First Visit To Irma's Woods

Somehow a trip across the valley to view native wildflowers in a totally natural setting seemed like a great way to start this day.  This hillside slopes to the south with no land forms blocking sunlight from warming the ground.  That results in the earliest known location of plants in bloom.  Coltsfoot is not a native plant but it was in widespread use as a medicinal plant in colonial days.  Its early appearance with flowers appearing before leaves earned it a place in this post.  Here it grows only in the ditch adjacent to the road.  Sometimes it is wildly invasive but here it is well behaved as were the students in Irma's classes.

These Spring beauty flowers are newly opened.  The bright pink pollen has never been seen by us before.  We suspect that by late afternoon today it will have completed its job and be gone.  It was a genuine thrill to see something for the very first time especially at our age.

  

This plant remains unidentified so far.  We recognize the Goldenrod emerging to its left but the bud cluster above three leaves will need to be seen again before identification can be made.  Many more visits will be made here.  If we can find it again after it has grown, identification may be possible.

Actually all that was needed for a proper identification was to let some time pass.  We are now certain that this plant is Toothwort or Crinkleroot.

We believe that Hepatica wins the race to be the first native plant to open flowers with Spring Beauty coming in a close second.  The pictured plant has leaves that end in a point and appears in several different forms.  These flowers have nine violet colored petals but both the number and color vary.  Our point and shoot camera does not accurately capture the color of he flowers.  It is much darker than seen here with solid  colored petals from their base to their tip.

These six petaled white flowers are also Sharp lobed hepatica.  Several maroon colored leaves can be seen below the flowers.  Hepatica frequently carries over leaves from last summer.  These leaves are functional supplying nutrition for both the flowers and the newly emerging leaves. 

 This sad looking plant has spent several years in our shade garden.  Two deer hoof prints can be seen too close to the heart of the plant.  These need to be carefully filled in and this plant would benefit from a covering cage.  Somehow welded wire cages detract from the natural look that we are trying for.

Another Return To Irma's Woods

Once again the written words of John Burroughs introduced me to a must have plant.  He described a frequently taken detour into the woods while walking to school.  His goal was to harvest some Toothwort planning to eat it with his lunch.  By his own account, the plant parts were usually gone by lunch time.  This plant lives happily in Irma's woods and we aspire to create a natural setting similar to this one.

We know of two different forms of Toothwort and subtle differences in both flower structure and leaf shape are clearly visible.  We would like to use Toothwort as a background plant with some of our more showy plants.  We have yet to find extensive numbers of this plant in local markets but now that we understand its gentle growth habit, we plan to buy in large numbers should we run across it.  One of its characteristics that would make it an excellent companion plant is its close to the surface long root.  That is the source of the other popular name Crinkleroot.

Whole fallen leaves mark these plants as growing in Irma's woods.  On this day, we also had two white Trilliums with open flowers.  It seems that the solar advantage of her land that slopes to the south east is less of an impact at this point in the season.

There are two dead giveaways to these being cultivated plants.  Finely chopped fallen tree leaves clearly reveal the gardener's hand here.  He does not have ten thousand years to build natural woodland soil so some shortcuts must be taken.  Also, there are no rusty wire protective cages in a natural forest.  The companion plant is Winter Aconite, a moderately well behaved nonnative plant.  Some thinning of it will likely be needed to allow sunlight to strike the Trillium leaves.

These days there aren't many places where wild native plants cover the ground in large numbers.  Irma's Woods is one of those locations.  Choose any small spot like this photo.  You can see beautiful violets, spring beauty leaves, a single trout lily leaf, foam flower leaves, moss and maybe even Hepatica.  Over the years we have tried to be careful sharing Irma's woods only with those who will appreciate it and take away only photographs snapped from the road.  I have a friend I plan to invite as soon as the white trilliums add their flowers to the green sea of ramps extending up the hill.

Early May Wildflowers

The plant killing horrors of this year's March weather have been replaced with numerous native ephemeral treasures carrying out their spring life cycle.  This photo shows several stages of Blood-root flowers.  Upper left finds an older flower beginning to drop its petals.  Upper right shows a newly opened blossom.  Center left contains a mature bloom that has lost nearly all of its yellow pollen.  Center right has a perfect flower.  Lower left displays a young seed pod against the backdrop of a leaf.  Drought took Blood-root flowers from my garden while they flourish in Irma's woods. Our order of new plants will be here any day now.  The new woodland garden down by the road is waiting!

These early Arbutus flowers will soon be joined by many others that are still closed buds.  Transplanted on our land several years ago, these flowers are highly prized.  The major allure here is their scent.  The good news is that we can still stand up after dropping to the ground to draw in the memorable aroma.  The native stone was placed to support the protective wire cage that is the reason these plants still flourish.  Being evergreen carries some risks.  Rabbits devour unprotected Arbutus plants when the snow first begins to melt.  Insects ate the only partially destroyed leaves.

Irma's woods lie on a south facing sloped bedrock ridge.  The concentrated warmth of the sun there has these Trout Lilies at their height of bloom.  Our plants are just beginning to release their buds from the tightly wrapped leaves that safely carried them through several inches of forest soil.  Soon we will find similar flowers closer to home.

The steeply sloped roadside bank revealed flowers that we have never before seen.  Wild Ginger keeps its flowers hidden from sight close to the ground.  Looking uphill we finally got to see these flowers.  Flies are the pollinating agent so these flower's scent is much like rotting mouse meat.  We passed on a chance to sample that odor.  At home, our transplants have yet to open their tightly closed leaves.  The pictured leaves will soon be much larger hiding the flowers from prying eyes.

Here we see a single Spring Beauty flower behind a row of Hepatica flowers.  It is uncommon for the digital camera to capture the color of a Spring Beauty flower.  Usually all that is seen is white.  Most of the leaves in this picture are Ramps. Sharp-lobed  Hepatica flowers precede their leaves which can be seen here just beginning to unfurl to the right of the Spring Beauty flower.

These freshly opened Hepatica flowers show both their blue petals and white pollen.  Opening leaves surround the flower petals in three places.  Apparently, younger plants have fewer leaves with blue coloration.

Several of these multi-flowered stunning Sharp-lobed Hepatica plants occur singly across the roadside bank.  Their bright pure white color stands out in sharp contrast to the dull brown of decaying fallen tree leaves.  It is possible that older plants have many more flowers.  Some of these larger plants were growing up through the mud filled ditch at road's edge.  I really wanted to dig them up and give them a proper home.  Responsible reason prevailed and they remain where nature planted them.

This is the more common coloration of Spring Beauty flower pictures.  The camera misses nearly all of the delightful pink color. The plant in the upper left corner of the picture shows off  the plant's small  green  leaves.

This is the promise of more to come.  This white Trillium was fall planted in our new woodland garden.  Flower buds can be seen on this newly emerged plant.  It looks like two flowers will appear here during this plants first year with us.  We will need to return to Irma's woods as the Trillium there have yet to open their flowers.  Recent logging will have severely reduced the vast number of plants there but the opening of the forest canopy will aid in their return.

We found our spirits lifted by these early flowers.  Decline that accompanies age is making working in the dirt more difficult for us.  That reality may have heightened our pleasure in finding these flowering plants existing totally on their own.  Many more will follow as the month unfolds and we will try to see them all.  Their allotted time each year is short but they make the most of each day.  We will try to do the same.