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Posts Tagged ‘Meadow Anemone’

Late May, Early June Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2022| 16 Comments »

It was funny, after walking all around Goose Pond looking for them, to find blue flag irises (Iris versicolor) growing just down the road from my house. The flowers seem to appear overnight, even when the plants didn’t look budded the day before. Then, when you see one or two blossoms you start seeing them everywhere. They love wet feet and will often grow in water. The name “flag” comes from the Middle English flagge, which means rush or reed and which I assume applies to the plant’s cattail like leaves.

Black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia) are just coming into bloom and they’re beautiful with their long white tresses of very fragrant flowers. Honey made from the flowers is considered choice and commands a high price. These are beautiful trees and we’re lucky to have them as natives. Lucky that is, unless you want to get rid of one. Then you might not feel quite so lucky because there’s a good chance shoots will keep growing from the stump and you’ll probably have seedlings all over the yard. But why would you want to get rid of something so beautiful in the first place?

Black locust is in the pea family, as is easily seen by the shape of the flowers. The wood of the tree has been used for fence posts historically, because it is completely rot resistant. Black locust fence posts have survived a hundred years or more without rotting away. I wish you could smell those flowers. They remind me of white wisteria blossoms.

Native blue bead lilies are having a good year and it’s about time. For the last few years they haven’t bloomed well and the only thing I can think of that is different is all the rain we had last summer. The leaves of the plant look like lady’s slipper leaves without the pleats and the flowers do indeed look like miniature Canada lilies.

Since the flowers nod at the ground they’re hard to get a good shot of but the flower stalk is strong and will take a little gentle bending. Each blossom is slightly bigger than a trout lily blossom and there are usually two or three per stalk. Flower parts appear in multiples of three in the lily family and to prove it this blossom has three petals, three sepals, and six stamens. 

This photo from a few years ago shows the beautiful electric blue berries that give blue bead lily its name. They will appear later on in July and August and I hope I see some this year because they can be hard to find. The berries are said to be toxic but birds and chipmunks snap them right up as soon as they ripen. Some Native American tribes rubbed the root of this plant on their bear traps because its fragrance attracted bears.

It’s spiderwort (Tradescantia) time again and I hope you aren’t tired of seeing them or hearing stories about them. They used to grow wild on the railroad tracks all the way from my house to downtown Keene and my father used to see them when he walked to and from work at the screw factory each day. That’s why he asked me why I was “dragging those damned old weeds home” when he saw me planting them in the yard. Even trains couldn’t kill them! I don’t remember what my answer was but he never made me dig them up so it must have been a satisfactory one. I’ve always loved their color and I’d guess that was probably just what I told him.

Then a few years ago I ran into a purple flowered tradescantia and I was surprised that plant breeders would be working with damned old weeds like them, but here they were.

I like the purple but I always considered blue my favorite until I saw this one. I just about fell over the first time I saw it and I thought it must be some kind of natural hybrid but no, you can buy it. Its name is “Osprey” and it works so well for me because it is simple but so very beautiful at the same time. If I had to choose which flowers new to me that I had found over the eleven years I’ve been doing this blog that were the most beautiful, this would have to be in the top five. I might just have to have one in my yard someday. Tradescantias do have a bad reputation though, because the old varieties tend to sprawl and have very viable seeds that come up everywhere but I doubt the new hybrids are very challenging. If anyone reading this has tried them, I’d be interested in hearing about the aggressiveness of the newer varieties.

This wisteria is another plant that just about knocked me over when I first saw it. It grows high up in a black cherry tree at a local school and blooms beautifully ever year at this time, unless someone can’t tell what it is by the leaves and cuts it down. That has happened but you aren’t going to kill a wisteria that easily, so it grows right back.

Since the flowers dangle high over head its hard to get good shots of them but this one is good enough to show that wisteria is another plant in the pea family, like the black locust we saw earlier. It is also very fragrant. This is a plant I’d love to have but it’s a big aggressive vine that needs a lot of room and I doubt I could keep it away from the house. If too close to a house they’ll climb up onto the roof and grow under the shingles and eventually tear them right off the roof. They’ll also find any holes in the siding, soffits and fascia and if you aren’t careful, you could find one growing inside your walls. A doctor’s wife I used to work for had me lean out of a second-floor window with a pole pruner occasionally to keep that from happening to her house. They had planted the vine to grow on a pergola that was attached to the house and it was a never-ending battle.

If there had been three red sand spurry flowers (Spergularia rubra) growing together in a triangle with their petals just touching, I could have just about hidden them all from view with a pencil eraser. That’s how small these flowers are. But size doesn’t matter where beauty is concerned because they are a quite beautiful little “weed.” This plant was originally introduced from Europe in the 1800s and it has reached many states on the east and west coasts but doesn’t appear in any state along the Mississippi river except Minnesota. It must have been introduced on both coasts rather than first appearing in New England and then crossing the country like so many other invasive plants have.  I find them growing in dry, sandy waste areas.

Blunt leaved sandwort (Moehringia lateriflora) with its masses of aspirin size white flowers is blooming and I think this year it is blooming better than it ever has, because I’m seeing many thousands of flowers everywhere I go. It’s a pretty little native plant that looks like it might make a good groundcover. It is said to like woodlands, woodland edges, prairies, and along streams in rocky or sandy soil. I’ve read that it is easily overlooked and I would say that was true. Another name is grove sandwort.

