Pages

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Wee White Wildflowers of the Woods this Week


   The forest floor is erupting with a bonanza of spring bloomers right now. Here is a sampling of some of the plants we have found in our woods and in our favorite local parks. These are some of the more diminutive flowers that you're not likely to notice unless you were truly wildflower hunting. They really are a lot smaller than they look in these pictures, which have been cropped and enlarged to show detail. All of these plants were found on dry, rocky, wooded slopes and most will go dormant and disappear by summertime.

Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides)

Mountain Bellwort (Uvularia puberula)

Mountain Bellwort (Uvularia puberula) close-up

Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata)

Star Chickweed (Stellaria pubera)

Plantain Leaved Pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) with female flowers

Plantain Leaved Pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) with male flowers

*By the way, if you think I may have misidentified any of these, feel free to suggest a correction, I'm not a botanist and I'm at the mercy of my ID books and the internet!

4 comments:

  1. Male and female flowers? I never knew! Thank you for pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Ellen! I never knew either, I thought we had maybe two different species, but my ID book set me straight. That P-toes is quite common around here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Keep your eyes peeled for dutchman's breeches. Oh, and it's almost time for ramps!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Right on time Justin! I saw two kids on BMX bikes building ramps just the other day. I think they were going to try to jump a backpack full of homework!

    ReplyDelete