Early October Flowers

I don’t get to do many flower posts in October but we’ve had such a warm September and October that it seems like anything might be possible this year. I recently stumbled into an area where quite a large colony of chickweed still bloomed. I think it was star chickweed (Stellaria pubera) but I’m never one hundred percent sure with chickweeds. I didn’t see them when I took the photo but this example was covered with tiny black insects. Pollen eaters, I’m guessing. That they’re still busy is as much of a surprise as seeing the flowers they’re on.

Cosmos is a garden annual that is grown new from seed each year. It self-seeds readily and usually the gardener finds a few cosmos volunteers the following spring, but I’ve never known it to escape gardens until now. I found this example growing at the edge of the forest. Cosmos can be large plants; I’ve seen them reach six feet tall, but this one wasn’t even knee high. It had a single white blossom that was also very small for a cosmos plant; probably only about an inch across. Cosmos were first introduced from Mexico somewhere near 1880. They were an instant hit and have been grown in summer gardens ever since.

Silver leaved cinquefoil (Potentilla anserina) still blooms along roadsides and in waste places but the plants aren’t as robust as they were in June, so instead of fifty blossoms on a plant you might see two or three. This plant is originally from Europe and is considered invasive in some areas, but I see it only occasionally here. Its leaves are deep green on top but bright silvery white underneath, and that’s how it comes by its common name.

Even in the rain the inner light shines from purple morning glory blossoms (Ipomoea purpurea.) This morning glory is an annual that grows new from seed each year unlike the bindweeds, which are perennial. I found this example on a fence at a local restaurant.

I’ve never paid attention before to what happens when a purple morning glory blossom is finished, but this is what they do. It’s an amazing color change. These plants were full of seed pods so I took a couple in the hopes that it might grow here at home. It might find it too shady here in the woods, but we’ll see.

Spiderwort blossoms (Tradescantia virginiana) usually close on rainy or cloudy days so I was surprised to find an open blossom just after a rain one day. Though the sprawling plants aren’t much to look at I love the blossoms, and have since I was a very young boy. They used to grow along the railroad tracks and since I just about lived on those tracks this plant goes deep into my earliest memories. I’m always happy to see them, even though I find it hard to recommend them for a garden.

Yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) has been in this country for a very long time, having been brought over as a garden flower by a Welsh Quaker in the late 1600s. It was also used medicinally at least since the 1400s and modern science has shown the plant to have diuretic and fever reducing qualities. As if that weren’t enough it’s also used as a cut flower by florists because they are so long lasting when cut. I found these examples still blooming by a cornfield and I enjoyed seeing them.

Rabbit’s foot clover (Trifolium arvense) has formed pink ribbons along our dry, sandy roadsides as it does each year, but it’s starting to look a little ragged. This annual plant is said to be invasive but few plants want to grow where it does, so I don’t think it out competes any natives in this area.

Most goldenrods (Solidago) have given up the ghost for this year but I still see them blooming here and there. Any flower blossoming at this time of year will be covered with bees, just as this one was. All but one very determined one flew away though, as soon as I poked a camera at them.

New England asters are also turning in for their winter sleep. Once pollinated they have no need for flowers and are now putting all of their energy into seed production.

I know a place where thousands of wild thyme plants grow and here they were still blooming in October. I usually look for them in May but the bees don’t care when they bloom; they love at any time of year and they were all over these plants in large numbers.

If you feel the need to make yourself crazy, just try photographing a single thyme blossom. It’s among the smallest I’ve ever tried. I’m not going to tell you how many tries it took to get this photo because if I did you might think I really was crazy.

Nobody seems to know how shaggy soldier (Galinsoga quadriradiata) got from Mexico to New Hampshire but everyone agrees that it’s a weed; even in its native Mexico. The plant is also called common quick weed or Peruvian daisy and is common in gardens, where it can reduce crop yields by as much as half if left to its own devices. The tiny flowers are about 3/8 of an inch across and have 5 white ray florets widely spaced around tiny yellow center disc florets. This one was every bit as challenging to photograph as the thyme blossom was.

Yellow sorrel flowers (Oxalis stricta) seemed as huge as garden lily blossoms after dealing with thyme and quickweed flowers. I’m still seeing a lot of these little beauties and I expect that they’ll probably go right up until a frost. Speaking of frost, our first one usually appears during the third week of September on average, but we haven’t seen one yet. In October we get freezes, and that finishes the growing season. This year, who knows?

I saw a zinnia at the local college that looked like it had frosted petals. It was very pretty I thought, but the butterflies were paying it no mind. Every time I see a butterfly or bee reject one flower in favor of another I wish I could see what they see, just once.

Friends of mine still have string beans blossoming in their garden. In October. If that doesn’t show how warm it’s been here then nothing will.

I found a small tick trefoil growing in an area that had been mowed. The plant was quite stunted and looked more like clover than anything else, but the flowers gave it away. Note how they resemble the bean blossom in the previous photo. That’s because both plants are in the legume family, which contains peas, beans, and a long list of other plants and trees. Because of the leaf shape I think this one might be a panicled tick trefoil (Desmodium paniculatum) that had been stunted so its flowers couldn’t grow in a long panicle as they usually would. It was growing beside a pond in moist soil.