I saw a beautiful old fashioned bridal wreath spirea (Spiraea prunifolia) at the local college. It looked like a floral waterfall. If you’re looking for a low to no maintenance shrub that asks for nothing, this is the shrub for you. When I was gardening professionally every yard seemed to have at least one but I don’t see many now. This one is huge; it grew far up over my head.

I find large drifts of dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis) in a local park and I’m always glad an overzealous weeder hasn’t weeded it out. But I suppose technically, it is a weed. In fact it’s an invasive species, but it’s a pretty one that has a heavenly fragrance. This drift used to be well mixed with white, pink and purple but now it is mostly purple, which must be the dominant color.

Dame’s rocket at a glance could easily be confused with garden phlox but just count the petals. Phlox has five petals and dame’s rocket has four. I’m seeing these plants along roadsides more each year, so they are spreading.

This is the first time you’ve seen a camas on this blog because this is the first one I’ve ever seen. It’s a very pretty flower that is in the lily family and grows from a bulb. I don’t know for sure what its name is but it resembles photos I’ve seen of the common camas (Camassia quamash.) The bulbs of the plant were highly valued by many Native American tribes. Once cooked, a third of bulb’s weight became the sugar fructose and Natives dried them or ground them into a kind of sweet flour after steaming or roasting them. According to the U.S. Forest service the prairie tribe Nez Pierce fed Lewis and Clark camas in 1805. Lewis liked them so much he over ate and became sick, but he wrote a detailed description of the plant; one of the most detailed accounts of any plant he collected on the entire expedition. If you decide to go to the prairies and try one beware, because there is one called death camas. I think it is a white flowered plant but there is no telling if they cross breed.

A new customer once told me under no circumstances should I plant anemones in her yard. She detested them, she said. Well I told her, you have anemones growing right over there. They’re native Canada or meadow anemones (Anemone canadensis.) She said they weren’t the same anemones she was talking about so I said alright, I just won’t plant any anemones, no matter where they come from. Though I worked for her for many years I never did find out what it was about anemones that she disliked so much. Since they had lived all over the world in many different countries, I’m guessing they must have been the smaller windflowers.

We have so many varieties of native viburnum here that it’s easy sometimes to say “ho hum, just another viburnum.“  That is apparently what I’ve done with the native nannyberry, also called sheepberry (Viburnum lentago,) because it has never appeared on this blog except in bud form. I found this one while searching for nodding trilliums and realized how pretty it was. In fact people like it so much it is often used as a native landscape shrub. It can also be trained to a single stem and used as a small tree.

The numerous small, five lobed white flowers are very pretty with their five yellow tipped stamens. They’ll be followed by edible dark blue, juicy one seeded berries (drupes), which are sometimes called wild raisins. If you are trying to attract birds and other wildlife to your garden nannyberry, or any of our many other native viburnums, would be an excellent choice. And you’d also have a garden full of beautiful flowers as well.

It’s going to be a good year for both raspberries and blackberries. These plants grow along one of the walks I regularly take, so I might have to sample a few before the birds get them all.

For the violet lovers out there, I finally found a true marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata) that I can be sure of. I can say, also for certain, that it is not the only violet that raises its flowers high above the leaves on long stems, as the Forest Service says it is. There has to be at least one other violet that does that because it is that one that I have kept confusing with the marsh blue violet. Whatever it is, it grows by the hundreds in the deep cut rail trail in Westmoreland.

If you’ve ever looked closely at a violet blossom, you probably noticed that most of them have fine hairs called “beards” on the two side petals, just at the throat. Marsh blue violets have short, thick, club shaped hairs instead and it is that feature that will make them easy to identify from now on. At least I hope so. This plant has given me a rough ride.

The first rose I saw this season was a single pink one that reminded me of an old standby called “Betty Prior” but I think it was too tall and too uniformly pink to be Betty.

I found a very fragrant azalea blooming in a local park that looked a lot like our native early azalea. Unfortunately all the leaves were being eaten by something. The soft tissue was gone and only the ribs were left. Whether this will weaken the plant enough to keep it from blooming next year, I don’t know. I hope not, because it’s a beautiful thing. There is no such thing as too much beauty in this life.

Every bird, every tree, every flower reminds me what a blessing and privilege it is just to be alive.
~Marty Rubin

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Early to Mid June Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2021| 22 Comments »

Our beautiful fragrant white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) have just started blooming but as this photo shows, the leaves are already being eaten. Each blossom lasts only 3 days before the stems coil and pull them underwater to set seeds, but there are so many of them constantly coming into bloom it seems like the flowers last all summer. This is the most beautiful of all our aquatics, in my opinion. Some say the scent reminds them of honeydew melon. 

I don’t know if I could think of a more beautiful name for a plant than “fawn’s breath.” This plant (Gillenia trifoliata) gets that name from the way that its very pretty flowers dance at the ends of long stems at even the hint of a breeze. Even presumably, the breath of a fawn can set them dancing. It is also called bowman’s root but I’ve never been able to discover why. This is a native plant which grows in 21 of the lower 48 states but here I have to find it in gardens. The roots of the plant were used as a laxative by Native Americans so it is also called Indian physic.

My color finding software calls this color “plum,” “rose,” or “orchid” but many websites call it pink. Since the plant is named maiden pink (Dianthus deltoids) that would make sense, but colorblindness means my opinion doesn’t really matter. Whatever color it is that these eyes see is beautiful.

