They’re so distinctive. There is something very proper and elegant about them, like they would never consider leaning, or demanding attention by being colorful, or blowsy and over-large. The most ornament they care to sport is some tasteful stripes.
This is from May 5, 2014. (I have quite a backlog of photos.) These are native to the east and midwest.
Jack in the Pulpit, Indian Turnip (Arisaema triphyllum)
It’s been a good year for violets! This is a variable species that can occur as white or purple. Photographed in Dr. Whiteside’s magical Illinois garden, but also native all over New England.
Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)
Bonus pictures from my trip to the Midwest: we went to a concert in Lafayette, Indiana but had some time before the concert, so we checked out a wolf park surprisingly nearby. Beautiful animals.
I found this growing by a dusty country road outside Charleston, Illinois, but apparently it is native from western New England to Michigan south. Fragrant flowers, pollinated by bees with long tongues, like bumblebees.
Wild Blue Phlox, Wild Sweet William, Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata)
A hardy groundcover — tolerates poor soil, dry conditions, deer, rabbits, pollution… Has a milky, poisonous sap that repels herbivores. Forms a dense fluffy blanket about a foot tall. Tiny flowers that start lime-green and yellow, and age to red. Has narrow-leaved foliage reminiscent of cypress trees, hence the name cypress spurge. (The common name “spurge” comes from the Middle English/Old French word “epurge”, meaning “to purge”, because these plants were used as purgatives. (Poinsettias are spurges!) Native to Europe, introduced to North America in the 1860s as an ornamental, and is now a harmful invasive that has really colonized Charles River Peninsula.
Cypress Spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias)
A “spring ephemeral.” Has only basal leaves which wrap around the flower stalk as it begins to bloom. Then the leaves open fully as the flower withers. The flowers bloom only one or two days each, with a fragrant scent. The foliage contains a red juice (which was used by native people to make dye). It’s toxic and usually avoided by herbivores. Native to eastern North America. (This sample is in my yard, an import from the Whitesides garden in Charleston, Illinois.) Poppy family
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
This is one of the first wildflowers to appear here after Skunk Cabbage leads the way. (Photo from April 22.) It’s Lesser Celandine to distinguish from Celandine, a larger wild poppy. It follows the sun during the day and closes in cloudy or cold weather. The name Celandine is derived from the Greek word for swallow (chelidon), because the early flowering time was also when the swallows arrived (and the flowers faded when they left). It is not native, found throughout Europe and west Asia. Don’t eat it: “Unsafe in any quantity.” Buttercup family.
Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria)
Another sign of spring in Needham is that you’ll be driving along and do a doubletake because suddenly, there’s an empty lot and a backhoe where there used to be an older house and a bunch of trees. Or depending on your timing, maybe they’re sawing all the trees down, or a big machine is biting the roof off of a little house.
One by one, the little houses are replaced by big ones. Sometimes the razed houses are ugly little houses and occasionally they’re charming, large, or architecturally significant. Sometimes it’s just a big estate of mostly woods carved into a subdivision. When we moved here I assumed all the woods was the happy result of zoning and conservation, but I was wrong.
The skunk cabbage has been up for weeks. It came up through the ice and snow—skunk cabbage flowers make their own heat, so that the temperature inside the sculptural spathe is considerably warmer than the surrounding air. You can see in these shots that some of the tips got frostbitten. Now that everything is melted, this marsh looks black and primordial, with green and wine-colored fingers reaching up through the muck. Native to eastern North America.
I first heard the peepers on April 5. It’s been a long winter—last year the peeper debut was March 28, the year before was March 12. This afternoon at Ridge Hill, they were dazzlingly loud. It was fantastic. The winter forest roaring back to life!
Eastern Skunk Cabbage, Polecat Weed, Swamp Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)
Bonus picture: this is the kind of action that immediately follows sloshing around in the swamp. 
Recently spent a weekend in Vermont, driving the supply car for my motorcycle gang (!) and hiking Mt. Abraham. This calico aster was near our cabin, but it’s also common in my usual territory.
Aster family. Native. The central disk starts out pale yellow but matures to brown or red-violet–- this color variety is evidently the source of the calico name. Rays can be white or lavender-tinged. Primarily a woodland species.
Calico Aster, Starved Aster (Aster Lateriflorus)
Bonus photo: Morning clouds down in the valley. Vermont is really charming and apparently hardly anyone lives there, or at least that’s the feeling you get once you get off the highway. No wonder leaf-peeping in Vermont is so popular.
In the spring, white flowers. In the fall, red berries. (The berries can have a laxative effect. Also, apparently native people made a tea of the leaves for use as a cough medicine and a contraceptive!) Ruscus family. Native.
False Solomon’s Seal, Treacleberry, Solomon’s plume, False Spikenard (Maianthemum racemosum)
