According to the ‘official groundhog’ prediction, spring was supposed to be early and come in four weeks. Well the four weeks are up and it is snowing this morning so my groundhog was right this time, not that I wanted him to right. And since I am waiting for spring, I think this week’s theme will be search for spring wildflowers.
And while the Jack-in-the-pulpit doesn’t have bright colors, it is at least green instead of white!
Jack-in-the-pulpit
With more snow headed this way, I’m thinking more and more about summertime and some other color besides white. The Wild Geranium is a common plant of woodlands and are a later spring or early summer flower and the chipmunks love to eat the seeds. Maybe that is why I have so many chipmunks, it’s the flowers bringing them to my place.
Wild Geranium
Watching the big snowflakes coming down this morning makes me think of finding white that is not so cold and looking for white in the form of a spring flower. The Bloodroot is an eastern North American native plant and was used as a popular red natural dye by Native American artists. A break in stem would reveal the reddish sap or ‘blood’, leading to its name. The Bloodroot is often the second wildflower to appear in the spring after the Hepatica in my woods.
Native Americans, early settlers and herbal practitioners have prescribed Bloodroot for medical conditions from skin cancers to sore throats. Its most common use takes advantage of the flesh destroying properties of the root juice or powered root for treating conditions of the skin such as ringworm, moles and warts. Bloodroot is used in the mole remover Dermatend. An extract has long been used in toothpaste and mouthwash to fight plaque and gingivitis and this use is now sanctioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Finding White in the Bloodroot
It is getting harder to find bright colors as the fall continues its march to winter but occasionally some yellow dandelions or other yellow flowers might be spotted like these Butter-and-eggs also known as Common Toadflax or Yellow Toadflax. While native to Europe and other parts of the world, the Butter-and-eggs were not native to North America but have been introduced and now very common along roads ditches and disturbed lands and is considered as a weed, although sometimes cultivated for cut flowers and used in folk medicine for a variety of ailments.
Because this plant grows as a weed, it has acquired a large number of local names, including brideweed, bridewort, butter and eggs, butter haycocks, bread and butter, bunny haycocks, bunny mouths, calf’s snout, Continental weed, dead men’s bones, devil’s flax, devil’s flower, doggies, dragon bushes, eggs and bacon, false flax, flaxweed, fluellen, gallweed, gallwort, impudent lawyer, Jacob’s ladder, lion’s mouth, monkey flower, North American ramsted, rabbit flower, rancid, ransted, wild flax, wild snapdragon, wild tobacco, and yellow rod.
Like snapdragons (Antirrhinum), they are often grown in children’s gardens for the “snapping” flowers which resembles the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed thus the flower ‘snaps’ or ‘talks’.
Butter and Eggs