And whatever color you choose to see them as will be beautiful as well. Maiden pinks are originally from Europe and have escaped cultivation but they aren’t terribly invasive. They seem to prefer the edges of open lawns and meadows but they will also grow in abandoned lots and other waste areas in almost pure sand. I’ve read that the name “pinks” comes from the way the outer edges look as if they were cut with pinking shears but I don’t know how true that is. I’m sure the flowers have been here longer than pinking shears.

You might have noticed some small yellow flowers in that photo of maiden pinks. They were the flowers of silver leaved cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea.) It is not silverweed (Potentilla anserina) and shouldn’t be confused with that plant. It comes from Europe and is considered invasive but it is quite pretty and it can often be found in the same areas that maiden pinks grow in. The leaves are silvery white on their undersides, and that’s where the common name comes from.

In this part of the state the only lupines that could be thought of as wild are the ones that grow along the sides of highways, but they are not truly wild because the seed was put down by the highway department when the roadsides were redone. I knew of two places where these highway lupines grew but this year there wasn’t a sign of them, so this one comes to you from a local park. Tame or wild doesn’t matter really. It’s their beauty that matters and these had lots of it.

It’s clematis time and I like this one very much. It comes from the bud dark as you see here and over the course of time it lightens to a paler blue with a darker stripe down the center of each petal.

I believe its name is Ramona.

And here is Loreley. (Lorelei) The name refers to the sirens that would perch on cliffs along the Rhine and entice sailors to their doom with their enchanting song, much like the sirens who lured Ulysses and his crew in the Odyssey. It was introduced in Germany in 1909 and its beauty has been pleasing people ever since. Indeed this iris has pleased me my entire life. My mother planted it before she died and if I were to search my memory for a flower as far back as I could reach, this is the one I would find there. I’ve carried both the memory and the actual plant with me throughout my entire life.

This iris lives in the water at the edge of ponds and rivers and though it might have enticed a sailor or two it has pleased few people in this country, because it is very aggressively invasive. I once saw a small pond that was so full of them nothing else could grow there so that’s why, even though it is exceedingly beautiful, it is hated by many. It is the yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) and it is originally from Europe. It was introduced here in the mid-1800s as a garden plant. Of course it escaped and began to naturalize and was reported near Poughkeepsie, New York in 1868 and in Concord, Massachusetts in 1884. Today it considered highly invasive and its sale and distribution is banned in New Hampshire. As you can see though it distributes itself, and how do you ban that?

Orange hawkweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) is also from Europe and is also considered invasive but the difference between it and the yellow flag iris is that it isn’t aggressive. I see thousands of examples of yellow hawkweed for every one orange hawkweed and I’m not sure why that is. The color orange is virtually invisible to bees so that might account for its relative scarcity here. In fact orange wildflowers as a group are hard to find. The only other orange wildflower I can think of is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis.)

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is blooming and I love its dime size purple flowers with their ten anthers all tucked into their own pockets. It is thought that by having the pollen bearing anthers in  pockets like they do laurels keep the pollen from being washed away by rain, but I don’t think that is a scientific fact. What is a fact is the anthers reside in the pockets under tension, so when a heavy enough insect lands on the flower the spring loaded anthers release from their pockets and dust it with pollen.

For years I’ve gone back and forth on whether these were sheep laurel or bog laurel. Since I kept finding them growing in standing water I thought they were bog laurels, but sheep laurels are the only ones that have flower clusters with new growth coming out below to grow up around them, and the photo above matches more than a handful of examples I have seen online. It took a while to see this clearly but luckily I have helpers who often gently prod me in the correct direction. I’m very lucky to have them and grateful that I do.  

I once gardened for a lady who absolutely despised anemones and forbade me to plant any in her yard. She never told me why she didn’t like them but she had spent considerable time in Europe and the Middle East so I assumed she must have foreign anemones (maybe windflowers?) in mind. When I pointed out that the white flowers that grew in one corner of her recently purchased yard were anemones she was surprised but she also thought they were pretty, and said they could stay. Of course they were native meadow anemones (Anemone canadensis.)

Meadow anemone is an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone. Though it seems to spread out in a garden it’s easy to control. It’s also called crowfoot because of the foliage and it is also known as Canada anemone. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and its root and leaves were one of the most highly regarded medicines of the Omaha and Ponca tribes. It was used as an eye wash, an antiseptic, and to treat headaches and dizziness. The root was chewed to clear the throat so a person could sing better, but I’d want to find out what toxins it might contain before I tried it.

Pretty little bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) has come into bloom. It is in the legume family and grows about a foot tall, and is a common sight along roadsides and waste areas. 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.

The flowers on our native viburnums like the maple leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) shown will almost always have five petals, and the leaves though quite different in shape throughout the viburnum family, are usually dull and not at all glossy. In fact I can’t think of one with shiny leaves. Each flattish maple leaved viburnum 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. This small shrub doesn’t mind dry shade and that makes it a valuable addition to a native wildflower garden. The Native American Chippewa tribe used the inner bark of this plant to relieve stomach pains. 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.

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 love to look deep into a multiflora rose blossom, and I love to smell their heavenly fragrance. It’s very easy to understand why it was originally brought here.

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.

Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has been used medicinally for nobody knows how long; it has even been found in Neanderthal graves. The scientific name Achillea comes from the legend of Achilles carrying the plant into battle so it could be used to staunch the flow of blood from his soldier’s wounds. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today.

Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) flowers are small but there are enough of them so the plant can’t be missed. They grow at the edges of fields and pastures, and along pathways. The stems of this plant live through the winter so it gets a jump on the season, often blooming in May. It is a native of Europe and is also called chickweed. The 5 petals of the lesser stitchwort flower are split deeply enough to look like 10 petals and this is one way to tell it from greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea,) which has its 5 petals split only half way down their length. The common name Stitchwort refers to the plant being used in herbal remedies to cure the pain in the side that we call a stitch. It is also called starwort and I love seeing its pretty flowers twinkling in the tall grasses that they grow among.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. ~Rumi

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Early June Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2020| 16 Comments »

I was afraid our native blue flag irises (Iris versicolor) were late this year but it turned out to be impatience on my part that made it seem so. As this photo shows, they’re doing fine. These plants shown grow in a wet roadside ditch but it hasn’t rained enough to amount to anything for a while now, so their ditch has gone dry.

I’ve noticed the curl on the petals of these and other flowers. This is usually a sign of stress, in this case dryness. I’ve also notice the level of water in our river is low and lawns are starting to burn. It’s hard to believe after all the rain we had this spring. The name “flag” comes from the Middle English flagge, which means rush or reed and which I assume applies to the plant’s cattail like leaves. Though Native Americans used blue flag irises medicinally its roots are considered dangerously toxic. I’m happy just admiring their beautiful flowers.

Pretty little bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is often found growing on and through tree trunks, stumps, and fallen logs but exactly why isn’t fully understood. It’s thought that it must get nutrients from the decaying wood, and because of its association with wood it’s a very difficult plant to establish in a garden. Native plants that are dug up will soon die off unless the natural growing conditions can be accurately reproduced, so it’s best to just admire it and let it be.

Bunchberry is also called creeping dogwood and bunchberry dogwood. Just like the dogwood tree flower the large (relatively) white bracts of bunchberry surround the actual flowers, which are greenish and very small. The entire flower cluster with bracts and all is often no bigger than an inch and a half across. Later on the flowers will become a bunch of bright red berries, which give it its common name. The Cree tribe called the berry “kawiskowimin,” meaning “itchy chin berry” because rubbing the berries against your skin can cause a reaction that will make you itch.

Dogwood (Cornus) blossoms have 4 large white bracts surrounding the actual small greenish flowers in the center, just like bunchberries. They have both just come into bloom.

Plant breeders have been working on tradescantia and I’ve seen purple and white flowered varieties as well as the standard blue. I find this purple flowered one in a local park. Interesting but I like the blue that I grew up with best. Bees, especially bumblebees, seem to like this one best though. Why that is, I don’t know.

I think this is my new favorite tradescantia, at least for this year. The white flowers with a hint of blue mixed in make for a striking blossom, in my opinion. This is the first year I’ve ever seen it and, since it was growing in a clump of blue flowered plants, I wonder if it isn’t a natural hybrid.

Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is in full bloom now and is a plant held in high regard for its hard to find clear blue color. This is another tough native plant that bees love. People love it too, and it is now sold in nurseries. The black seed pods full of loose, rattling, seeds that follow the flowers were once used as rattles by children. Not surprisingly, other common names include rattle weed and rattle bush. Native Americans made a blue dye from this native plant that was a substitute for true indigo.

When I was a boy we had a hedge full of gloriously scented cabbage roses. Those poor roses attracted rose chafers by the billions it seemed, but if you sat out on the porch and closed your eyes on a warm summer evening you didn’t have to imagine what heaven would smell like. You knew that you were smelling it right here on this earth. The one pictured looked and smelled just like those old cabbage roses and I had a hard time leaving it. It brought back a lot of great memories.

One of the strangest little flowers I find in the woods hides under the tiered, whorled leaves of the Indian cucumber root plants (Medeola virginiana) and they have just started blooming.

The flowers of Indian cucumber root have 6 yellowish green tepals, 6 reddish stamens topped by greenish anthers, and 3 reddish purple to brown styles. These large styles are sometimes bright red- brown. Each flower will become a shiny, inedible dark purplish black berry. Native Americans used Indian cucumber roots as food. As its common name implies, this plant’s small root looks and tastes a lot like a mini cucumber. It’s easy to identify because of its tiers of whorled leaves and unusual flowers. It likes to grow under trees in dappled light, probably getting no more than an hour or two of direct sunlight each day.

False Solomon seal plants (Maianthemum racemosum  or Smilacina racemosa) have just started blooming. The largest example I’ve seen was close to three feet tall but normally they grow lower to the ground with an arching growth habit. They always seem to have tiny black beetles on them and if you look closely you’ll see several on these blossoms.

False Solomon’s seal has small white, star shaped flowers in a branching cluster (raceme) at the end of its stem. Soon the blossoms will give way to small reddish berries that provide food for many birds and other wildlife. It is said that a Native American tribe in California used crushed false Solomon’s seal roots to stun fish. Others used the plant medicinally.

A flower that will always say June to me is the Ox eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare.) I was married in June and because we couldn’t afford flowers from the florist we picked hundreds of Ox eye daisies. They wilted quickly and looked much better in the meadow than in a vase, and I don’t think I’ve ever picked one since. This is a much loved flower so it is easy to forget that it was originally introduced from Europe as an ornamental in the 1800s. It quickly escaped cultivation and has now spread to each of the lower 48 states and most of Canada. Since cattle won’t eat it, it can spread at will through pastures and that means that it is not well loved by ranchers. A vigorous daisy can produce 26,000 seeds per plant and tests have shown that 82% of the buried seeds remained viable after six years underground. I always like to see their spiraled centers.

