Plant Sightings

We’re in Amish country today. Just look around and you’ll see horses pulling buggies or carts. Youngins – always wearing hats – go most places on bicycles or on foot.

Farmers’ markets and their womens’ bakeries have something for everyone. What a delight!

It’s always fun to go to the local market when you’re traveling about. Here’s a great Amish market a few miles south of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. There are a couple places along this stretch of Routes 11/15 where you can purchase Amish-made quilts — just look for the quilts blowing in the breeze!

After viewing and purchasing some of the apples, pumpkins and other home-grown vegetables, we move on to the Bakery.

Guess where she’s headed! Shoe-fly pie, anyone?

And who wouldn’t be delighted working across the highway from such a beautiful river front view?

The Susquehanna River as viewed from across Routes 11/15 at Weaver’s Farm Market.

If variety is the spice of life, then it would be good to be a gourd! Check out the different colors and textures of these gourds.

Can’t imagine using that old wheelbarrow for anything but a display!

This Indian Corn tells the season, doesn’t it? The variety of colors makes it a great addition to seasonal decorations.

Indian corn hanging at the farmer’s market.

Talk about variety — Chrysanthemums are now available in so many colors. It would be a shame to not have at least one or two for a splash of fall color outside your doorstep. Look how many blossoms are on this mum — you can’t see any green!

Chrysanthemums are available in many autumn colors. This one has a multitude of blossoms.

In Zone 5 it’s a coin toss as to whether they will overwinter, but try planting a few mums anyway. They make for nice cut flowers that are fairly long lasting.

Sassafras is a favorite woodland herb. It is really a tree, but the roots can be used liked an herb. Sassafras grows quickly at the edge of the oak forest and requires cutting back every so often.

Each time that I cut sassafras I try to bring up some of the root to save for tea. Smelling the roots as you’re digging them up justifies the effort. A pleasing scent, I’ll say.
The roots are shaken of dirt and rinsed with water to gently clean. Roots are placed in a saucer or bowl in a cupboard and left there to cure.

When I feel like a cup of sassafras tea I have only to open the cupboard to retrieve a few roots, put them in near boiling water for a couple minutes, and pour the tea. The aroma totally gets me. You should try it!

In the fall the small sassafras trees seem like they dry up from the bottom with their lowest leaves turning a orange-yellow first, followed by leaves higher up. Eventually all the leaves turn a nice yellow-orange before dropping off.

Sassafras leaves turning colors from the bottom up.

Autumn colors start arriving in fallow fields in late summer. Land that has been allowed to sit undisturbed for several years will witness waves of color as the seasons progress, and some of the most noticeable colors come in the fall.

For most of September and into the beginning of October goldenrods dominate the landscape with hues of yellow. Purple asters complement the soft yellows and draw your eye’s attention.

Pretty colors in the fields are vibrant for a couple weeks as if heralding that the tree leaves will soon start changing their colors, too.

Driving along the country roads in South Central Pennsylvania in September we see lots of pretty views of yellow goldenrods and purple asters. The scene of a fallow field can be quite beautiful with the natural colors of these native plants shining in the sunlight.

Purple asters along a Pennsylvania country road.

Goldenrod comes in many varieties and most have dazzling, yellow flower stalks. Some are plume-like, while others are flat-topped, club-shaped, or shaped like the branches of an elm tree. There are at least 60 kinds of goldenrod, or Solidago, in the Northeast and Northcentral North America, so certain identification is best left to the experts.

Witch hazel trees are the last blooms that I think we’ll see this season, although I was surprised to see one blooming in September. The long-petaled flowers look a little scraggly. No sepals visible, just thin yellow petals.

I remember last November, as we tromped through the woods in search of the perfect white pine for a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, that we saw a whole stand of blooming witch hazel trees. I’ll be on the lookout for them again this year!

Maple-leaved viburnum is sporting its berries now, too. The black viburnum berries may be a good food source for the birds that stay around during the winter, although I have seen in year’s past that some of the berries last through the winter.

Maple-leaved viburnum provides berries in the oak forest.

Black berries of Maple-Leaved Viburnum.

Some really pretty purple and white asters that we planted at the wood’s edge are starting to bloom now.

Buzzer visits the pretty white flowers.

We are fortunate to have a few native orchids on the property. It is a delight to take a walk in the woods and see these orchids growing in their natural habitat.

Rattlesnake-plantain flowered this summer and all that is left are seed stalks. The rattlesnake-plantains are orchids with their white and dark green checkered leaves arranged in a basal rosette.

Rattlesnake-plantain flowered this summer leaving behind a seed stalk.

Rattlesnake-plantain leaves are easily noted for the white lines that criss-cross a dark green background.

Partridgeberry, Mitchella repens, is a creeping perennial on the oak forest floor. Partridgeberry produced twin flowers in July-August and now has red berries that should last through the winter. The rounded leaves are in pairs opposite one another. The leaf or berry tea was used historically for many female complaints, which earned partridgeberry the nickname Squaw Vine.

Not too many wild herbs are flowering near the end of September. One exception is the group called ‘thoroughworts’ of the Compositae family.

In open areas of the woods and along the lane the white flowers of White Snakeroot can be seen. Native Americans used white snakeroot as a poultice for snakebites and hence the name stuck.

The herb and roots were used for a variety of other ailments, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Drinking the milk from cows that have eaten the herb can be fatal to humans!