WildeHerb is a collection of wild herb and wildflower sightings.
Star Toadflax, also known as Bastard Toadflax, is flowering in the woods here in south central Pennsylvania.
It’s a semi-parasitic plant native to all of North America, even Canada and Alaska. Hawaii, Louisiana and Florida are the only U. S. states that don’t report Comandra umbellata as being present. Star toadflax is a member of the Sandalwood family, Santalaceae.
Here’s something I hadn’t known about this little plant
From a distance a field of tall weedy plants looks the same regardless if the bulk of the plants are Field Peppergrass or Field Pennycress.
There are other tall roadside weeds that appear similar like Shepard’s Purse and Poor-Man’s Pepper and they’d look just as weedy from afar.
Viewing the plants up close will no doubt help in identifying them. Leaf shape and whether the leaves clasp the stem are characteristics that tell the identity of these field weeds before their seeds develop.
If seeds are present,
Early spring flowering plants include members of the broad category of roadside weeds. A lot of the time their posies aren’t recognized as “wildflowers” because of their small size.
Most of us wouldn’t take a second glance at them, but when they grow and multiply and bloom en masse they can be beautiful.
Eye of the beholder aside, you might have to get up close and personal to see what I’m talking about.
Take for instance the weedy Field Peppergrass, Lepidium campestre, which is alien to North America and a member of the Mustard Family.
On an early Spring trip to Little Buffalo State Park to see what was blooming, we drove up to the campground to check it out. As I suspected
Walking the Mill Race Trail at Little Buffalo State Park one can see many Spring-flowering plants in the months of April and May.
Miterwort, Mitella diphylla, is one of the early to mid-Spring bloomers and a member of the Saxifrage family.
Stalked basal leaves and a pair of conjoined leaves at middle of single flowering stem will easily identify miterwort.
The beautifully fringed flowers are in a terminal cluster,
Yellow violets are fairly common around the same areas where you’ll see wild ginger, skunk cabbage and other creek-side flowers.
Like other violets yellow violet flowers have five petals and a spur, so the blossoms are easily recognized as a kind of violet.
As an aid to identification violets can be separated into two groups: stemmed violets and stemless violets. Stemmed violets bear their leaves and flowers on the same erect stalk. Stemless violets have flowers and leaves on separate stalks.
After placing your violet in the stemmed or stemless categories, inspect the leaf shape and look for
In early to mid-Spring Sassafras shrubs and trees produce flowers before their leaves are fully developed.
Lemony yellow flowers cluster together near the ends of branches in roundish clumps. The clusters of blossoms can be seen from a distance against the backdrop of the browns and grays of the awakening forest.
The sexes are separate so that certain shrubs or trees will have male flowers and others will have female flowers.
Sassafras blossoms look very similar, but overall the male flowers
Skunk cabbage leaves came out of the ground preformed like rolled up cigars at least a month ago and they seem to be getting bigger by the day. Heck, they are so big now you can easily see them from the road as you’re driving.
Taking walks by the creek the last two weeks we saw many similar ‘rolled cigars’ that were just poking out of the ground, so at first we didn’t know what plant it was. The skunk cabbage leaves were already bigger than a dinner plate and obviously past their time of sprouting up out of the ground. Then, I looked down on one of the first of these plants to completely come out of the ground and knew that these spikes of vegetation were to become the aerial parts of Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum.
Usually, you’ll see the striped hoodie and three leaves when you notice this plant.
Wild Ginger is native to the Eastern U.S. and Canada and can be found blooming in early to mid-Spring. The blossoms aren’t the showy kind though. Indeed, one has to seek them out.
Most of us won’t casually notice the flowers of wild ginger because they bloom at ground level. The flowers are found blooming under the umbrella of the large heart-shaped leaves.
The short flower stem and back of one flower can be seen in the upper left and one flower is facing us on the far right. (Click on any image to see a larger view.)
The flowers of wild ginger plants are