WildeHerb is a collection of wild herb and wildflower sightings.
Plant Sightings
Plant sightings is the main focus of wildeherb. Plants native to North America, and especially the Northeastern United States and Pennsylvania, are found, identified, observed and photographed to become part of a living diary about our plant friends, new and old.
The Hummel Nature Trail in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania is a wide, gravel-covered trail that follows the Swatara Creek for a short distance. The footing seems easy enough for anyone and the distance to the trail is a short one from the parking lot next to a baseball diamond. The trail is very popular as a dog walk and nature trail.
The low lands next to the creek are home of an awesome display of Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginica, in mid to late April. Photos taken 18 April 2011.
Bluebells in a mudflat next to the creek.Bluebell flower buds will turn light pink as they open and then turn to blue.Bluebells showing flowers getting ready to open.
Spring beauties, Claytonia virginica, can be seen in many places along the trail. Spring-beauty has small, five-petaled white flowers that rise up only a few inches off the ground. The plant is a trailing one with long, wide, grass-like leaves. Several flowers bloom in succession on one plant.
Spring beauty flowers as it creeps along the forest floor.Spring beauty blooms are more delicate in appearance than their thick, linear leaves.
Take a walk along a creek near you or find a trail in a nearby park. Leave us a comment if you find Virginia Bluebells or Spring Beauty.
One of my favorite spring ephemeral flowers makes an appearance in woodlands of the Eastern United States during April. Hepatica americana, or just hepatica, is a perennial spring-flowering plant.
Hepatica is a Spring Ephemeral because the plant grows, flowers and completes its life-cycle before the tree canopy is filled in with leaves. Once that happens the amount of sunlight reaching the forest floor is nil. Most plants won’t be able to receive enough sunlight in the woods, but the Spring Ephemerals start out early enough to prosper.
White flowers of Hepatica americana open in the sunshine.
Check out some other hepatica pictures in the video below:
Hepatica is a delicate woodland flower with white, pink or lavender flowers that open in the sunshine. The purple to maroon flower stalks have long, soft hairs. Petals appear long with rounded tips. Stamens are cream-colored and of different lengths.
Hepatica leaves are larger than the flowers and usually have three rounded lobes, reminiscent of Mickey Mouse Ears. The leaves tend to lay flat on the ground, often hiding among the leaf litter.
Coltsfolt was in full bloom in the sun yesterday, yet hardly noticeable the previous few cloudy days. The first I saw it blooming this year was on 15 April.
Spring continues to bring out the posies. In the flower beds the crocus blooms are dying back and the anemones and hyacinths are taking their turns blooming. Tulips are still making leaves and starting to push up their flowers. Forsythia buds grew out last week to first blossom on 14 April.
Red-spotted newts were seen floating around in the pond, too!
Another plant showing the elevation effect on bloom time is a Star Magnolia on our ridge. It had half-opened three or four blossoms on 15 April, while another one down in the valley was in full bloom on the same day.
Now that we’re almost a third of the way into Spring, the dandelions are out. This past weekend the first dandelion flower was picked. Once the dandelions show their happy faces, it’s notable for kicking off the lawn care season. Some people can’t stand to see the bright yellow flowers “messing up” their yards. We don’t mind them and prefer to leave things in more of a natural state.
Grass is starting to get long enough to cut in some areas and the downed wood from winter and windy spring weather has to be picked up. Gardening activities can resume when the weather allows, but the early spring salads have already been enjoyed. Including dandelion!
Ham and dandelion dinners are common around these parts in the week or two just before Easter. The idea is to pick the leaves before the blossoms emerge because then they are too bitter to enjoy. A fellow who was involved with making ham-n-dandelion dinner for 300 people admitted that his group buys the dandelion commercially. I’m sure there are a lot of country people and Amish that pick their own dandelion leaves.
Dandelion salad is a leafy salad with a hot dressing. Hot bacon dressing gives a nice flavor and wilts the greens just enough to soften them a little…a real Spring time treat.
April weather can be very exciting. On the first of April it snowed on our mountain ridge, to be followed in two weeks time by record high temperatures!
Sometimes the plants don’t know what to do and put off growing or blooming until the conditions are better. My photos from last Spring show that we’re about a week to 10 days behind last year’s blooming times. Those that flower first in April are likely to be dusted with snow or harmed by a frost. Spring bulbs don’t seem to mind though.
