I saw this and wondered if somebody stuck their gum on there. But no, it’s slime mold! This is the young stage. As it ages, it becomes purplish and then brown and repulsive when mature. Inedible. (As if!) Slime molds don’t penetrate into the wood to draw nutrition. They are more like amoebas which move around on the surface of the wood engulfing bits of organic matter.
Red Raspberry Slime (Tubifera ferruginosa)
Sometimes there’s a non-wildflower item that demands notice! In our woods, there were several of these big ruffly fungi all growing around an old tree stump (my hand added for scale). I took these July 21; now they’ve pretty much withered, darkened and disappeared. I’m finding fungus identification difficult — there are many that look similar to me, and there can apparently be lots of variation within a species. That said, I think this is a Giant Polypore — can get to be 30 inches in diameter.
Giant Polypore, Black-staining Polypore (Meripilus giganteus)
I thought I had discovered a new kind of Indian Pipe; instead of ghostly white and nodding, they have upright heads and are pink and black — kind of a zombie form of normal Indian Pipe. But it turns out this is just regular Indian Pipe as it matures–they sometimes turn pink after fertilization. Then each flower turns into a big seed capsule that eventually splits open and releases seeds. Then the whole plant turns black. Indian Pipe family. Native.
Indian Pipe, Ghost Plant, Corpse Plant (Monotropa uniflora)
This is a case of a shockingly fast-moving invasive, Common Dodder. Last year, it was not in this location, and this year, suddenly it’s draping and strangling a fairly large area — very striking. It looks like a great load of angelhair pasta ladled out on the landscape. But if you look closely, it’s twined tightly around the stems of the host plants.
The first thing we noticed about it is that it has no leaves, and at first, no flowers — just a thin yellow vine. They’re annuals that grow from seeds every year. The seed germinates in the spring and must find a host. The seedlings find a host by slowly waving their stems in a clockwise direction until they feel a plant to grab! They twine on and have specialized “roots” that digest their way through the host’s stem and establish a vascular system between the two plants so that the dodder can suck its nutrition right out of the host (since dodder has basically no chlorophyll and no roots that go into the ground for feeding itself). When the connection with the host is established, the lower part of the dodder dies and there is no connection with the ground at all. And it grows and grabs other nearby plants, usually not killing them but weakening them.
In summer, they put on tiny white flowers and then fruits containing seeds which can lay dormant for up to 5 years, waiting for the right time to pop! The seeds in the ground appear to wait if a good host (they have preferences) is not nearby. (What!?) It’s on the USDA’s list of 10 most problematic weeds.
Alert Flowerophile Donna has contacted the trails commission to let them know (and I did too). We hope they come collect it out of there because it has made such inroads in only one year, I would hate to see the long-term effect on this field full of so many wildflower varieties. Destroy!
Dodder, Hellbind, Goldthread, Stranglevine, Angel’s Hair, Witch’s Shoelaces (Cuscuta gronovii)
My original plan for the blog was to photograph all the local wildflowers as they came into bloom and post them right away so that I would have a good record of the flowers with information about them and their blooming times. I was thinking I would do this multiple years and keep track of trends in the blooming time. That year we had a freakishly warm winter which really had me wondering how the plants would be affected. It was a big job; some days I’d barely walk out the door and I would see 10 new kind of things blooming. Plus I didn’t know what anything was and it took me a while to get efficient at identifying the flowers.
This spring I started out with the same plan, but I have been out of town so many weeks that I fell hopelessly far behind. So my new plan is to continue to photograph new discoveries and write about them, and when the growing season is over, I’ll create a good index to make this a more useful tool for Massachusetts wildflower identification. And post interesting flower photos when I have them. That’s the new plan.
Common Milkweed, Butterfly flower, Silkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
One of North America’s most poisonous plants, and it’s growing right on the corner by our house. You don’t even have to ingest it; it’s poisonous to taste. Many recorded deaths of people, and apparently it kills a lot of grazing livestock. Can grow to 8 feet tall. Parsley family. Native.
Water Hemlock, Cowbane, Poison Parsnip (Cicuta maculata)
Okay, when you’re identifying wildflowers, one clue is the positioning of the leaves: are they opposite each other as they climb the stem? Do they alternate? Or do the leaves encircle (whorl) the stem? It’s easy to see the whorled leaves on this plant, and the distinctive way the flowers radiate from the axils. Can be about three feet tall. Native. Primrose family.
Whorled Loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia)
This is not a pretty picture, but at least you can get the idea of what Stinging Nettle looks like — the greenish flowers are on long droopy spikes (racemes) coming out of the axils (where the leaves are attached). Leaves are opposite and coarsely toothed. The stem and the undersides of the leaves have bristly hairs which cause painful stings if they touch your skin. It feels similar to a bee sting and is caused by an acid that covers the hairs. Stinging Nettle has also been used medicinally for thousands of years — stems, leaves, and root. Native, but also common around the world. (Photo taken June 25, 2013)
Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)
The young shoots are edible… but when young, there is a highly toxic plant that looks very much like it. So maybe let’s not eat it. Produces little fruits that turn red in late summer. And just to remember — It’s evidently called False because the leaf is similar to Smooth Solomon’s Seal, but true Solomon’s Seal has pendular blossoms. Ruscus family. Native. (Photo taken June 4, 2013)
False Solomon’s Seal, Treacleberry, Solomon’s plume, False Spikenard (Maianthemum racemosum)
I was going to a conservation area in Dover that I hadn’t visited in a long time, accidentally took the wrong road and happened across a small wood I hadn’t been to, which had this beautiful little flower. This is the first time I’ve seen it and in fact I thought maybe it was some kind of escaped domestic; it’s reminiscent of squill. But it’s wild! Native. Lily family. (Photo taken June 3, 2013.)
Yellow Star Grass, Common Goldstar (Hypoxis hirsuta)