Plant Sightings – Page 32

A Field Full of Crimson Clover

June 27, 2010 by wilde

Clover is one of those plants that we all learn about growing up. Even if you are an urban dweller chances are high that you’ve seen clover in a yard, field or park. The common white and red clovers are ubiquitous, meaning they occur nearly everywhere in the world. Crimson Clover is native to Europe and introduced in the United States. With over 300 species of clover, there’s bound to be a few in your neighborhood.

Red clover and white clover have been blooming at the roadsides and in fields and yards around here for at least a few weeks. White clover seems to start its flowering before red clover. We most often see red clover in fields and by the roadside. Both will sprout again after being mowed, and they’re highly nutritious crops for livestock.

I always wanted to see some Crimson Clover up close. This year I got my wish as a neighboring farmer planted a whole field of it!

The crimson clover field was harvested the week after these photos were taken on 17 May 2010.

Crimson clover as far as the eye can see.

Crimson clover, Trifolium incarnatum, attains a height of 15-20 inches with a 1-3 inch long crimson head of flowers. Like all clovers the leaves occur in threes and are referred to as trifoliate. Note the genus name, Trifolium.

Trifoliate leaves and red heads of crimson clover.

17 May 2010

..red clover in field

Clover is one of those plants that we all learn about growing up. Even if

you are an urban dweller, chances are high that you’ve seen clover in a

yard, field or park. The common white and red clovers are ubiquitous,

meaning they occur nearly everywhere in the world. With over 300 species of

clover, there’s bound to be a few in your neighborhood.

Red clover and white clover have been blooming at the roadsides and in

fields and yards around here for at least a few weeks. White clover seems

to start its flowering before red clover. We most often see red clover in

fields and by the roadside. Both will sprout again after being mowed, and

they’re highly nutritious crops for livestock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clover

I always wanted to see some Crimson Clover up close. This year I got my

wish as a neighboring farmer planted a whole field of it!

clover-crimson-field1.jpg

The crimson clover field was harvested the week after the photos below were

taken on 17 May 2010.

clover-crimson-field2.jpg

Crimson clover, Trifolium incarnatum, attains a height of 15-20 inches with

a 1-3 inch long crimson head of flowers. Like all clovers the leaves occur

in threes and are referred to as trifoliate. Note the genus name,

Trifolium.

clover-crimson-leaves.jpg

Trifoliate leaves and red heads of crimson clover.

clover-crimson-field3.jpg

Crimson and clover, over and over!

+++

Dame’s Rocket Blooms in Purple and White

June 26, 2010 by wilde

May’s beautiful colors were highlighted in the country by the large swaths of pink, lilac, purple, and white flowering Dame’s Rocket, a.k.a. Dame’s Violet, Hesperis matronalis.

Four-petal flowers cluster in terminal spikes at the top of three feet tall stems. For a two or three-week period in May Dame’s Rocket will be blooming in South-central Pennsylvania.

Great patches of purple and pink colors from Dame's Rocket flowers.

Dame's Rocket blooming in waste area between two roads.

Dame's Rocket on slope above drainage culvert.

Flowering above a culvert with celandine.

Dame's Rocket flowering at the edge of woods with locust trees in bloom.

Group of purple flowering Dame's Rocket.

Spreading purple clusters of Dame's Rocket.

Flowering stalk with alternating leaves and four petal flowers.

Dame’s Rocket seems to prefer shady areas near the tree line or at the edge of the trees where the forest meets the road. The ones photographed above were growing in a waste area in between a two lane road and a highway access road.

Native to Europe and Asia, Dame’s Rocket was brought to America hundreds of years ago for its beautiful flowers. It has since escaped gardens to become naturalized in the Eastern U.S. where it is often seen in fields and near roads. It has been so successful that three states consider it invasive. Colorado has it on its B list of noxious weeds, Connecticut has banned it, and Massachusetts has prohibited it.

Yellow Green Cypress Spurge at a Cemetery

June 25, 2010 by wilde

Every year we see what appears to be yellow-green flowers at the roadside right next to a small cemetery. These curious plants come up every year on the slope of the hill going up to the cemetery.

Yellow-green plants on hill at cemetery.

I finally stopped to take a closer look this May. The yellow-green flowers cluster at the top of the stem.

The many linear leaves alternating up the stout stem are characteristic of Cypress Spurge, Euphorbia cyparissias. Just underneath the flower cluster is a whorl of slightly longer leaves.

Linear leaves under the yellow-green cypress spurge flowers.

Note the many stem leaves and whorl of leaves at the base of most of the flower stems.

What appears to be yellowish-green petals tied at their bases are actually bracts. The flowers have no petals or sepals and are very small, less than 1/4 inch wide.

Close look at the inconspicuous flowers of Cypress Spurge.