Since it is native to North America it’s hard to describe Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) as invasive but it does form monocultures and also invades woodland gardens, where it is almost impossible to eradicate. It grows in the shade of the forest and it does very well there. Its tiny white four petaled flowers will become speckled red berries that are loved by many birds and small animals, and of course they help its spread.

Red sandspurry (Spergularia rubra) never looks red to me; it always looks purple. But whatever the color it always looks beautiful to me. When I can see it anyway. Red sandspurry was originally introduced from Europe in the 1800s but it could hardly be called invasive. It is such a tiny plant that it would take many hundreds of them just to fill your shoe.

This photo of a red sandspurry blossom over a penny that I took a few years ago will give you an idea of just how tiny they are. Each one could easily hide behind a pea with room to spare. For those who don’t know, a penny is .75 inches [19.05 mm] across. I’m guessing you could fit 8-10 blossoms on one.

There is a tree in a local park that I wondered about for years before finally discovering it was a red horse chestnut (Aesculus × carnea,) which is a cross between the red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum.) I’ve read that bees and hummingbirds love the beautiful red and yellow blossoms.

Lesser stitchwort (Stellaria graminea) flowers are very small but there are enough of them so the plant can’t be missed. They grow at the edges of fields and pastures, and along pathways. The stems of this plant live through the winter so it gets a jump on the season, often blooming in May. This plant is a native of Europe and is also called chickweed, but there are over 50 different chickweeds. The 5 petals of the lesser stitchwort flower are split deeply enough to look like 10 petals. This is one way to tell it from greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea,) which has its 5 petals split only half way down their length. The flowers of greater stitchwort are also larger.

Cow vetch (Vicia cracca) is a native of Europe and Asia that loves it here and has spread far and wide. According to the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States the vining plant is present in every U.S. state. Cow vetch can have a taproot nearly a foot long and drops large numbers of seeds, so it is hard to eradicate. It is very similar to hairy vetch, but that plant has hairy stems. I like its color and it’s nice to see it sprinkled here and there among the tall grasses but it can be a real problem in gardens.

I once worked for a lady who absolutely loathed anemones and forbade me to plant them in her yard. I never heard the whole story so I don’t know why she had such a reaction to them, but when I pointed out that she already had anemones growing right there in her yard in the form of meadow anemones (Anemone canadensis ) she softened a bit. Since she had traveled and lived all over the world I’m guessing it must have been some type of foreign anemone she didn’t like. I’ve seen photos of a lot of different anemones from around the world and I’ve always thought they were beautiful, but what do I know? Meadow anemone is an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone.  This plant is also called crowfoot because of the foliage. Native Americans used this plant for many different medical reasons.

The old fashioned Dutchman’s pipe vine has very large, heart shaped leaves and has historically been used as a privacy screen or for shade on porches and arbors. You can still see it used that way today in fact, but I’m guessing that there’s a good chance that most people have never seen the small, pipe shaped flowers of a Dutchman’s pipe vine (Aristolochia durior) because you have to move the vine’s large leaves aside and peek into the center of the plant to see them. They’re mottled yellowish-green and brownish purple with a long yellow tube, and are visited by the pipevine swallowtail butterfly and other insects. The surface of the flower is roughly pebbled, presumably to make it easier for the butterfly to hang onto. Though it was used by Native Americans to treat pain and infections the plant contains a compound called aristolochic acid which can cause permanent kidney failure, so it should never be taken internally. Dutchman’s pipe is native to some south eastern hardwood forests and has been cultivated in other parts of the country and Canada since the 1700s.

Now that the common lilacs are done blooming the dwarf Korean lilacs (Syringa meyeri) take over. They are fragrant but have a different scent than a common lilac. I recently walked through a park where dwarf lilacs, fringe trees, and black locusts, all very fragrant flowers, were all blooming at once and it was unbelievable. I thought I’d float away. Though called Korean lilac the original plant was found in a garden near Beijing, China by Frank Meyer in 1909. It has never been seen in the wild so its origin is unknown. If you love lilacs but don’t have a lot of room this one’s for you. They are a no maintenance plant that is very easy to grow.

To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. ~Beverly Nichols

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Time for a Climb

Posted in Lichens, Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2019| 29 Comments »

Some coworkers of mine like to rock climb and they asked me if I knew any good places to do so, so I immediately thought of Hewe’s Hill in Swanzey. People have climbed there for many years I’ve heard, but until this day I had never seen anyone doing so. To get to the trailhead you have to cross this meadow. It was about 70 degrees F. with wall to wall sunshine; not great for photography but perfect for climbing, I was told.

Meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis) grew at the edge of the meadow. It’s an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone. Though it seems to spread out in a garden it’s easy to control. It’s also called crowfoot because of the foliage and it is also known as Canada anemone. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and its root and leaves were one of the most highly regarded medicines of the Omaha and Ponca tribes. It was used as an eye wash, an antiseptic, and to treat headaches and dizziness. The root was chewed to clear the throat so a person could sing better.

Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) also grew in the meadow and some of them were very blue indeed. I always enjoy seeing these cheery little flowers.

At one point a tree had fallen across the trail. I was surprised because you don’t usually see this here. The hill is privately owned and well maintained. But it must be a lot of work; I saw two other fallen trees that had been cut out of the trail with an axe.

