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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Mid June Flowers

Native flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is in the rose family but they look like roses that didn’t have time to iron their petals before they put them on. Still, they are one of my favorites. Each blossom is an inch and a half to two inches across. Later a red fruit that looks like a large raspberry will form, but the fruits are on the dry side and don’t taste much like raspberries.

Crown vetch (Securigera varia) is terribly invasive but also very beautiful, with its rounded clusters of pea like, purple and white flowers. Native to Africa, Asia and Europe, it was imported in the 1950s to be used for erosion control and almost immediately began to spread until today it is present in every US state except North Dakota, and throughout much of Canada.

June is the month when our native mountain laurels (Kalmia latifolia) bloom. The wood of this shrub twists and turns and can form dense, almost impenetrable thickets when it grows in suitable locations. An older name for mountain laurel is spoon wood, because Native Americans used the wood to make spoons and other small utensils.

The pentagonal flowers of mountain laurel have ten pockets in which the male anthers rest under tension. When a heavy enough insect lands on a blossom the anthers spring from their pockets and dust it with pollen. You can see a flower with relaxed anthers in the upper left part of this photo. Once released from their pockets the anthers don’t return to them. Though related to the blueberry, all parts of this plant are very toxic.

What once may have been five petals are now fused into a single, cup shaped blossom on mountain laurels. This side vies shows the cups that the anthers fit into. The way that these flowers work to make sure that visiting insects get dusted with pollen is really amazing.

 

I have mixed feelings about black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) because, even though I like seeing the cheery flowers they remind me of how fast time is passing. It’s as if they mark the half-way point of the warm weather, if only in my mind.

Heal all has been known for its medicinal value since ancient times and has been said to cure everything from sore throats to heart disease, and that’s how it got its common name. Its tiny flowers have an upper hood and a lower lip which are fused into a tube. Tucked up under the hood are the four stamens and forked pistil, placed perfectly so any visiting bees have to brush against them. Native Americans believed the plant improved eyesight and drank a tea made from it before a hunt.

There are Botanists who believe that there are two varieties of the species; Prunella vulgaris from Europe, and Prunella lanceolata from North America.

Another plant that was known well in ancient times for its medicinal qualities is common yarrow (Achillea millefolium.) 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. I think yarrow must be the plant with the most common names, probably because it has been known for so long. Some of them are: Bad man’s plaything, bloodwort, carpenter’s grass, carpenter’s weed, devil’s nettle, devil’s plaything, dog daisy, fern weed, field hoop, herb militaris, knight’s milfoil, little feather, milfoil, nosebleed, old man’s pepper, sanguinary, soldier’s woundwort, squirrel tail, staunch grass, staunch weed, thousand-leaf, thousand-seal, thousand-weed, and yarroway.

 

The tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) gets its common name from the way its flowers resemble tulips, at least from the outside. As the photo shows, the inside looks very different. The fruit is cone shaped and made up of a number of thin, narrow scales which eventually become winged seeds. Another name for this tree is yellow poplar. It is the tallest hardwood tree known in North America, sometimes reaching 200 feet. Native Americans made dugout canoes from tulip tree trunks.

Spiderwort flowers (Tradescantia virginiana) are usually blue or violet blue, but not this one-it looked very purple to me. Since I found it in a local park I wondered if it might not be a cultivar of the native plant. This plant always reminds me of my father who, when I was a young boy, used to wonder why I was “dragging all those damn weeds home.” I often found plants growing along the railroad tracks and transplanted them to our yard. This was one of my favorites, but he didn’t seem to care much for them.

 

Maple leaf viburnums (Viburnum acerifolium) have started blooming. The size of the flower heads on this shrub can vary greatly depending on how shaded they are. This one was the size of a golf ball but I’ve seen some as big as a grapefruit. They 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.

 

If you’ve ever seen sulfur then it will make perfect sense why this plant is called sulfur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta.) The flowers are pale yellow, just like the mineral they were named for. This very hairy plant is a native of Europe and Asia and is considered a noxious weed in many parts of the U.S., especially in states with a lot of pastureland. Sometimes its flowers can be white or deeper yellow.