Crocus flowers covered by snow in April.
Cold hardy crocuses can take the cold and the snow. These flowers were in bloom another week after this photo was snapped. Photo taken 1 April 2011.
In the woods I think the hepatica has been waiting for a little sun to open its flowers. The past week was rather cloudy and wet, until Thursday when the temperature rose up to record highs in central Pennsylvania. Harrisburg hit 84 degrees. People were outside everywhere!
Hepatica blossoms blooming in the sunshine.
The nice weather has really brought in the feeling of Spring, where you want to be outside and feel the breeze on your face and the warm sun on your skin. Enjoy it and look around – you never know what you’ll find!
In central Pennsylvania the elevation of the Appalachian Mountains delays the blooming times of many plants. Traveling around the Ridge and Valley Province you can see the mountain ridges look bare as the trees haven’t leafed out yet. They still have the brown and grey barren appearance of Winter. As the temperatures warm and the days get longer the trees will burst forth with their greenery.
We're located in the Ridge and Valley Province of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania.
The trees are not yet leafing out on our ridge top, nor are they leafing out down in town near the Juniata River, which is more than three hundred feet lower in elevation. Soon, we’ll be able to see the trees in the valley leaf out and the trees on the mountain ridges will still be holding onto their winter buds. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to see the progression of the trees awakening as their green colors rise up the mountains.
A short distance in longitude can make all the difference in the kinds of plants that are blooming in late March and early April. We took a weekend drive of a couple hundred miles and saw that we’re a bit behind in blooming compared to places south of us.
About 40 miles south we saw the redness of maple leaves developing but otherwise the landscape still appeared barren. Driving further south we saw forsythia in bloom as we crossed the state line into Maryland. In this region the daffodils or narcissus were already blooming.
By the time we got down to central Virginia, in the Piedmont Region, many of the spring-flowering ornamental and fruit trees were in bloom, including crabapples, pears and cherries. The redbuds along Route 64 were blooming, too. The first bloomers were already dropping petals and developing their leaves.
In flower beds the bulbs were showing their pretty colors along with moss phlox. A lone azalea bush was spotted in bloom, too. Henbit, dandelions, violets and purple dead nettle were some of the yard weeds blooming in the south, but not yet in the north.
There are no specific rules regarding the blooming times of plants. Each individual plant has several factors affecting its flowering time, including elevation, longitude, microhabitat, soil fertility, local weather and individual variation.
Microhabitat refers to the location of the plant and its surrounding cohorts. A plant in a shady or drier location may bloom later than a similar plant nearby that receives more sun or water. The soil fertility may dictate whether the plant blooms at all. Early Spring can be tumultuous with respect to weather, so if a cold front rolls in with a late snow the blooming of many plants may be delayed. Finally, each individual plant has a genetic makeup that dictates when it will bloom.
The warm winds that have blown our way for the last few days have been awakening. Geese flocked by overhead, bird activity in general is picking up, and chipmunks have been seen. I’m not sure if the juncos have flown away yet, but the red-winged blackbirds are back. Record high temperatures were tied in several local areas yesterday. It was in the mid-70s, well above normal. Now, it’s one day away from the calendar start of Spring and flowers have started blooming.
Although wildeherb concentrates on the wild herbs or plants that you might find blooming on a hike in the woods or other natural area, sometimes garden variety plants are included. It’s only natural to relate what we find out in nature to what’s going on in the flower beds or vegetable garden.
Our first-blooming plant was a bulb, the snowdrop. The first snowdrop was spotted blooming on March 12th and it has bloomed for a week now. These are hearty little flowers that you can sometimes see blooming in the snow. Once their blossoms are seen, the thawing of Spring can be felt.
Snowdrop blooming among the heritage flower rosettes. Photo taken 19Mar2011.
The snowdrop bulbs were planted in a bed where the heritage flower grows. You can see the crumpled-looking, velvety leaves of the first year rosettes that have overwintered. They will sprout long stalks with beautiful magneta flowers in May-June.
Snowdrop flowers dangle. Photo taken 19Mar2011.
The snowdrop flower opens up its three petals on sunny days. On cloudy days the petals remain dangling. The linear leaves are broad compared to the shorter, variegated ones of the crocus bulbs that are just starting to develop blossoms underneath the snow drop flower above.
