Category Archives: White

Visiting the Whiteside Garden in Illinois

Posted on by
4

That Illinois flat agricultural landscape is a beautiful thing when you’re looking at it from a little plane. Here’s the descent, through the clouds, to seeing details of the homesteads surrounded by oceans of soybean fields and corn fields… with evidence of recent flooding.

DSC_0003DSC_0008 DSC_0010 DSC_0009

We always go visit Dr. Whiteside’s giant and fabulous garden in Charleston. At this time of year, many magnolias were in bloom…

DSC_0059_magnoliaBut mainly I loved all the wildflowers. They were just rampant, they were deliriously happy and vigorous. Here are a few I don’t think I’ll be seeing around Needham: the spring beauties, big bunch of trillium, bluebells, dutchman’s breeches, and a double form of bloodroot that looked like some kind of water lily or lotus.

DSC_0071 DSC_0068 DSC_0065 DSC_0039

DSC_0053

When we were ready to leave, I went to say goodbye to Dr. Whiteside, who was out working in the garden. I asked him about that last one, what was that lovely thing… and he asked would I like a specimen for my garden and of course I would! So we tromped back to that section and he dug up this double bloodroot… and four kinds of european anemone  (single and double white, a blue, and a pale blue), and while we were back there I admired a purple larkspur… so he gave me some of that… and a himalayan maidenhair fern. I felt kind of bad that he was going to so much work for me… but then it seemed like it was kind of his idea and maybe he just really enjoys sharing his garden. (Thanks to Alert Flowerophile Marilyn for grabbing my camera and following us around as Dr. Whiteside so generously dug up all kinds of things he thought I would like to grow.) Photos: April 22.

DSC_0089_Dr. Whiteside

I told him I was flying home. He said no problem, just wrap them in wet newspaper. So my carry-on was a bag of soil and plants. I just smiled a lot at security.

DSC_0103

Common Blue Violet

Posted on by
2

White violets

The violets parade has begun! These were the first I saw, a drift of white violets on the edge of the woods. There are a lot of violet varieties … it appears that this is Common Blue Violet which is a variable species that can occur as white or as in this case, white smudged with lavender. They are native.

Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)

Hairy Bittercress

Posted on by
1

Hairy BittercressOne of the tiny first flowers to appear in spring. With one of the best names. An edible bitter herb native to Europe and Asia; in North America it’s considered an invasive weed. “Habitats with a history of disturbance are preferred.” (Well put, Illinoiswildflowers.com!) Mustard family.

Hairy Bittercress, Hoary Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta)

Chickweed

Posted on by
Reply

Chickweed

Tiny… and the first wildflower I’ve spotted since the Skunk Cabbage. You can see it has five deeply-notched petals, so it looks like ten cute white bunny ears, as the botanists say. Non-native and somewhat invasive. Alert Flowerophile Donna points out: “I was just looking at last year’s entries … Definitely chickweed, creeping charlie and marsh marigolds. .. The thing was the DATES … All I’ve mentioned you have listed as appearing last year in March … The chickweed, if I remember right, was March 19th!  Of course, I’m pretty sure there was SNOW on the ground this year on the 19th of March. I am going to be very interested to see if the dates continue to be a few weeks off or whether they somehow “catch up.”  I guess I’m telling you this in order to memorialize my interest in the sequence of the flowers appearance…”

Common Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Snow blanket on the purple loosestrife

Posted on by
3

Blizz2013river_tonemappedloosestrifemallow1Alert Flowerophile Sybil inquired about when I would start posting again. I’m thinking it will be awhile before we see any wildflowers… but here’s a comparison view: a bend in the Charles River, Dover MA at sunset after our most recent giant blizzard (Feb. 9, 2013) and how it looked back on Aug. 6, 2012.

Bonus picture: deer out foraging on that same evening, after about a day and a half when all creatures just had to hunker down and wait for the weather to ease up.

Blizz2013_deer

Giant Puffball

Posted on by
Reply

A giant puffball grows in our back yard every fall. When I first noticed it, it had just emerged from the ground and was the size of a baby’s fist. (September 26)

By October 1, just 5 days later, it was the size of a brain. We let it get a little bigger (3 more day’s worth of growth), and then picked it.

The consistency of the raw mushroom is like an especially dense, moist marshmallow. And there looks to be no circulatory system — they’re just solid white.

They were very good cooked — kind of like mozzarella sticks, melty and creamy. We also seared and froze some for later.

They’re edible only when young (when the inside is still pure white). Mature ones are greenish brown inside. All the spores are inside there — can be trillions of spores inside a single puffball. Native. Lycoperdaceae family.

Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea)

Black Cohosh

Posted on by
Reply

These are tall and beautiful right now. The books say they have a bad fetid smell, but to me it just smells like a sweet floral — very nice today perfuming the air after rain. Up to 8 feet tall. A variety of bugbane. Has long been used medicinally to treat practically everything, and currently is popular for treating problems associated with menopause (but its actual effectiveness is uncertain). Native to eastern North America. Buttercup family.

Black Cohosh, Bugbane, Black Snakeroot, Fairy Candle (Cimicifuga racemosa)

Milkweed seeds

Posted on by
Reply

The milkweed is moving on to seeds. The pods are splitting and spilling. This great meadow is full of milkweed, but I never noticed any monarch caterpillars or chrysalises…

Pilewort

Posted on by
Reply

The good thing about being a neglectful gardener is, suddenly you discover a robust new weed right in your own yard. (Actually, I guess not everyone would consider that a good thing.) I had been waiting for this to bloom, but as it turns out, for pilewort, this is full bloom. Also called fireweed because it likes disturbed areas, especially where there’s been a fire. Animals avoid eating it because the foliage is bitter and bad-smelling. Composite family. Native annual.

Pilewort, Fireweed (Erechtites hieracifolia)

Small White Aster

Posted on by
Reply

The flowers similar to other asters, but this variety is loaded with flowers all along the little branches. Native.

Small White Aster (Symphyotrichum racemosum)