The first wildflower in my woods finally opened yesterday but its head was bent over like it had the weight of the world on its shoulder which was probably just the weight of snow from the prior days. The poor flower has a break today before more snow can make it bend over again.
First Hepatica of Spring
I might be just as prickly as this dried up wild cucumber pod as I watch the snow falling outside. Spring is supposed to be here and winter over but winter won’t go away so the critters and birds are probably feeling as prickly as me too.
Prickly Wild Cucumber
The first spring wildflower has emerged, although I had to travel two hours south to see it. In wetland areas, the skunk cabbage flower buds can warm up to 70 degrees, which thaws the ground and melts the snow to allow them to be one of the first wildflowers to bloom in early spring.
The flowers of the skunk cabbage appear before the leaves and the maroon hood is the spathe and the many petal-less flowers form the spiky spadix. The spathe opens more when the flower matures to allow more pollinators access. Its name comes from its unpleasant odor it emits to attract pollinators that are attracted to rotting meat. The scent is especially noticeable when the plant is bruised.
The Smelly Skunk Cabbage
More bare ground is peeking through as the warmer temperature overnight is helping to melt the snow, but still no wildflower to be seen for a while – pink or white ones. The Indian Pipe flower would be hard to spot amongst the snow.
Indian Pipes in White
There was no way to miss the new white snow coating on my cement this morning, but it would be easy to overlook these little white flowers, especially when the flower is only an eighth to a quarter of an inch across. The Thyme-leaf Speedwell is often hidden in grass and may only catch your eye when there is a larger group white showing.
Tiny Thyme-leaf Speedwell
The yellow water lily blossom never opens fully like the white water lilies and that is like how the sun was today, it was out but didn’t feel that warm in the below zero temperatures. A new coating of snow covered the already iced-over pond so no swirling ripples on the surface or lilies to be seen.
Yellow Water Lilies
Three months ago the white bracts surrounding the greenish blossoms of the Bunchberry covered the banks by the lake. It gets a red round berry in the fall but I haven’t been back to the same spot to see if any ripened or if they are good tasting and the chipmunk eaten them all like they do with my raspberries. Cornus canadensis, in the dogwood family, is native to the northern half of North America.
The bunchberry is incapable of self-pollination, so it needs insects that rapidly move from flower to flower. Bunchberry stamens are designed like miniature medieval trebuchets – specialized catapults that maximize throwing distance by having the payload (pollen in the anther) attached to the throwing arm (filament) by a hinge or flexible strap. This motion takes place in less than half a millisecond and the pollen experiences two to three thousand times the force of gravity.
The Bunchberry has one of the fastest plant actions found so far requiring a camera capable of shooting 10,000 frames per second to catch the action so since my camera isn’t capable of catching the catapult action, I will just have to take the still blossom pictures (and maybe some berries if the chipmunks leave any).
Catapulting Bunchberry
One of the later summer flowers adding a splash of color in prairies and open areas is the purple coneflower and is a favorite of butterflies and bees (and apparently other beetles too). It was widely used medicinal plant of the Plains Indians.
Purple Coneflower
The flower may be orange, but the fruit is a pale green pods which “explode” at the slightest touch, scattering the seeds in all directions, hence the name “touch me not”. The Spotted Touch-me-not is a native plant (and this time was transported to parts of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries).
The plant is also known as Jewelweed and Orange Jewelweed – a reference to the way the spotted blossoms hand like a pendent jewel and leaves appear to be silver or ‘jeweled’ when held underwater. The wildflower is important nectar plants for hummingbirds and the stems also contain a juice that can relieve the sting from Poison Ivy or Stinging Nettle.
Spotted Touch-Me-Not
Another ‘escapee’ from home gardens is the Deptford Pink, which some consider to be an invasive plant and is found in all but three states of the United States. A native of England, and it gets its name from a town in the south of England, Deptford, in a case of mistaken identity. The plant was given its English name by the 17th century herbalist Thomas Johnson, who found and described the similar Maiden Pink in Deptford in 1633. As the first name given to a plant is generally the one botanists stick to, the town near London is ‘famous’ for a species that has not grown there in historical times, and possibly not at all.
And while Deptford Pink, with tiny blossoms only about a third of an inch across, seems to be thriving in North American (although this year with the raining summer, most of them in my lawn are getting mowed off), the native European wildflower has been rapidly decreasing in Britain, now classified as vulnerable and protected in its natural habitat.
Deptford Pink Who Shouldn’t Be a Deptford
