellies, presumably with a lot of sugar. Native Americans used the berries in breads and cakes and also preserved them and ate them fresh. The bark of the tree was used medicinally for a large variety of illnesses including coughs, stomach pains and as a burn salve.

Hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides) is one of our most beautiful native shrubs in my opinion, and they have just started blooming. The large white, flat flower heads are very noticeable as they bloom on hillsides along our roads. Botanically speaking the flower head is called a corymb, which is a flat topped disc shaped flower cluster.

Hobblebush flower heads are made up of small fertile flowers in the center and large infertile flowers around the perimeter. The infertile flowers are there to attract insects to the much less showy fertile ones and it’s a strategy that must work well because I see plenty of berries in the fall. They start out green and go to bright red before ripening to a deep purple color.

This shot shows the size difference between the fertile and infertile flowers and also how the center of the infertile flower is empty of reproductive parts. The outer infertile flowers are about three quarters of an inch across and a single fertile flower could hide behind a pea. All flowers in a hobblebush flower head have 5 petals, whether fertile or infertile.

Blooming everywhere in lawns right now is one of our lawn loving wildflowers: bluets (Houstonia caerulea.) These tiny, 3/8 inch diameter flowers make up for size with numbers and huge drifts of them yards in width and length are common.  Though they bloom in early spring and are called a spring ephemeral I’ve seen them bloom all summer long where they weren’t mowed.

Because they grow in such huge colonies getting a photo of a single bluet blossom is difficult. In fact this is the only one I’ve ever gotten. I love seeing these cheery little flowers in spring and I always look for the bluest one. So far this year this example is it. The native American Cherokee tribe used bluets to cure bedwetting, but I’m not sure exactly how.

I gave up on showing most small yellow flowers on this blog long ago because many look so much alike that it can take quite a long time to identify them, but this one grew all alone in a big field  so I took its photo. I think it’s a spring cinquefoil (Potentilla neumanniana) but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. It’s pretty, whatever its name is.

I’m guessing that we’re going to see a great blueberry harvest this year. These blossoms grew on a highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) but lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) are also heavy with blossoms. It is said that blueberries are one of only three fruits native to North America, the others being Concord grapes and cranberries, but the crabapple is a fruit which is also native so I disagree with that line of thought. Native Americans called blueberries “star berries” and used them medicinally, spiritually, and as food. One of their favorite uses for them was in a pudding made of dried blueberries and cornmeal.

The flower shape of blueberries must be highly successful because many plants, like this Japanese andromeda (Pieris japonica,) use the same basic shape. This evergreen shrub is usually planted among rhododendrons and azaleas here and as an ornamental is quite popular. Some call it the lily of the valley shrub, for obvious reasons. I like how the pearly white flowers look like tiny gold mounted fairy lights. In japan this shrub grows naturally in mountain thickets.

Dwarf ginseng (Panax trifolius) plants have three leaflets on each compound leaf and together form a whorl of three compound leaves around the stem. The plants are very small; each one would fit in a teacup with plenty of room to spare. Dwarf ginseng is very choosy about where it grows and will only grow in undisturbed ground in old hardwood forests. It is not the ginseng used in herbal medicine but is quite rare in my experience, so it should never be picked.

Each dwarf ginseng flower head is about the size of a malted milk ball, or about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Individual flowers are about 1/8 inch across and have 5 bright white petals, a short white calyx, and 5 white stamens. In a good year the flowers might last 3 weeks, and if pollinated will be followed by tiny yellow fruits.

Though perspective makes this eastern redbud tree (Cercis canadensis) look big it’s actually on the small side. Redbuds are native trees but they aren’t native to New Hampshire and their hardiness is questionable, but this one has made it through -20 degree F. temperatures. It’s possible that it was grown from northern grown seed. They’re very pretty but I know of only two of them in the area.

It’s obvious that the redbud is in the pea / bean family. The flowers are very small but there are enough of them on the naked branches to put on quite a show.

The whitish flower panicles of red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) are just coming into full bloom. I don’t see a lot of these native shrubs but I wouldn’t call them rare, because if they like a certain place they will spread. In this location there must be at least twenty of them.

Each greenish white red elderberry flower is tiny at about 1/8 inch across, but has a lot going on. They have five petals which are called “petaloid lobes” and which curve sharply backwards. Five stamens have white filaments and are tipped with pale yellow anthers. The flower is completed by a center pistil with three tiny stigmata. If pollinated each flower will become a small, bright red berry. Though the plant is toxic Native Americans knew how to cook the berries to remove their toxicity. They are said to be very bitter unless prepared correctly. Birds love them and each year they disappear so quickly I’m not able to get a photo of them.

Sessile leaved bellwort is also called wild oats and the plants have just come into bloom. They are a spring ephemeral and won’t last but they do put on a show when they carpet a forest floor. They are a buttery yellow color which in my experience is always difficult to capture with a camera. In this case the word sessile describes how the leaves lie flat against the stem with no stalk. The leaves are also elliptic and are wider in the middle than they are on either end. The spring shoots remind me of Solomon’s seal but the plant is actually in the lily of the valley family.

Flowers carry not only beauty but also the silent song of love. You just have to feel it. ~Debasish Mridha

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