Three years ago, we had an early spring and some wildflowers were open on the first day of spring like the hepaticas. I haven’t spotted any yet this ‘spring’ so I will have to do a little more trekking around the woods today to see if any opened for the arrival of spring.
Arrival of Spring
My weather predicting rodent says that snow has melted as he had been on top of rocks and stumps scouting this morning. It is the first appearance of the chipmunks and a sign spring is coming. But he kept looking towards my porch as I think he wants me to get my flower and garden pots out so he can dig the dirt out and uproot my flowers and eat my garden seeds.
Chipmunk Sees No Snow
Even if a flower managed to jump up through the frozen ground and snow, it would freeze rather stiff this sunny morning since it was -18ºF so no pretty flowers to look at for a while yet like these Viola tricolors, also called Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me or Johnny jump ups.
Johnny Hasn’t Jump Up Yet
“On the Ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me Nine Ladies Dancing.” I am too much of a country kid to appreciate the culture of ballet ladies dancing in leotards with pink ballet slippers. I much rather see pink lady’s slippers in a different form, one that you would see in the woods in the spring (whenever the snow melts again). A member of the orchid genus, Cypripedium acaule, is commonly called Pink Lady’s Slipper.
Nine Ladies Slippers
Normally when the snow disappears, I would be out looking for the early wildflowers, but since it is just a fluke in the weather pattern which caused the winter snow to melt temporarily, there won’t be a chance to spot a blooming flower, not for several months yet. You might get lucky to find some foliage still somewhat green or a dry bull thistle head (which a kitten found and was proudly carrying in its mouth).
Still Have to Wait
I love the spring wildflowers, even if I prefer more colorful wildflowers than a Bloodroot, but even now the early white flower would be a welcome surprise rather than seeing just white snow on the ground.
Waiting for the Bloodroot
A late spring flower is often missed since it is not a large, showy flower but instead a small, white blob near the ground. Resembling cat’s feet, Field Pussytoes are a member of the Aster family and found in the eastern half of the United States. Found in rocky areas with sandy poor soils and grazed pastures in areas where Hawkweeds are found (and the Hawkweeds are blooming now).
Field Pussytoes
Some wildflowers were not able to put on a show this year, especially my trilliums which the deer devoured on me, but the Jack-in-the-Pulpit are out in full force this year and the deer must not like the taste of them and a good reason for it since the leaves are poisonous. But the flower is a weird looking plant and what we think is the flower is really deep inside and at the bottom of the ‘pulpit’, as the pulpit is the spathe and the ‘minister’ is a spadix. The true flowers are located at the very base of the spadix.
The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are also unusual since each plant has a particular sex instead of having both parts on the plant. The male has little anthers at the base of the ‘Jack’ and females have a cluster of green berries, which turn red in the fall.
Even though separate male and female flowers, pollination does occur with a bit of trickery as the ‘pulpit’ produces the smell of mushroom to attract tiny insects. And since the hood blocks the sunlight and the lower part of the pulpit is paler and lets more light in so the insects move down to the light and picks up or drops off pollen.
The flower will also change sex from year to year as the female takes more resources to produce the baby plants, so if the plant’s corm was able to store a lot of food, then it will be a female plant the next spring and shoot up two leaves. Otherwise with less nutrients, the plant will be a male (as he doesn’t have as much work to do producing pollen), and send up only one leaf. In really bad years or young plants, there will be no ‘pulpit’ and just a single leaf instead.
The Odd Jack-in-the-Pulpit
The Nodding Trilliums are blooming, although it is easy to miss the blossoms since they hang under the leaves. But hiding under the leaves, don’t always protect them from the deer seeing them and eating the plant. And it is hard to get a picture of the blossoms since have to get down and look up. Trillium cernuum is also known as Nodding Wakerobin and Whip-poor-will flower. The Drooping Trillium is very similar and hard to tell the ‘drooping’ ones from the ‘nodding’ ones.
Nodding Trillium
Monday brings another start of a work week but the male Eastern Bluebird has his work done building a nest for his new family already. He brings a couple pieces of building material to the nesting box and goes in and out and fluttering his wings and catches the eye of a female to his nesting site. After that the female does all the work, building the nest with grasses and pine needles. I noticed the male would inspect her progress every once in a while and she would have to push him in the butt when he was blocking the hole while she was making her numerous trips for material. He even dropped a pine needle back outside after he went inside once and I wondered if he got scolded for messing up her work.
Male Bluebird Inspector