A roadside alien from the Spurge Family, Euphorbiaceae, Cypress Spurge grows in waste areas, such as roadsides, vacant lots, and in this case, near a cemetery. I found it curious that Peterson’s Wildflower Guide mentioned cemeteries specifically as one of the places this spurge plant grows. It turns out that Cypress Spurge is actually referred to as Graveyard Weed because it often occurs in country graveyards.

Cypress Spurge is considered by three states to be undesirable. It’s prohibited in Massachusetts, listed as potentially invasive and banned in Connecticut, and it’s on the noxious weed list for Colorado.

Purple Columbine Flowering Along the Road

June 24, 2010 by wilde

: Image by kari.volkmanncarlsen via Flickr

Columbine has an interesting flower with a drooping bell and five long spurs that point upward. The Canadian Columbine, Eastern Red Columbine, or Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, grows wild around here. Each year we see large stands of columbine growing on high rock ledges where parts of the earth were cut out to make way for Routes 11/15 going North through Central Pennsylvania.

The flowers of this wild columbine are red and yellow. Red outer parts and spurs contrast with yellow petals and numerous yellow stamens which are longer than the petals.

Foliage comes up in early spring and lasts through out summer. The shape of the rounded lobes varies among the triplicate leaves that are each divided in threes. Leaves of columbine are doubly compound, which means that the leaflets of a compound leaf are themselves compound.

The next two images are of leaf rubbings made simply by placing a leaf between two pieces of paper and rubbing the outside with a pencil. Rubbing over a leaf surface will bring out detail that you might not have noticed by looking at the leaf. At a minimum you’ll get a good look at the leaf edge and some of the leaf veins. Click the images below for a closeup view of the leaf structure of Columbine.

A leaf rubbing of three Columbine leaflets in triplicate. Most leaf edges overlap.

Two of three Columbine leaflets in triplicate. Leaves were spread apart to illustrate the leaf and lobe shapes.

If you’re keeping columbine in a garden, cut off the flower stems after blooming unless you don’t mine the ragged look of the seed pods hovering over the foliage. Eventually, the flower stems or seed pod stems will bend over to the ground and look unsightly. If you don’t mind that look, just ignore the flower stems and the seeds may feed a bird or two or replant the columbine. Columbine is a perennial that is easily regenerated from seed.

A wild purple columbine volunteered across the road from a house where the same type of plant was observed in a flower bed. Photo taken 17 May 2010. Note the seed pods from previous flowers that are standing straight up. The foliage in the image above isn’t of columbine.

Although Native Americans used the seeds, roots and whole plant for their astringent and diuretic properties, Peterson’s Medicinal Plants Guide warns us that Columbine is potentially poisonous. This might not have been surprising if you knew that Columbine is a member of the Buttercup Family, Ranunculaceae, as many buttercups are poisonous!

Japanese Beetles Get the Soap

June 23, 2010 by wilde

: Image via Wikipedia

As of yesterday there are 10 fewer Japanese Beetles in this world. I really don’t like killing living things, but these little buggers just had to go. How dare they munch on the cherry leaves, flowers of Echinacea and basil leaves that we want for our own?

How did they meet their end? Soapy water did the trick!

No spraying of pesticides needed.

Just take a small bucket, add a drop of liquid soap and a little water. Tap the buggers into the drink and they won’t be contributing to the next generation of beetle pests.

A plastic milk or water jug makes a great soapy water bug catcher. Cut away the top and front half of the jug leaving the handle intact and about half of the jug that will contain the soapy water.

Every day for the next couple weeks we’ll walk around the gardens removing these beetle pests. We don’t worry that we’ll decimate the beetle population or make them go extinct, because we see plenty of the beetles on tree leaves in the adjacent forest. However, we may have fewer beetles laying their eggs in the lawn that would make up next year’s grubs.

Solomon’s Seal Smooth Giant False and Starry

June 23, 2010 by wilde

The group of Solomon’s Seal plants look similar, especially early in the year when the greenery is just coming up. They all have parallel-veined leaves along a single arching stem and six-pointed flowers.

The plants themselves are different enough to warrant being placed in two different genera. At one time the Solomon’s Seals were all considered members of the Lily Family, Liliaceae. Further research resulted in their classification as members of the Ruscaceae Family, but that is now in question.

Naming and classifying plants is not an easy task as there are several plant taxonomy systems that one might follow. Here at wildeherb we tend to follow the old Cronquist system with its major divisions of Monocots and Dicots, but we do take efforts to highlight accepted newer names for our vegetative friends.

Blossoms tell the story as far as which plants belong to which species. After all flowers are the reproductive parts of the plant. The central idea of a species is that members of a species will be able to reproduce the next generation. Species are isolated from one another by not being able to cross breed or interbreed to produce viable offspring. Hybrid species can be formed, but they do not contribute to the furthering of either parent species.