Pennsylvania bittercress was first spotted blooming yesterday, 18Mar2011. Its miniscule flowers are quite low to the ground.
PA Bittercress blooming between the flagstones along a walkway. Photo taken 19Mar2011.
In our little micro-climate the first blooming garden plant is the snowdrop and the first natural plant to bloom is the Pennsylvania bittercress. With respect to first-blooming times, the plant pictured here most likely had an advantage living among the warm flagstones and sand. No bittercress plants were found blooming in the yard away from the heat of the rocks next to the house.
The weeping willows are showing a bit brighter yellow in their stems and the birds are moving. Snow is melting and spring is surely on its way!
The other day I heard a mixed flock of geese flying low. It was early in the morning and too cloudy to see them, but I heard the calls of Tundra Swan and of geese, perhaps the Snow Goose. I had stepped out to take a picture of the tulips that have been silently pushing out of the ground.
Tulip tips poking out of the ground. Photo taken 27Feb2011.
Granted, the tulips are right next to the house so they’re getting a fast start, but it still brought out a couple smiles to see something green for a change.
January flowers are few around these parts unless they’re flown in here from warm places like Africa or South America. It sounds crazy expensive to bring those posies from the other side of the Earth, where it’s warm when we’re freezing up in here.
The only other chance we have of watching plants blooming during January in Pennsylvania is to keep indoor plants. We’ve enjoyed a few blooming the past couple months and that’s brought a sunny feel to the cold of Winter.
Picked up an Amaryllis bulb for $5 at an after-Christmas sale and planted it in the beginning of January. Planting consisted of placing the included desiccated coir block in the bottom of the provided plastic pot and adding two cups of water. Once the growing medium was soaked, half of it was scooped to the side with one hand while the bulb was nestled into the pot with the sprout side up and the remaining soil tamped around it.
These bulbs unfortunately have the common name Amaryllis, as they are members of the family Amaryllidaceae, but are more correctly called Hippeastrum.
These Amaryllis bulbs are fun to watch. They grow so quickly it is truly amazing! We watched it grow up a couple of feet – literally! – over the next three and a half weeks. The linear leaves get over 20 inches tall and are thick and succulent.
Three and a half weeks growth from a single Amaryllis bulb. Photo taken 28Jan2011. Bulb planted 5Jan2011.
Flower stalks are more cylindrical than the leaves and one or more will appear after the greenery has grown up almost a foot tall.
The flowering stalk on the left still has its blossoms wrapped up tight, while the other stalk has opened its capsule to reveal three flowers, one of which has opened up. Photo taken 30Jan2011.
The huge, blade-like leaves are erect and continue to grow at this stage. The blossoms are gigantic, too.
Big, beautiful red blossoms bigger than your hand. Photo taken 31Jan2011.The petals have a glittery gleam in the sunshine. Reminds me of the man-eaters in Lil' Shop of Horrors. Photo taken 31Jan2011.
This particular bulb bloomed beautifully and it was the fullest that I’ve ever seen. There were two flowering stalks with three gorgeous red blossoms on one stalk and four on the second stalk.
Four blooms packed into the head of one flower stalk. Photo taken 3Feb2011.The Amaryllis flowering stalks are now as tall as the oven window. The leaves continue to grow. Photo taken 3Feb2011.Seven Amaryllis flowers. Photo taken 3Feb2011.First flower stalk dying back while the second group of flowers are blooming in full. Photo taken 9Feb2011.Pretty Amaryllis blossom with six powdery stamens. Photo taken 9Feb2011.
It would be nice to keep this bulb for next year, but I’m not sure how. I’ve never successfully kept an Amaryllis bulb for the following year. Either I didn’t have a place to keep the bulb or I tried to keep it but had the wrong conditions. They either dried up or just didn’t bloom when they did re-grow.
This year I plan to continue to lightly water the greenery and keep it indoors in bright room that receives filtered sun. The flower stalks had withered fairly quickly after blooming, so they were cut off at the base once they were dried out.
Keeping the bulb watered in a sunny spot should recharge it with new food for next year. But for how long? Do I water it for the whole growing season? Should it be fertilized? When should it be stored for next winter so that we can take it out and watch it bloom again? Store it in a cool basement for how long? Should it have any cold storage, like refrigerator temperature for a time?
