Category Archives: Wildflowers

Chickweed

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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)

Skunk cabbage is the first

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skunk cabbage 1 We first noticed the skunk cabbage emerging on February 16. Even though there had been a blizzard and there was snow everywhere else, this is a protected swampy spring-fed area, and the shoots were emerging up through the ooze, looking very primordial and eager to get on with it. This is their bloom, before they leaf out later in spring. From Wikipedia: “Eastern Skunk Cabbage has contractile roots which contract after growing into the earth. This pulls the stem of the plant deeper into the mud, so that the plant in effect grows downward, not upward. Each year, the plant grows deeper into the earth, so that older plants are practically impossible to dig up.” (I started this blog with photos from this location last March.)

Eastern Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Skunk cabbage in muck

Skunk cabbage first appearance: Feb 16, 2013

Bonus picture: except for down in the swamp, the snow blanket prevails.

Ridge Hill in the Snow

Black Cohosh

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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)

Thin-leaved Sunflower

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Near the aqueduct bridge. I include the leaf picture to show how much the leaf helps in identification. You can see the leaves are directly opposite each other (instead of alternate). Also they have toothed edges. The really distinctive thing about them is that in addition to that central dividing line (the midrib), they have two prominent veins running somewhat parallel to the midrib. That seems to be a consistent characteristic among sunflowers. This variety is only 2-5 feet tall. Native. Aster family.

Thin-leaved Sunflower (Helianthus decapetalus)

Seaside Goldenrod

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Flowers from August through November. Bigger flowerheads than most goldenrods. Aster family. Native.

Seaside Goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens)

Spangle Grass

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These are the flower heads. They turn bronze in the fall, and yellow in winter. Pretty stuff — can be dried. Note there is a spring flower that’s also called wild oats (sessile bellwort). Native.

Spangle Grass, Northern Sea Oats, Wild Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium)

Thin-leaved Coneflower

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Related to Black-eyed Susan (both a kind of coneflower), but generally with smaller flower heads. Composite family. Native.

Thin-leaved Coneflower (Rudbeckia triloba)

Tall Ironweed

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These buds are especially interesting, so densely packed. My sources are conflicting about differentiating between the different kind of ironweed, so I’m afraid this is just my best guess, based on the bract form and leaf shape. (Let’s just enjoy the look of it, whatever it is…) Composite family. Native perennial.

Tall Ironweed (Vernonia altissima)

Wreath Goldenrod

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A.F. Irit thought this would make a good wreath, and that turns out to be the name of this goldenrod, one of the few varieties that has the flowers in clusters near the stem like this, and not in terminal clusters. You can see that the stem is blue-gray, inspiring the other name. Native.

Wreath Goldenrod, Blue-Stemmed Goldenrod (Solidago caesia)

Bonus pictures: this plant is near a high aqueduct bridge which overlooks a tributary to the Charles River. The bridge is covered with graffiti…

 

Milkweed seeds

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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…