Another sulfur colored flower is found on wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum), but these blossoms have only four petals instead of five like sulfur cinquefoil. The flowers of wild radish can be white, sulfur yellow, or light purplish pink. The petals often have purple veins, but they weren’t very noticeable on the ones in this photo. I find this plant growing at the edges of cornfields.

 

I could spend a lot of time and effort explaining how complicated the process of pollination is for a milkweed blossom, but I won’t do so today. That information is easily found elsewhere and I’d rather readers just appreciate the beauty of these blossoms, found on a plant that so many consider a weed not worth looking at. Sometimes by losing ourselves in the natural beauty of this world we find ourselves, and begin to see that the observer and observed are one and the same.

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. ~George Bernanos

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Mid July Wildflowers

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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Midsummer Wildflowers

It has been hot and dry here and we really haven’t had a beneficial rain for a while now. Plants are still blooming but the flowers aren’t lasting long on many of them. I’ve seen some bloom and fade in less than a week but luck has been with me so I have a few pictures to show you.Pipsissewa (Chimaphilla corymbosa or Pyrola umbellata) has just finishing blooming. This plant is related to the shinleaf and striped wintergreen that have appeared on this blog recently. It likes things on the dry side and I find it in sandy soil that gets dappled sunlight. It is a low growing native evergreen that can be easily missed when there are only one or two plants, but pipsissewa usually forms quite large colonies and that makes them easier to find. The leaves are also very shiny, which also helps.  The white or pink flowers are almost always found nodding downwards, as the picture shows. These tiny flowers are on the black swallowwort (Cynanchum louiseae ) plant. Though they are described as dark purple they look black to me. If I had a dime for every time I’ve tried to weed this very invasive plant out of a garden, I’d be a wealthy man. It is a vine that seems to like to grow in the center of shrubs and will twine around the shrub’s branches, climbing up to the top where it can get more sun. The plant is in the milkweed family and like other milkweeds its flowers become small green pods that will eventually turn brown and split open to release their seeds to the wind. This plant also has a sharp, hard to describe odor that is noticed when any part of it is bruised. It originally came from Europe sometime around 1900 as a garden specimen and has escaped. We seem to have two varieties of shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica) here; one that blooms in late May and another that blooms about a month later. We have a shinleaf growing in our area called round leaf shinleaf but I haven’t paid close enough attention to tell which is which. Next year I’ll have to be far more observant when it comes to the wintergreen family. I’m quite sure the plant in the picture isn’t round leaf shinleaf because the leaves on that plant are much shinier and more round, but that doesn’t answer the question of why this one is blooming so much later than others I’ve seen.  I find this plant in dry, sandy pine woods. When I was young I used to have a transistor radio that I listened to at night (when I was supposed to be sleeping) and a song called “Poke Salad Annie” played quite regularly. For years I wondered what poke salad was until I finally found a pokeweed plant (Phytolacca Americana.) I think of pokeweed as a southern plant but it does grow here. In the south it is eaten mostly by the poor despite warnings that it is extremely toxic. Not surprisingly, the very young shoots are boiled as greens or used in salad-hence the song title Poke Salad Annie.  The song came out in 1968 and was sung by Tony Joe White. If you’re interested you can still hear it on YouTube. Pokeweed is native to the eastern U.S. A hover fly was visiting this plant when I took its picture. One rainy day I was walking through the woods near a local reservoir and came upon a large colony of white wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella.) Though this plant is supposed to be common this is the only time I’ve seen it, so I don’t think it is very common in this part of New Hampshire.  