Finding a forsythia in bloom was a real surprise and showed just how confused by the weather some plants are. Normally this garden shrub would bloom in early spring but a cool August followed by a hot September is all it took to coax this one into bloom. There are others blooming in the area too. I have to wonder what they’ll do next spring. Forsythia was first discovered by a European growing in a Japanese garden in 1784 by the Swedish botanist Carl Thunberg.

Yes those are blueberry blossoms, specifically lowbush blueberry blossoms (Vaccinium angustifolium,) but there isn’t really anything that odd about this native shrub re-blooming in October because they do occasionally re-bloom. The surprise comes from when I think of the super crop of blueberries we had this year; I wouldn’t think the plants would have strength left to re-bloom after being so berry laden. This plant had the smallest blueberries I’ve ever seen on it; they were no bigger than a BB that you would use in an air rifle. Native Americans called blueberries “star berries” and used the plants medicinally, spiritually, and as a food source.  They made a sort of pudding with dried berries and cornmeal which helped them survive the long winters.

All of the meadows full of flowers that I’ve been lucky enough to find and show here have passed now but I still find surprises, like this nice colony of whorled white wood asters. They really shouldn’t be blooming now but I was happy to see them. Most of their cousins have gone to brown and are finished for this year. I hate to see them go but it’s one of the things that makes spring seem so special.

When the goldenrod is yellow,
And leaves are turning brown –
Reluctantly the summer goes
In a cloud of thistledown.
~Beverly Ashour

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More Early June Flowers

I saw a hillside covered in lupines recently. They aren’t our native sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis) but they’re still very beautiful when massed like this.

At the bottom of the hill that the lupines were growing on many native blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) grew in a wet area.  The lupines trickling down the hillside and the blue flags pooling at the bottom made a breathtakingly beautiful sight but unfortunately I couldn’t get in all in one photo.

Gosh these are beautiful flowers; another one of those flowers that I can just sit beside and lose myself in. The name flag is from the Middle English flagge, which means rush or reed and which I assume applies to the cattail like leaves. Though Native Americans used this plant medicinally its roots are considered dangerously toxic. Natives showed early settlers how to use small amounts of dried root safely as a cathartic and diuretic.

Each strap shaped, yellow “petal” on a yellow hawkweed flower head (Hieracium caespitosum) is actually a single, complete flower and each forms its own seed. The buds, stem, and leaves of the plant are all very hairy and the rosette of oval, overlapping 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. It is an introduced invasive and names like “yellow devil” and “devil’s paintbrush” show what ranchers think of it.

Native maple leaf viburnum blossoms (Viburnum acerifolium) had just about gone by before I remembered to look for them.  Each flattish 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. 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. The Native American Chippewa tribe used the inner bark of this plant to relieve stomach pains.

The puffy little yellow blossoms of bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) are a common sight along roadsides and waste areas. It is in the pea family and grows about a foot tall. 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. It does very well among the ox eye daisies and lupines growing along the banks of the Ashuelot River.

I found a spot where more blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) grew than I’ve ever seen in one spot. They were growing in soil that was on the sandy side in full sun along the side of a road, and obviously were happy there. Wild turkeys love the seeds so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a flock of them here this fall.

I’ve already featured blue eyed grass once this spring but something this beautiful deserves a second showing. This little flower is in the iris family and is said to have the same features. All of the iris family is usually thought of as very poisonous but Native Americans had many medicinal uses for this plant.

Red clover (Trifolium pretense) always seems to glow as if it had its own inner light, and maybe it does.  The rounded heads of tiny tubular flowers are beautiful things to see when you take the time to give them a closer look. Though it was brought to this country from Europe and is invasive, I can’t remember ever hearing anyone complain about it. It is a very old medicinal herb that has been used for centuries and now various published studies say that compounds found in the plant show some promise in fighting cancer. Just imagine all the healing power that might be in these plants that hardly get a second look.

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 always find wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) 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. The flowers can be pale yellow, pink, or white and honey bees seem to love them no matter what color they are.

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.

Smooth arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum) has yellowish white, mounded flower clusters and is blooming along stream banks and drainage ditches right now. Red twig dogwoods are also beginning to bloom, but they have four petals and the viburnums have five. Dogwood flower clusters also tend to be much flatter on top and seem to hover just above the branch. Smooth arrowwood viburnum has a much more rounded flowering habit. Later on the flowers will become dark blue drupes that birds love. It is said that this plant’s common name comes from Native Americans using the straight stems for arrow shafts. They also used the shrub medicinally and its fruit for food.

Star chickweed (Stellaria pubera) has 5 white petals so deeply notched they look like 10. At one half inch across they are bigger and showier than other chickweeds, but still quite small. Even so, other common names include giant chickweed and great chickweed. It is an introduced plant, most likely brought from Europe where it has been used medicinally since ancient times. Legend says that if its blossoms are open there will be at least 4 more hours without rain. If the blossoms close, rain is coming. I’m hoping to see open chickweed blossoms this morning.

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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