Delicate hay scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) grew on the shaded sides of the trail. This fern gets its name from the way that it smells like fresh mown hay when you brush against it. The Native American Cherokee tribe used this fern medicinally to treat chills.

Raspberries (Rubus idaeus) bloomed along the sunnier sides of the trail. This plant has just started blooming but it looks like it will be a great year for them, and blueberries too.

Do you look at roots when you hike a trail? I do and I see many that so many feet have touched they look as if they’ve been sanded and polished. They can be very beautiful things, especially the roots of eastern hemlock like those seen here.

The bright harsh sunlight made photography a challenge, especially with a new camera that I don’t fully know (or like) yet, but this is a relatively accurate view of what the forest looked like from the inside.

Big, teardrop shaped leaves told me that Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) grew here. In fact they grew in large numbers. Botanically speaking a whorl is an “arrangement of sepals, petals, leaves, stipules or branches that radiate from a single point and surround or wrap around the stem,” and nothing illustrates this better than Indian cucumber root. Its leaves wrap around the stem arranged in a single flat plane, so if you saw them from the side theoretically you would see an edge, much like looking at the edge of a dinner plate. If any leaf or leaves in the arrangement are above or below others it’s not a true whorl.

Native Americans used this plant as food because like its common name implies, its small root looks and tastes a lot like a mini cucumber. It’s easy to identify because of its tiers of whorled leaves and unusual flowers. It likes to grow under trees in dappled light, probably getting no more than an hour or two of direct sunlight each day. The flowers of Indian cucumber root have 6 yellowish green tepals, 6 reddish stamens topped by greenish anthers, and 3 reddish purple to brown styles. These large styles are sometimes bright red- brown but I think they darken as they age. These appeared to be kind of orangey. Each flower will become a shiny, inedible dark purplish black berry.

I had warned my co-climbers that it would be a slow climb, what with me having to take photos of every living thing and stopping to catch my breath frequently, but we made it to Tippin Rock in good time. I had a good chance to catch my breath while my friends tried to tip the glacial erratic. They each took a turn while I watched, and each of them had the big 40 ton behemoth rocking like a baby cradle. It’s a very subtle movement and you have to watch the edge of the boulder against the background to see it. So far everyone I know who has made something this big move so easily has been amazed. When you think about all that had to happen for a perfectly balanced boulder to be sitting on the bedrock of this summit it boggles the mind.

After the rock there are the views and they weren’t bad on this day. Some decorative puffy white clouds would have made the scene a little more photogenic but you can’t have everything.

For years I’ve heard that New Hampshire has 4.8 million acres of forested land but it’s hard to wrap your head around a number like that until you’ve see something like this. Seemingly unbroken forest stretches to infinity. Or at least to the horizon.

I often wonder, when I’m in places like this, what I would have done in the 1700s if I had looked out over something like this, carrying only a gun and an axe. Would I have had the strength and courage to go on into the unknown or would I have turned back to relative safety? Of course it’s an impossible question to answer, but that’s the way wilderness makes you think. Back then there were bears, wolves, and very unhappy natives down there.

The friends I was with were all about hanging off ropes after crawling over the cliff edge but I was not. I had the heebie jeebies just looking at the edge shown in this photo from 10 feet back, so since I don’t have the stomach for such things I left them to their fun (?) and headed back down the hill. Now that they know where the spot is they can come and climb anytime they like. I made sure that they knew, and I think others who might be reading this and thinking about coming here should know; this is private land and permission has graciously been granted by the owners to the public for recreational use. Nothing but your footprints should be left behind when you leave.

Of course I couldn’t leave without saying hello to my little friends the toadstool lichens (Lasallia papulosa.) They’re very rare down below in my experience but up here they’re plentiful and that’s good because it makes me climb up to see them. Since I’ve met climbers in their 80s on these hills and haven’t been able to keep up with them I’m assuming that climbing must be good for you. In any event some of the lichens were dry, as shown by their ashy gray state. They are also crisp like a potato chip at this stage.

Some lichens found a spot near seeping groundwater on the cliffs and wore their happy pea green color. In this state they’re soft and rubbery and feel like your earlobe. They aren’t big; this one was about an inch across.

Some lichens were on the fence, part green and part gray, but they dry out quickly. I’ve seen them ashy and crisp two days after a pouring rain. I like their warty look, which always reminds me of distant solar systems. They’re another one of those bits of nature that can take me out of myself for a while.

I saw a blister, which I took to be some type of gall, on a blueberry leaf. It caught my attention because blueberries don’t seem to be attacked by many pests or diseases other than witch’s broom.

A dead branch looked purple in the forest but my color finding software sees blue. Either way, you don’t expect to find blue or purple on fallen branches. I have no way of knowing what caused the strange color but I would guess spalting. Spalting is any discoloration of wood caused by fungal hyphae growing along the softer sapwood. Though spalting usually happens on dead wood it can sometimes be found on live trees, which isn’t good for the tree. It can be very beautiful and spalted wood is highly prized by woodworkers.

A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him, and leaving something of himself upon it. ~Martin Conway

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Mid June Flowers

Posted in Nature, Wildflowers, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2017| 35 Comments »

There are over 200 viburnum varieties and some of our native shrubs  are just coming into bloom. One of the earliest is the arrow wood viburnum. Smooth arrow wood (Viburnum dentatum) has yellowish white, mounded flower clusters and is blooming along stream banks and drainage ditches right now. Native 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 arrow wood 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.

Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is in full bloom now and is a plant held in high regard for its hard to find clear blue color. This is another tough native plant that bees love. People love it too, and it is now sold in nurseries. The black seed pods full of loose, rattling, seeds that follow the flowers were once used as rattles by children. Not surprisingly, other common names include rattle weed and rattle bush. Native Americans made a blue dye from this native plant that was a substitute for true indigo.

Blue false indigo is in the pea / bean family. If you’ve ever looked at a pea or bean flower then this flower shape should look very familiar.

I thought I’d show an actual pea blossom for comparison. The blossom has 5 petals that form a banner, wings, and keel. The banner is a single petal with two lobes though it looks like two that are fused together. Two more petals form the wings. The remaining two petals make up the keel and are usually fused together. As long as there is a banner, wings and a keel on the blossom the plant is a member of the Pea family. The pea family of plants is the third largest, with somewhere near1,000 genera and 25,000 species. Some grow to tree size and some are tiny. Some members of the family are edible and some are poisonous. Peas have been eaten for nearly 7,000 years; remains of the plants dating from 4800–4400 BC have been found in Egypt.

Puffy little bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is also in the pea family and grows about a foot tall, and is a common sight along roadsides and waste areas. 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.

We have three native wild roses here in the U.S., the Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana,) the prairie rose (Rosa arkansana) and the wild rose (Rosa acicularis.) We also have roses that appear to be wild but which have escaped cultivation. None are truly invasive here and I think it’s safe to say that all are welcome. I found this beautifully scented example on the edge of a forest.

Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata) is a native wildflower but it only grows in two New England Sates as far as I can tell; Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which seems odd but explains why I’ve never seen one in the wild. This example grows in a local park. The dried and powdered root of this plant was used by Native Americans as a laxative, so another common name is American ipecac. Nobody seems to know the origin of the name bowman’s root or whether it refers to the bow of a boat or the bow part of the bow and arrow.

The white flower petals of bowman’s root are asymmetrical and always look like they were glued on by a chubby fingered toddler. But they are beautiful nonetheless, and dance at the end of long stems. And they do dance in the slightest movement of air. Some say that all it takes is the gentle breath of a fawn to set them dancing, and because of that another of their common names is fawn’s breath. I can’t think of a more beautiful name for a flower.

This plant goes by many common names but I’ve always called it peach leaved bluebells (Campanula persicifolia) which comes from its leaves resembling those of the peach tree. It is very easy to grow; literally a “plant it and forget it” perennial. I planted one in my garden years ago and not only is it still growing, but many seedlings from it are also growing all over the yard. I usually give several away each summer to family and friends. It’s a good choice for someone just starting a garden.

The waxy shine on buttercup (Ranunculus) petals is caused by a layer of mirror-flat cells that have an air gap just below them, and just below the air gap is a smooth layer of brilliant white starch. All of these layers act together to reflect yellow light while blue-green light is absorbed. I can’t speak for what the spider was doing. Maybe just enjoying the sunshine.

Meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis ) is an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone.  Though it seems to spread out in a garden it’s easy to control. It’s also called crowfoot because of the foliage. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and its root and leaves were one of the most highly regarded medicines of the Omaha and Ponca tribes. It was used as an eye wash, an antiseptic, and to treat headaches and dizziness. The root was chewed to clear the throat so a person could sing better.

Humans have used common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in various ways for thousands of years. 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. Yarrow was known as the soldier’s woundwort and herbe militaris for centuries, and was used to stop the flow of blood. Yarrow was a valuable healing herb, one of the nine “holy herbs,” and was traded throughout the world since before recorded time, and that is believed to be the reason for the plant being found in nearly every country on earth today. Native Americans used it for everything from snake bites to deodorant.

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.

This yellow daylily (Hemerocallis) is very early, blooming just after the Siberian irises bloom. This plant was given to me many years ago by a friend who has since passed on and I have divided it many times for family and friends. Two things make this plant special: the early bloom time and the heavenly fragrance that smells of citrus and spices. I have a feeling this is a Lemon daylily (Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus) which is a very old species brought to America in colonial days and originally from China and Europe.  The Greek word Hemerocallis means “beautiful for a day,” and that’s how long each flower lasts. It’s a shame that many of today’s daylilies, bred for larger and more colorful flowers, have lost their ancient fragrance.

Red campion (Silene dioica) likes alkaline soil with a lot of lime and that’s why we rarely see it here. That’s also why I’m fairly sure that this plant is a white campion (Silene latifolia,) which can also be pink. Just to confuse the issue red campion flowers can also be pink or white and it takes a botanist to tell them apart. Both are natives of Europe, Asia and Africa. It’s pretty, whatever it is.

Crown vetch (Securigera varia) has just come into bloom and I’m happy to see it because I think it’s a beautiful flower. It’s one of those that seem to glow with their own inner light and I enjoy just looking at it for a time. Crown vetch has seed pods look that like axe heads and English botanist John Gerard called the plant axewort and axeseed in 1633. It is thought that its seeds somehow ended up in other imported plant material because the plant was found in New York in 1869. By 1872 it had become naturalized in New York and now it is in every state in the country except Alaska.

Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), though beautiful, can overrun a garden. These flowers grow from a bulb and are native to southern Europe and Africa. The bulbs contain toxic alkaloids and have killed livestock, so they are now listed as an invasive species.