It is also supposed to, according to books, bloom quite early in the spring but I took this picture on June 24th. This plant was introduced from Europe and has escaped. The flowers were about the same size as those on our common yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta.) I like the blue/purple veins that each of the petals have. Because it has three leaves on each leaf stalk some people call wood sorrel a shamrock, but a true shamrock is a clover (Trifolium) and wood sorrel isn’t. I visited a bog recently in an area known for its native laurel and rhododendrons and found the last blossom on a bog laurel plant (Kalmia polifolia.) This plant is also called swamp laurel and is a very small evergreen shrub that grows in acidic bogs. This one was growing in standing water, so I had to get my knees wet to get a picture of it. This flower was smaller than a dime but there was no question that it was a laurel. On laurel flowers the petals are fused into a bowl that has ten pocket-like indentations on its surface. As the flower grows larger the stamens expand and their anthers fit into these pockets. When the flower is fully open the anthers are held under tension like a spring until an insect triggers them and gets a pollen bath.  If you look closely at the photo you can see each stamen inside its pocket. Growing next to the bog laurel was the native large cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon.) There is also a small cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) but it is the large ones that are grown commercially. These plants were small, growing only about 5 inches tall, but had many small white flowers that made them easy to see. The flowers have petals that curve sharply backwards like those of a shooting star. I’m going to try to remember to revisit this bog and get some pictures of the ripe cranberries. If you look closely you can see the recently formed green berries here and there.A close up of a large cranberry flower (Vaccinium macrocarpon.)Another plant growing at the edge of the bog in standing water was the northern male berry (Lyonia ligustrina.) This native shrub was about 3 feet tall but can get as tall as 12 feet. With all of its white, urn shaped flowers you would think that this plant would be covered with fruit, but instead each flower becomes a hard, dry, reddish brown capsule. Male berry shrubs will also grow in dry forests. Their roots can withstand forest fires and will send up new shoots soon after a fire. I think that the pink/purple flower buds of Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium ) are more colorful than the flowers. This plant is a magnet for butterflies and bumblebees. There are at least 4 native species. Spotted Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum) has flat topped flower clusters and eastern Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium dubium) has rounded flower clusters. Eastern Joe Pye weed is sometimes called pale Joe Pye weed or trumpet flower. Hollow Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium fistulosum) is the most common species seen in ditches along roadsides and other wet places.  Sweet Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum) is probably the tallest of the species, sometimes reaching 8 feet. I bought one of these for my garden last year and it is reaching for the sky. Its flowers smell like vanilla. These plants are useful in the garden because they will tolerate quite a lot of shade and attract bees. There is also a white Joe Pye Weed but that isn’t often seen. Joe Pye, according to legend, was a colonial herbalist, possibly native American, who used this plant to treat a variety of ailments. The pale yellow blossoms of wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) are seen mostly on the edges of corn fields in this area but can also be found on roadsides.  The flowers on this plant aren’t as mustard yellow as those on wild mustard and this plant has hairy leaves where wild mustard does not. Flowers of Wild Radish can be yellow, light orange, white, pink, and sometimes lavender while wild mustard flowers are always yellow. Wild radish has a taproot much like a cultivated radish, but they are much smaller.Native Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina ) has just started flowering. Before long these flower clusters will be bright red berries from which a good substitute for lemonade can be made. This plant is much more common in this area than smooth sumac (Rhus glabra.) Smooth sumac has very shiny, smooth leaves and does not have hairy stems. Bristly sarsaparilla (Aralia hispida ) is in the ginseng family but its flowers are hard to mistake for those of ginseng. In fact the entire plant isn’t easily confused with any other natives because of its bristly lower stems and foul odor. The plant can reach 3 feet tall but its weak stems give it a sprawling habit in the shade.  I found this plant growing in dry gravel under pine trees along a road. Medicinally, the dried bark can be used in place of sarsaparilla. This plant is also called dwarf elder, wild elder, or angelica tree. Its leaves look nothing like those of wild sarsaparilla. Its fruit changes from green to dark blue and finally to black. Close up of bristly sarsaparilla (Aralia hispida ) flowers and fruit. The fruit on bristly sarsaparilla has a dull, matte finish and the fruit of native wild sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) is very shiny.

Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your teacher ~ William Wordsworth

Thanks once again for stopping in to see what is blooming here in New Hampshire

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