Category Archives: Centennial Park, Wellesley MA

White Joe Pye Weed

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Back to Centennial when the temperature was about 95. I don’t have a closeup of this plant because it’s out in the poison ivy field, but it’s about 8 feet tall, and even from a distance you can see the distinctive leaf structure. They’re wilted from the heat and drought I presume, but you can see that it’s several leaves encircling the central stalks (“whorled leaves”). The only giant plant I can find with that leaf is Joe Pye Weed, usually pink, but evidently there are white variations. Who was Joe Pye? It seems he was a colonial-era New England herbalist/doctor (Native American, in some versions) who  famously used this weed to stop an epidemic of typhus. Native. Aster family.

White Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium)

Field Bindweed

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Creates dense mats that choke out other plants. Probably introduced accidentally with crop seed in the 1700s. Native to Europe, Asia. Morning Glory family.

Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Naked-flowered Tick Trefoil

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Quite a lot of this grows in the shady woodlands at Centennial and at Noanet. Tall spikes over trifoliate compound leaves. Wild turkeys like the seeds. Pea family.

Naked-flowered Tick Trefoil (Desmodium nudiflorum)

Great Burdock

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These can get to be 9 feet tall. All parts were used medicinally — leaves, roots, flowers, and seeds. One way to distinguish it from common burdock is that the flowers are on little stalks, whereas in common burdock the flowers cluster directly on the main stem. Aster family. Native to Europe, Asia. Cultivated in Japan because they like to eat it, especially the roots, julienned and braised with a sauce or pickled in sushi, or as a snack chip.

Great Burdock, Beggar’s Buttons (Arcticum lappa)

Bonus: Most of these are purple, but there was also a white one:

Liatris

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Drought tolerant and a favorite of butterflies. Native. Aster family.

Liatris, Blazing Star, Gay Feather, Button Snakeroot (Liatris)

Bouncing Bet

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There is a big stand of this at Centennial and I would have called it phlox, but it’s actually called Bouncing Bet or Soapwort. The leaves contain a natural soap. You can lather up with crushed leaves! Must try this. Pink family. Native to Europe.

Bouncing Bet, Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis)

Purple Bergamot

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This is flowering in the field of wonders (at Wilson), but I took this at Centennial and it’s in better focus. Mint family. Native.

Purple Bergamot (Monarda media)

Hedge Mustard

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I took this picture a few weeks ago when it first bloomed, but couldn’t identify it until recently, now that it is a couple of feet taller and has developed distinctive narrow seed capsules (siliques) that vertically hug the stem. I should take new pictures. In Europe it’s cultivated as food, for the leaves and the seeds which can be ground into mustard paste. Used as a condiment particularly in northern Europe. Also, was used to soothe sore throats, and called Singer’s Plant. Family Brassicaceae. Native of Europe and North Africa.

Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium officinale)

Catalpa tree

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A deciduous tree with big heart-shaped leaves and showy clusters of white orchid-like flowers. In the fall will have foot-long brown seed pods. Native. It’s planted as an ornamental, but I kept seeing them in weedy places where they obviously arrived on their own, so I’ve counted them here as wild blooms.

From Wikipedia: The name derives from the Catawba Native American name catawba for these trees (the tribal totem), with the spelling catalpa being due to a transcription error on the part of the describing botanist (Scopoli) making the first formal scientific description of the genus. The rules of botanical naming state that the spelling used in the formal scientific description has to be retained for the scientific name. The name in vernacular use has very largely (though not completely) followed Scopoli’s erroneous transcription, with catawba still in use in some areas of the United States, most particularly within the trees’ native range.

The bean-like seed pod is the origin of the alternative vernacular names Indian bean tree and cigar tree for Catalpa bignonioides and Catalpa speciosa, respectively.

Trumpet Vine family.

Catalpa, Catawba (Catalpa)

Elderberry

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This is a stand of tall plants (about 7 or 8 feet tall) out in a big bramble of swamp roses and blackberries and poison ivy. I waded out into it but this is as close as I could get before it was just too thorny. From this distance, I could see the leaves well enough to make an identification: Elderberry!

Will produce black berries that are used to make wine and jelly. The berries are bitter–safe to eat, but the other parts can induce cyanide poisoning. Used medicinally for centuries. The branches are used to make flutes in eastern Europe. And in some regions, tradition prevents the cutting of elderberry trees for bonfires: “Elder be the Lady’s tree; burn it not or cursed ye’ll be.” Native.

Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)