Friday, June 11, 2010

Wildflowers: June 11, 2010


I will call this first plant Canada Mayflower or Maianthemum canadense or False Lily of the Valley.  It is a native plant that will eventually get green berries that turn a dull red.  It looks just like Lily of the Valley, but it is a little shorter.  I noted no fragrance..but I could have been all pollened out.

The next plant I believe to be a Cream Pea or Lathyrus ochroleucus.  It looks very much like a Wood Vetch..Vicia carolina..the vetches and the wild peas seem to be growing very good this year.  They are both very close in appearance.

Cotton Grass or Eriophorum angustifolium is really a sedge( a solid stem) instead of a grass( a hollow stem) , the plant world does this on purpose just to confuse me..it should be called Cotton Sedge. It looks like balls of cotton in the swamps.  Long ago is was used as a fire starter or for candle wicks, you could stuff your pillow with the seeds heads too.  Recently I read where this plant is a hikers friend as it is a sign of a very deep peat bog..if you hike in June when it is blooming, or can identify the seed heads the rest of the summer.  Where I have seen it growing, no one in their right mind would walk..but hey you never know...there could be some out of their mind hikers out there ready to be one with a peat bog.

Early Meadow Rue or Thalictrum dioicum is a plant native to Minnesota that will have either male or female flowers..and I am not sure which one's these are..I am not sure that it is important...but I will take some more photos and see if I can figure out the difference between dangling and yellowish and threadlike and a greenish white. 

Sometimes looking at these wildflowers causes more questions, and I have to spend more time out standing in the field (Ha)  or the ditch or the swamp..I hate the swamps. Sometimes the window for photographs is just days, and then if the freaking wind blows ninety miles an hour photographs are hard to take, sometimes I take so long that Far Guy offers to come and hold a plant blowing in the breeze.  Sometimes he tries to make a shield out of his body to block the wind, so I will be done already. He is very patient most days and we both love the sense of adventure that can be found on a beautiful Minnesota summer day hunting for what is blooming next:)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting and pretty flowers this morning Connie. Glad you and Far Guy enjoy the hunt for these beauties and share your lovely photos with us. I hope it will be a nice weekend for you both.

The Retired One said...

you know so much about these, it is amazing.
I just know they are pretty when I see them. ha

DJan said...

I love looking at your flowers, and I always have to check out your banner, just looking at it makes me feel good! You do know a LOT about these wildflowers.

Lanny said...

I love the picture in my head of Far Guy helping you capture the blooms!

So maybe instead of seeing "red flags" in our lives we should say, "I really should have seen the cotton sedge and avoided that peat bog."

I've really been enjoying your wildflower posts and I'm thinkin' it may inspire me to have the girls catalog the flora on the farm.

RURAL said...

He is a wonderful photographers assistant, with all of the good qualities isn't he?

I like what you are doing, the collages are very visual, and striking. And what a amazing variety of wild flowers. Every time I see them, my heart flips, thinking that one day I will have a farm, and wildflowers will be spread far and wide.

Today....is is gloomy, and there is a high marine mist over the apartments, good, that can hide those 24 story monstrosities.

Jen

Jeanne Estridge said...

We've gotten so much rain this spring that the flowers are going crazy--looks like it's the same Up Nort.

DayPhoto said...

Another fun post! Love your native plants.

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/