Invasive multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) originally came from China to be used as an ornamental and as the old story goes, almost immediately escaped and started to spread rapidly. It grows over the tops of shrubs and smothers them by using all the available sunshine. In the above photo it’s growing up into a tree and I’ve seen it reach thirty feet. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was imported more for its scent than any other reason, because to smell it is like smelling a bit of heaven on earth.

It’s easy to see why it is in the rose family but if it wasn’t for their heavenly scent you might as well be looking at a raspberry blossom because multiflora rose blossoms are the same size, shape, and color, and raspberries are also in the rose family.

Wood sorrel (Oxalis montana) is a ground hugger, easily hidden by any plant that is ankle high or more, so I have to hunt for it and though I can’t say if it is rare here, I rarely see it. Each time I find it it’s growing near water, and the above example grew in a wet area near a stream. It’s considered a climax species, which are plants that grow in mature forests, so that may be why I don’t often see it. It likes to grow where it’s cool and moist with high humidity. Though the word Montana appears in its scientific name it doesn’t grow there. In fact it doesn’t grow in any state west of the Mississippi River. It’s a pretty little thing that reminds me of spring beauties (Claytonia virginica,) thought its flowers are larger.

Flowers have a mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike some strains of music. They relax the tenseness of the mind. They dissolve its vigor. ~Henry Ward Beecher.

Thanks for coming by. Happy first day of summer!

 

 

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Another Trip Through the Garden

Posted in General gardening, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2012| 21 Comments »

I thought I’d take another tour through the flower beds before they get ahead of me. Everything seems to want to bloom at once this year. Clematis is one of my favorite flowers. Nothing could be easier to grow than these virtually no maintenance vines. I planted one on each side of my front steps many years ago and haven’t really touched them since. In spite of my neglect they still reward me with flowers like that in the photo. Clematis are in the buttercup family. The well-known wild virgin’s bower is a clematis. Dianthus is a huge family of fragrant plants which carnations belong to.  Pinks like in the photo above are also dianthus, and are called pinks not because of their color but because the petal edges look like they have been trimmed with pinking shears, giving them a frilly appearance. These flowers are among the most fragrant in the garden. The leaves of garden pinks are usually a grayish blue color. Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliate) isn’t often seen in gardens and that’s too bad because it is a beautiful plant in the rose family that is covered with fragile looking, 5 petaled, white flowers. This plant is native to the eastern U.S. and is also called American ipecac for the purgative power of the roots, which Native Americans are said to have used. English colonials called Native Americans “bowmen” which explains the other common name. This yellow bearded Iris was given to me by a friend several years ago and is a favorite of mine.  Unfortunately it is also a favorite of Japanese beetles whose damage can be seen on the petals.  Since I don’t use pesticides, we share and learn to get along. On a bearded Iris a fringe or “beard” runs down the center of each of the three petals that fall or hang down. This is an example of a beardless iris that is most likely a yellow Siberian iris (Iris siberica.) When this flower is compared to the bearded iris it is easy to see that they are very different. Meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis ) is an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone.  This plant is also called crowfoot because of the foliage. Native Americans used this plant for many different medical reasons. When I was a boy I used to find Tradescantia, or spiderwort, growing along the railroad tracks. I’d pull them up to take home and plant in the yard along with asters, goldenrod and anything else I could find that had flowers on it. My father couldn’t understand what I wanted with those “damned old weeds.” Wouldn’t he be surprised to know that most of those “weeds” are now grown in gardens!  Tradescantia is another native that has gone to the gardens because true blue flowers are so hard to come by.  The common and well known house plant called wandering Jew is a tradescantia. Weigelia is an easy to care for shrub that is originally from Asia but has become quite common in American gardens. A little pruning to maintain its shape is all it really needs.  Weigelia flowers can come in white, yellow, lavender, red and pink. I grow the pink one seen here in my yard and the hummingbirds love it.The blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) is in full bloom now and is another plant held in high regard for its hard to find clear blue color. This is another tough native plant that bees love. Black seed pods full of loose, rattling, seeds will follow the flowers. Hyssop (Hyssopus) hails from Europe and Asia and has been under cultivation for so long that it is mentioned in the Bible in the book of Exodus. In the mint family, today it is used as an herb in soups and on meats.  It is yet another plant highly valued in the garden for the blue of its blossoms. Peony (Paeonia) is a flower with a scent close to that of old fashioned rugosa roses. Much loved and used for hundreds of years in American gardens, their only drawback is their weak stems which, unless staked, will leave the flowers dragging in the mud after a rain. I’ve come across old field stone cellar holes along long forgotten, overgrown roads that still have peonies blooming in what was once the front yard. Plants have been known to last for well over 100 years. Here is the owner of the scent that peonies seem to mimic. I grew up with a hedge of Rugosa roses in the yard and the fragrance of so many blooms was almost too much to bear. Unfortunately Japanese beetles love this flower and come from miles around to feed on the blooms, which is why it is almost impossible to find a blossom without damage.  If you have ever smelled the fragrance packet on a Japanese beetle trap then you know what Rosa rugosa smells like. This rose is originally from Asia. I thought this white peony that was just opening was a beautiful thing to behold. If a white peony is floated in a bowlful of water into which a few drops of red food coloring have been added, the flower will absorb the colored water and the veins in each petal will be seen. Peonies have been grown in Asian gardens for thousands of years.

In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.~ Kakuzō Okakura

That’s it for this trip through the garden. Isn’t it interesting how many native plants we have adopted to grow in our gardens?  Thanks for visiting.

 

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