Spring Wildflower Parade

Spring Wildflower Parade

April 2017

 Spring Beauty, Larkspur, Trillium at Ouabache Trails Park on April 7

One of the things everyone loves about springtime is flowers. Whether in gardens or the wild, it always seems to be a parade of blooms through the season.

In the woodland, the Harbinger-of-Spring (Erigenia bulbosa) heralds the season and seems to be the first domino that sets off a cascade of blooming spring ephemerals. After the canopy fills in with tree leaves, the woodland flower parade slows down considerably, just as a new cascade of blooming starts up in the sunny areas.

I am not going to extend my show here all the way back to the first Harbinger-of-Spring and the other earliest blooms, because that would be an overwhelming task for an area so rich in spring wildflowers. I will focus only on April, a transition month (these days), from various local areas.

We had a very mild winter that included an early spring-like section of time in February (the first Harbinger-of-Spring I saw in bloom was in January!) So, the march of early spring blooms began extra early. It also progressed so rapidly that I felt I was trying to grab a speeding cart to see what was in it, and I missed seeing some of the earliest blooms.

By late March some new plants were just coming up as seedlings or small plants. Some were fading - like, of course, Harbinger-of-Spring, its tiny salt-and-pepper flowers dropped - it had gone to seed and developed yellowed leaves.

Some spring flowers were in bud. A few were even just starting to bloom.

Some of the earliest, like Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) and Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata, formerly Dentaria laciniata) were still blooming through April, even at the same time they were developing seed pods on the same plant.

Spring Beauty on April 5

Cut-leaved Toothwort on April 5

April 26 - in seed

One of the earliest bloomers, False Rue Anemone (Isopyrum biternatum,) is a long-bloomer and was mostly in seed by late April, but a few straggling blooms could be found.

Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) was gone by the latter part of April.

 Spring Cress (Cardamine bulbosa,) another early but long-bloomer, here with both flowers and developing seed pods on April 7.

 White Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum) in early April. Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) had bloomed a little earlier – one of the blooms I missed – and was developing seed pods by this time.

 Another exquisitely beautiful early bloom I missed was Sharp-Lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba.)

 Wild Chervil (Chaerophyllum procumbens) with its minute blooms, was still blooming later in the month.

Smooth Rock Cress (Arabis laevigata,) an early bloomer, was starting to develop seed pods in early April. By late April the plant was completely graced with the long, sickle-shaped pods.

April 7

April 26

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is the ephemeral of ephemerals. Its exquisite creamy white flowers appeared very early with a leaf wrapped around the stem. Wind or rain can knock the petals off easily. By April this year a green seed pod was already held above the fully opened leaf, then the leaves soon obscured the pod.

Wild Ginger's (Asarum canadense) flower is practically hidden on top of the soil between the two fuzzy leaves.

In bud on April 7

Some Wild Ginger in bloom on April 7

 The fading flower of Wild Ginger in late April.

Cleavers (Galium aparine) in bloom in mid-April, and with green seeds later in the month.

In March, Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) had started to push through the leaf litter and then unfurl their umbrellas, covering sections of forest floor and giving hope to morel mushroom-hunters that it would soon be time to look for those delicacies. By early April the Mayflowers were in bud …

Home woods, April 5

… and by mid-April they were in bloom.

April 10 - Home woods: Spring Beauty, Appendaged Waterleaf and Mayapples at the bottom of a slope.

By the end of April some had developed little green “apples” that would later turn yellow.

It is always fun to watch the Trilliums rise up and bloom - another spring plant that can cover swathes of woodland. And, they are so photogenic!

April 10 - Home woods: Different stages of Prairie Trillium (Trillium recurvatum,) from first year plants (one leaf) on up.

Home woods - Prairie Trillium in bud and bloom on April 5. The species name “recurvatum” refers to the sepals, which curve down below the leaves when fully opened.

 Two pale-flowered Prairie Trillium

April 6 - Ouabache Trails Park: Toadshade Trillium (Trillium sessile) in bloom. Unlike Prairie Trillium, the sepals remain on top of the leaves. Also, the leaves are sessile, or fully attached, to the leaves, instead of having leaf stalks.

 Ouabache Trails Park - Drooping Trillium (Trillium flexipes,) late in April, but also seen in bloom a little earlier in the month.

The same is true for Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum.)

April 5 in the home woods - young and emerging plants

 Unfurled plants and the new bloom

April 21 - Home woods: Though many Jack-in-the-Pulpit spathes (the modified hood-like leaf over the flowering spadix) are green, some sport deep maroon stripes or brushes of maroon.

 A couple of Jacks.

Some Jack-in-the-Pulpit spathes were fading and dropping to the ground in early May, just before the spadix started to swell with early green fruit that would turn crimson by autumn.

Some more spring blooms:

Dwarf Larkspur (Delphinium tricorne)

April 6 - Ouabache Trails Park

In both bud and bloom on April 7

Swathes of Dwarf Larkspur - early April in Ouabache Trails Park

 Blooms were beginning to fade in late April.

