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.

Irma's Woods Once Again

We found this wooded slope next to a little traveled dirt road quite by accident.  The posted signs identified the landowner as a person that taught in the same school I did for one decade.  Irma was a class act and her standards of expected behavior are honored even after her passing.  We look at the native wildflowers growing here from the edge of the road.  Only pictures are taken.

Bloodroot has held my attention for a number of years.  Plants have been lost to drought or rude deer altogether too often.  The preferred conditions for continued growth are unknown.  Here these plants grow only in one small area for reasons that completely escape me.  The closed flower bud is tightly surrounded by circle of leaves until it is pushed above the tangle of forest soil as can be seen in the upper most plant.  The white petals are fragile and wind frequently pulls them loose.  Blossoms last only for a short time and the display can easily be missed.  These flowers may be only one day old and will be gone early next week.  Our visits here have been frequent.  This is what we wanted to see. 

Sharp lobed Hepatica blossoms have been open for many days now.  Many of the early native woodland plants end their growing season about the time that the trees leaf out but Hepatica is still holding on to last year's leaves.  The foreground area between the two sticks is filled with trios of liver colored leaves that continue to nourish the plant.  These plants also have the rare trait of a wide range of petal numbers on each blossom.  Our frequent visits here found Hepatica to be the first plant to open its flowers.

One narrow section of Irma's woods is home to this unusual and brightly colored plant.  We have yet to find its name while its appearance always gets a long second look.  Becky will have the identification of the foreground plant when it has grown some.

Spring Beauty is a friend from childhood.  Its pinkish colored flower petals appear white in our photos but to the naked eye these flowers are stunners.  The underground structure that supports this growth resembles a pea but it is located at some distance from the above ground growth.  If one remembers to visit the plants near the end of their period of growth, the slender underground connecting rod can be followed to the pea.  With its growth period over, the pea can be successfully moved but the timing is critical.  If one is early the pea has not completed storing nutrients and will likely die if moved.  If the dig is late the underground stem will have disappeared.  We have never moved this plant.

 This sight improved our moods immensely.  One of our Fall planted Bloodroots has pushed its leaf cluster above the ground.  Deep deer hoof prints widely cover this ground and we were fearful that the new plants were destroyed.  Water will be hauled to this area to help any others along.

Spring Ephemerals, Catch Them While You Can!

Spring Beauty with leaves

Purple Hepaticia  Flower

Sharp lobed Hepaticia leaves

Bloodroot Flower with leaves

Bloodroot  Flower and beginning seed pods

Now is the time to be outside looking for wildflowers and tending the garden.  I will edit this  later when it rains. Today the Brown thrasher and mourning doves are singing. The arbutus is fragrant and for now I am out of here. Consider this a rough first draft. Later!!!!!

Spring Beauty Moved

As a child, I remember my maternal grandmother using the words spring beauties to refer to flowers in her garden.  Violets were likely the actual flowers in her garden since I do not remember her having plants this small.  Her words remain in my memory so spring beauties had to be placed in my garden.

There are many hurdles to clear to introduce these beautiful but temperamental flowers to cultivation.  Growth begins in a pea sized tuber that can lie a fair distance from the above ground leaves.  A tender stem winds its way through the woven tangle that is wild soil.  Patience, persistence and luck are required to collect a complete plant.  Sadly wilted leaves persist for days after the plant is moved.  Three years passed between the collecting and the first flowers.

Spring beauty, Claytonia Virginica, flowers close every night and on cloudy days.  Trying for a photograph of a white flower in full sun brings mostly disappointment. The pink anthers and purple veins look much more impressive to the eye.  We took a walk to the back woods trying for really good pictures.

Several references describe spring beauty tubers as a food source for Native Americans and early European colonists.  Given the small size of an individual tuber and the search necessary to find them  makes it hard to believe that they contributed much at meal time.  Few other choices are available in the early spring and that may have made the search worthwhile.  Also, huge patches of spring beauties must have existed in those earlier days.

Our walk along the margins of the forest in search of these special flowers gave us wet feet.  Spring beauties grow in and alongside of the running water that seeps from the base of the ridge.  We have had no rainfall for many days so water is carried to our modest patch of captive flowers.  They remain alive but we really want them to form a wild like sizable patch in our shade garden.