Despite the heat and dryness many flowers continue to appear. Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) started blooming a while ago. This plant has a very long blooming period; I see them in early June blooming profusely and then sporadically through the following months, even into November. I usually find more of them in waste places but I see them just about everywhere I go. It is considered a pioneer species, meaning it is one of the first plants to grow in unused pastures, or cleared or burned areas. Woodchucks and rabbits will eat the leaves and stems. Native Americans made a tea from the plant which was used as medicine for digestive ailments. Fleabanes get their name from the way the dried plants repel fleas.
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is one of my favorite summer flowers because of its large, easy to see flowers and beautiful blue color. It also comes with a message of summer’s passing because summer is just about half over when it blooms, and it is a reunion that is both happy and wistful for me each year. Unfortunately it likes to grow in places that get mowed regularly, like along our roadsides. I’m always dismayed when I see such beautiful flowers being cut down but I have seen normal size flowers blooming on a plant no more than three inches tall, so though the plants may get mowed they aren’t being killed.
Another plant that comes with a message of summer’s passing is the black eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta,) and that message came earlier each year for a while. I think I saw it blooming in early June last year but this year it waited until July, and that’s more to my liking because I have always thought of it as a fall flower. It has a very long blooming period; often well into November, so I guess that’s why it says fall to me.
I don’t know what to say about this flower. It came as a surprise when it came up in a gravel parking lot where I work. I can say that it’s obviously in the same family as black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia,) but its flower is 4 times bigger with a lot of red on it. It’s quite pretty for a “weed.”
I have trouble seeing red against green due to colorblindness and that’s why you don’t see much red in these posts, but bee balm blossoms always stand high enough above the surrounding foliage to be clearly visible. The name bee balm comes from the way the juice from its crushed leaves will soothe a bee sting. Our native scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma) is also called Oswego tea, because the leaves were used to make tea by the Native American Oswego tribe of New York. Early settlers also used the plant for tea when they ran out of the real thing. It’s a beautiful flower that I’m always happy to see. Hummingbirds and butterflies love it too and will come from all over to sip its nectar.
Blue, bell shaped flowers all on one side of the stem can mean only one thing; creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides.) The pretty flowered plant was introduced as an ornamental from Europe and has escaped gardens to live in dry places that get full sun. It is a late bloomer but is usually finished by the time the goldenrods have their biggest flush of bloom. It is considered an invasive plant in some places because it is hard to get rid of once it has become established. It can choke out weaker native plants if it is left alone. It isn’t considered invasive here in New Hampshire though, and in fact I usually have to look for quite a while to find it. When I do it is usually growing on forest edges.
The flowers of creeping bellflower are obviously in the campanula family, if you’re familiar with that family of plants.
Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) blooms in the tall grass of unmown meadows, and this one was blooming in what is a large colony near a pond. This plant isn’t covered with sharp spines like the larger bull thistle but it does have small spines along the leaf margins and stem. Despite its common name the plant is actually a native of Europe but has spread to virtually every country in the northern hemisphere. It has a deep and extensive creeping root system and is nearly impossible to eradicate once it gains a foothold. For that reason it is considered a noxious weed in many states.
I’m seeing a lot of pale spike lobelia (Lobelia spicata) this year. The plant gets its common name from its small flowers, which are usually a pale blue to almost white, but I’ve seen many that are darker like these examples. There is also a purple variant but I’ve never seen it.
Native Americans had many medicinal uses for lobelia and one of them was as a treatment for asthma. The plant must have worked well because early explorers took it back across the Atlantic where it is still used medicinally today. It has to be used with great care by those who know how to use it though, because too much of it can kill.
This shy little Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) peeked out of the tall grass from under a tree. They don’t always grow in the same large clumps as their cousins the maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoids) do, but I saw a few this day. They also don’t have the same bold, jagged, deep maroon ring near their center as maiden pinks do, and that’s a good means of identification. Both plants are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation. Maiden pinks seem to prefer open lawns and meadows while Deptford pinks hide their beautiful little faces in the sunny edges of the forest.
No matter how many times I see the Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) I don’t see a monkey, but whoever named it obviously did. This plant gets about knee high and likes to grow in wet, sunny places, and isn’t all that common. I usually have a hard time finding it. This year I’ve seen exactly one plant and I hope nobody picks it so it will get pollinated and go to seed.
Allegheny monkey flowers have square stems and are also called square stemmed monkey flowers. The throat of this flower is partially closed and bumblebees are one of the few insects strong enough to pry it open to get at the nectar. Native Americans and early settlers sometimes used the leaves as an edible green.
Showy tick trefoil (Desmodium canadense) is a legume in the bean family. This plant gets part of its common name from the little barbed hairs that cover the seed pods and make them stick to clothing like ticks, much like enchanter’s nightshade. The “showy” part of its common name comes from the way that so many of its small pink flowers bloom at once. As the plant sets seeds its erect stems bend lower to the ground so the barbed seed pods can catch in the fur of passing animals. I saw these examples in an unmown meadow.
Showy tick trefoil has pretty flowers that are obviously in the pea / bean family. It is also called Canada trefoil. One odd fact about this plant is that there are no known uses of it by Native Americans or colonials. From my experience that’s rare among native plants in this area. Maybe they just picked the beautiful flowers and used them to decorate their homes.
I know a place where the wild thyme grows sounds like something out of Shakespeare but I do know such a place and the thyme is blooming. Bees love thyme so I’m sure they are just ecstatic.
If you want to drive yourself crazy for a while try getting a shot of a single thyme blossom. Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming and the ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage, so it has been with us for a very long time.
Vervain (Verbena hastata) is described as having reddish blue or violet flowers but I see a beautiful blue color. Somebody else must have seen the same thing, because they named the plant blue vervain. Vervain can get quite tall and has erect, terminal flower clusters. The plant likes wet places and I find it near ponds and ditches.
Vervain flowers are quite small but there are usually so many blooming that they’re easy to spot. The bitter roots of this plant were used medicinally by Native Americans to relieve gastric irritation, as an expectorant, and to induce sweating. The seeds were roasted and ground into a flour or meal by some tribes, and the flowers were dried and used as snuff to treat nose bleeds. Natives introduced the plant to the European settlers and they used it in much the same ways.
There are enough goldenrods (over 100) that look enough alike to make me absolutely sure that I don’t want to invest much time in trying to identify them all, but some are easy. Gray goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis) is one of those. It’s one of the earliest to bloom and always looks as if a strong wind has blown all of the flowers over to one side of the stem. Even though it is one of the earliest to bloom this year it’s blooming even earlier than usual. Goldenrod blooming alongside purple loosestrife is a beautiful scene that I look forward to seeing all summer.
Almost every person, from childhood, has been touched by the untamed beauty of wildflowers. ~Lady Bird Johnson
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New Hampshire Garden Solutions 