Wild Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata)

Fresh, sweet-smelling blooms of early April in the home woods

With Spring Beauty, Dwarf Larkspur, and Wild Ginger in early April, Ouabache Trails Park

Some still in bud in early April

Wild Blue Phlox was still blooming at the end of the month.

Common Blue Violet (Viola sororis)

Home woods, April 5

Though more sparse in the woodland, Common Blue Violet was densely decorating my yard and gardens in mid-April. This called for the making of Blue Violet jelly.

Teatime at Hidden Yurt Homestead with Patti

I did make sure to leave plenty for the butterflies.

Very few were in bloom later in the month.

Yellow Violet (Viola pubescens)

Early April, Ouabache Trails Park

Mid-April - Home woods

Cream Violet (Viola striata) started blooming earlier in the month and was still fully blooming in mid-May.

Smooth Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) was just emerging in early April, then bearing flower buds by early May.

April 5 - just showing up

April 7 - reaching up

April 21 - Home woods

False (Starry) Solomon's Seal (Smilacina racemosa) was barely starting to bloom by the end of the month.

April 21 - Home woods – in bud

Appendaged Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum appendiculatum) had emerged by early April and had swollen flower bud clusters b mid month. I found it blooming by late April.

Home woods - early leaves of Appendaged Waterleaf are sometimes are more vividly “watermarked” than later leaves, and more deeply lobed.

April 7 - Ouabache Trails Park

April 19 - Home woods - in bud

April 26 at Ouabache Trails Park - blooming in a sunnier wetland – the ones on the shaded slopes of my home woods were still in bud

A related and very similar flower: Fernleaf Phacelia (Phacelia bipinnatifida)

April 9 - Ouabache Trails Park

Blue-Eyed Mary (Collinsia verna)

April 9 - Ouabache Trails Park

Small-Flowered Buttercup (Ranunculus abortivus) - blooming in early April.

Later, some were going to seed.

Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)

April 15 - Home woods

Sweet Cicely (Osmorhiza claytonii,) with its licorice-scented leaves, was blooming throughout April, then in seed in early May.

Butterweed (Senecio glabellus) takes over fallow farm fields in early spring, but is seen more sparsely in open, sunny spots of woodlands.

April 19 - home woods

 April 19 - Patti's woods: Bright yellow Butterweed stands out among other plants near a natural spring.

Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum) provided splashes of pretty pink in the spring woodland but had faded and gone to seed by late April.

Home woods - April 5

Another surprise splash of color to find was the Violet Wood Sorrel (Oxalis violacea,) its leaves making a bright-tasting trail snack.

April 19 - Patti's woods: Violet Wood Sorrel in the foreground, with Broad Beech ferns behind it.

The striking arrangement of Wild Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum) flowers against dark, succulent leaves appeared on slopes and overhangs.

April 26 - Ouabache Trails Park

The bell-shaped flowers of the Bladdernut shrub (Staphylea trifolia) appeared briefly in late April, to be followed by swollen green seed capsules in early May.

Paw-paw trees (Asimina triloba) had deep maroon blooms drooping from its branches in mid-April.

I am always amazed when I come upon the blooms of White Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda.) Later, these will turn to fruit resembling doll's eyes, its other common name.

April 26 - Ouabache Trails Park

Another pleasant surprise for me is to again see the Mitrewort (Mitella diphylla) in bloom – the tiny flowers resemble snowflakes. Its other common name is Bishop's Cap, because that is what the seed pods of May will resemble. I love the look of a collection of Mitrewort gracing a spit of ground.

April 26 - Ouabache Trails Park

Philadelphia Fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) was showing up in sunny spots in early April. Its stems had stretched taller by late in the month.

April 9

April 26

Also in sunny spots late in the month, but only in the wetland, Pink Valerian (Valeriana pauciflora was opening its inflorescence of pink fireworks.

April 26 - Ouabache Trails Park

This was, by no means, all of the spring blooms I saw at three local areas (my home woods, my friend Patti's woods, and Ouabache Trails Park.) By the end of April there were more plants in bud as well as some just emerging, and some more gaining height before later blooms. Add to this the many types of flowering catkins dropped by the trees overhead (many knocked down by wind and rain) and the various trees, shrubs and vines yet to bloom.

Pink Valerian was one of the earliest blooms in the more open, sunny areas, particularly in the wetland. Many of the wetland plants would be blooming in early to late summer (Jewelweed, Pokeweed, Common Boneset, Late Figwort, Honewort, Wood Nettles, Monkeyflower, Water Plantain – to name a very few.)

And the unusual, elegant Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) would send up its long, skinny, spathe and spadix in May.

April 21 - Home woods

The parade will go on, and I do hope I will be able to keep up with it all!

Home woods: Dwarf Larkspur, Mayapples and Prairie Trillium in the home woods in mid-April.