The temperature outside finally got above 50 but with only a few patches of ground showing in my yard, there were no signs of dandelions blooming or even leaves sprouting up. So I couldn’t give my mom her yellow birthday flowers this year.
No Dandelions
With snow waist deep this week, it is hard to remember that wildflowers have been found some years in March. It doesn’t look like it will happen this year and it is a guess when the first Hepatica blossoms will be spotted in the woods.
Hepaticas Not Found Yet
The yellow ball was in the sky today, but it didn’t feel like the sun was throwing much more heat than these yellow round blooms of common tansy. The tansy is very invasive, just like the cold air the last few days.
Golden Buttons
After more snowflakes this morning, the sun poked out for a while on this cold day. The poor inside plants haven’t seen much sunshine this winter, but seeing a wild rose outside is still a half year away.
Wild Rose Wait
The early morning sunshine and warmer temperatures did melt some of the snow before it clouded up today, but the bare patches of ground won’t reveal any springtime flowers yet. Like many wildflowers, this flower has many common names including yellow adder’s tongue, in reference to the tongue-like shape of the flowering shoot which is suppose to resemble the open mouth of a snake. Another common name is yellow trout lily because the green leaves mottled with brown look like the coloring of a brook trout.
Yellow Adder’s Tongue
The trees remained white today from the frost although sometimes they were “snowing” when the wind picked up. Swamp milkweed, green scenery and seeing a monarch butterfly floating by instead of frost will not reappear for another six months.
Monarch on Milkweed
The sun was hiding again today so some leaves and flowers provided the missing yellow colors. Although these yellow common tansy provide pretty color in the fall, they are another invasive species from Eurasia. Tansy has a long history of use. It was first recorded as being cultivated by the ancient Greeks for medicinal purposes. It is also known as bitter buttons, cow bitter, or golden buttons.
Common Tansy
The drizzle and fog hung around all day so it wasn’t bright and sunny out although the Yellow Toadflax (or Butter and Eggs) do add a little yellow sunshine even on a cloudy day. But these wildflowers are not native to the area and are considered an invasive species but they are pretty.
Yellow Toadflax
A month has passed by since the normal blooming date of the lesser purple fringed orchid so it appears my one lone orchid did not survive the harsh winter and it may be another 30 years before I spot another one. A new tuber is produced at the base of the stem each year and remains dormant until next spring. The tuber is the only part of the plant which survives the winter and produces a new aerial stem in the summer. But with the lack of snow cover early in the winter to provide some insulation, the cold winter temperatures may have kill my only fringed orchid tuber so there was no dancing purple blossoms this year.
Missing the Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid
The sun had a bit of an orange color at sunset, but otherwise the day was mostly gray without a blue sky as a backdrop to the colorful Spotted Touch-me-not. When the ripe pods are touched, they explode outward and that characteristic is where the name ‘touch-me-not’ comes from.
Spotted Touch-me-not