Comparing flowers, or deciding which plants are of the same species, often comes down to comparison of the floral parts. A case in point is Whorled Pogonia, a native orchid that we were lucky enough to see blooming in 2010 here on the mountain top.

Another example where we need to compare floral parts to for sure distinguish the species from each other are the Solomon’s Seals. The leaves for these related plants could be described as linear, entire, oval shaped leaves having a short tip and arranged alternately along a single arching stem.

Flower placement is axial or terminal in the Solomon’s Seals. Axial flowers hang down from the leaf axils in two Polygonatum species. Terminal flowers grow at the tips of the arching stems in two Maianthemum species.

Smooth Solomon’s Seal, P. biflorum, and Giant Solomon’s Seal, P. canaliculatum, have flowers that dangle from the leaf axils. Smooth Solomon’s Seal has typically two yellow-green bell-shaped flowers per leaf axil. Giant Solomon’s Seal has the same type of flower as Smooth, but they’re usually in a small cluster of 2-10 flowers. Also, the stature of Giant is usually much bigger than Smooth.

Smooth Solomon's Seal with its dangling axial flowers.

Photo above taken 30 April 2010.

False Solomon’s Seal, M. racemosum, and False Starry Solomon’s Seal, M. stellatum, have their blossoms at the tip of the single arching stem. False Solomon’s Seal has a branched cluster of a few dozen small white blossoms. False Starry Solomon’s Seal has fewer, but larger, flowers and they come right off the main stem with no branching.

False Solomon's Seal with its terminal cluster of flowers.

Photo above taken 31 May 2007.

Fruits are somewhat different among the Solomon’s Seals, but we’ll have to wait a while for them to turn from green into their final colors before making comparisons.

Incidentally, if you’re using an older wild plant guide the Maianthemum species are probably labeled as Smilacina species. False Solomon’s Seal may be listed as S. racemosa and False Starry Solomon’s Seal may be called S. stellata.

Maple-Leaved Viburnum Blooms Pink and White

June 22, 2010 by wilde

Maple-leaved Viburnum, Viburnum acerifolium, started to bloom around the middle of May here in South-central PA. It’s a woody shrub that can flower from a single stalk as a young plant. When this viburnum gets a little older, it may flower profusely with clusters at the ends of each branch on the larger plants.

Clusters of maple-leaved viburnum flowers.

Flower cluster and leaf of maple-leaved viburnum.

Flowers occur in flat-topped clusters at the branch tips. Leaves are similar in shape to maple tree leaves, thus giving this understory shrub its name.

Flower buds are pink to white in color, while the inner flower parts are mostly creamy white.

Pink flower buds of Maple-leaved Viburnum open up into white flowers with long stamens projecting upward. Anthers on the tips of the stamens make the flower clusters looked dotted.

A few viburnums listed in Peterson’s Edible Plant Guide are edible, but others in the Viburnum genus have bitter fruit. No medicinal qualities were noted in Peterson’s Medicinal Plants Guide.

Cleavers Weeds Make Bedstraw for Deer

June 21, 2010 by wilde

: Image via Wikipedia

Walking near the edge of the farmer’s field you can see many weeds where the open field meets the trees. On 15 May 2010 I saw this familiar weed, Cleavers, that grows in fields, waste places and along the side of the road.

A few days earlier there was an untouched stand of this weed and the large grouping looked pretty cool. Always have your camera with you! When I came back to photograph the weeds, I saw that someone had been there before me.

Matted circles show where deer most likely bedded down the night before.

These weeds get about three feet tall and are prone to laying over to the side when they get that tall. The circular patches with the weed tramped down tell the story. The tallness of the weeds would serve to hide the deer even as they lay there.

Cleavers, Galium aparine, is a member of the Bedstraw Family, Rubiaceae. I guess it makes sense that an animal would use a plant referred to as bedstraw to make their bed. People figure some things out for themselves and other things we learn by watching. If people witnessed these large mammals lying down among the cleavers or bedstraw, people probably tried it for themselves. Early botanists may have named this family of plants because of their usefulness as bed stuffing.

Small white flowers cluster on stalks that project from the leaf axils.

Small white flowers project from the whorled leaf axils.

Leaves are in whorl formation with six to eight, mostly eight, leaves. Cleavers has a sticky feel that is due to the tiny prickles that you can just see on the stems and leaves in the photo above. (Click on photo for a larger image.)

The other day I went back up to the field to see if I could get some better pictures of the cleavers flowers, but the farmer had sprayed some herbicide to ready the field for planting. The cleavers had already died back, which reinforces the idea that you should take more pictures than you think you need to assure that you get at least one good shot.