Category Archives: Wildflowers – Summer

Indian Pipe

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This white apparition has appropriately been called Ghost Flower, Corpse Plant, or more commonly, Indian Pipe. “Indian pipe” is descriptive of the shape of the plant, with its flower curved downward, so that it faces the ground.

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The scientific name, Monotropa uniflora, means “once-turned, single flower.” Each stalk bears a solitary flower that turns upward after pollination and remains that way as the fruit develops. The flower turns black with age or if picked.

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Indian Pipe is a plant that lacks the green pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is necessary for photosynthesis, the process which allows plants manufacture their own food in the presence of sunlight.

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Lacking chlorophyll, Indian Pipe is unable to produce its own food and therefore has no need for true leaves, which are replaced by small scales along the stem. It is able to inhabit the darkest areas of the forest where sunlight is in short supply.

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Indian Pipe fulfills its nutritional needs through the services of an intermediary fungus. The fungus forms a connection with Indian Pipe and nearby trees and transfers some of the photosynthate it derives from the tree roots to the Indian Pipe.

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The ethereal appearance of the Indian Pipe, with its pallid stem topped by a nodding, white flower makes this “Summer ghost of the forest” perhaps the most easily identifiable wildflower.

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Turk’s Cap Lily

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This gentle giant of Summer is our most spectacular and largest native lily. Up to 40 flowers have been counted on just one plant.

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Turk’s Cap Lily can be found in eastern North America, where it occurs in wet meadows and moist woods from New Hampshire south to Georgia and Alabama – I saw these on the Ohio Erie Canal Towpath.

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This is the tallest of the native American lilies, typically growing 4-6 feet (and less frequently to 8 feet) tall.

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Downward-facing, nodding, orange flowers, up to 4 inches wide, with greenish throats are densely-spotted with maroon. Sharply-reflexed sepals and petals curve backward to touch at the stem, thus forming a “Turk’s cap.”

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The bulb from Turk’s Cap Lily was used by Indians for soup making and seasoning stew and meat dishes, nearly driving the plant to extinction.

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This was a nice plant to see in bloom the week of Fourth of July, as it’s a great example of nature’s “fireworks.”

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Common Mullein

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Though most of the forest floor is colored brown with fallen leaves, there’s still some green to be found – like in this Common Mullein plant. During their first year, these plants are low-growing rosettes of bluish gray-green, with felt-like leaves that range from 4-12 inches. The leaves are large and soft to the touch.

Mature flowering plants happen in the second year. They grow to 5 to 10 feet in height, including the conspicuous flowering stalk. The five-petaled yellow flowers are arranged in a leafy spike and bloom a few at a time from June-August. Here’s what a two year old plant looks like in the Summer.

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Brought over from Europe by settlers, it was used as a medicinal herb, as a remedy for coughs and a respiratory stimulant for the lungs when smoked. Also known as the “Flannel Plant” due to its leaves, early settlers and American Indians placed the soft, woolly leaves in footwear for warmth and comfort.

Common Mullein provides shelter for insects in the winter. Since rosettes survive through the cold weather, the leaves provide protection and warmth for ladybugs and other insects. This plant is often planted in gardens for the blind, where its tactile beauty serves a worthy purpose.

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Spotted Touch-me-not

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This plant and its yellow-flowered relative are also known as Jewelweed, because water droplets on its leaves shine like tiny jewels. It favors wet areas where the ground retains moisture.

Touch-me-not’s stem is nearly translucent and contains a sap that can be used to soothe the effects of Poison Ivy and Stinging Nettle. Its ripe, long banana-shaped seed pods explode when touched, expelling its seeds in all directions. This characteristic, along with the dark spots on its flowers, give the Spotted Touch-me-not its common name.

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This flower is an important nectar plant for hummingbirds. If you scrape off the dark brown covering of ripe seeds, a sky blue seed awaits underneath.

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Joe-Pye Weed

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Walking along virtually any waterway in late Summer, you have a very good chance of seeing this flower. Joe-Pye Weed is an amazing plant that is an herb, a wildflower, a butterfly plant and an ornamental for the flower bed. It obtained its name because a Native American herbalist, named Joe Pye, used it to cure fevers.

Though we tend to think of it as a wildflower in the United States, it’s long been an ornamental plant in England where cottage gardens are popular. Joe-Pye Weed is a “weed” only in the sense that it is a wild plant (in North America). “Wildflower” would be a better name for a plant with such an attractive flower and imposing presence (up to 10 feet tall).

There are several species of this plant in Ohio and it can be hard to identify the exact type. Many insects are attracted to the nectar of Joe-Pye Weed, including bees and butterflies. The seeds of this plant are eaten by White-footed Mice, ducks and Wild Turkey.

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Boneset

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Boneset was a favorite medicine of the North American Indians and it has always been a popular modern herbal remedy in the United States, probably with no plant in American domestic practice having more extensive and frequent use; it is also in use to some extent in regular practice, being official in the United States Pharmacopceia.

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“Boneset” alludes to the use of the plant to treat broken bones, although it may also come from its use to treat dengue fever, which was also called “breakbone fever,” because of the pain that it caused.

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Its Latin species name perfoliatum, refers to the leaves and stem; the stem appears to pierce the leaf (perfoliate), making this an easy plant to identify.

This is one if Ohio’s few late-blooming summer flowers and it is quite attractive to butterflies. Although it is said to often grow along roadsides, I almost always see Boneset along creeks and other waterways.

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Bee Balm

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When I first saw Bee Balm I knew that it was something that I wanted growing in my yard, due to the crazy-looking flower this plant has. I was a bit surprised to find out that Bee Balm is native to Ohio, though the wild version does not have the vibrant colors that the cultivated varieties feature. Here a few that I saw while walking the Canal Towpath.

The flowers are well known to attract hummingbirds and insects, such as bees, butterflies and beetles. This plant is a member of the mint family and one characteristic of mints is a square stem. It’s kind of weird to feel a plant stem with “corners,” but Bee Balm has them.

It’s fragrant leaves are often used to make potpourri. Bee Balm has been used in folk medicine as a “mint tea” to treat respiratory and digestive ailments. The oil from this plant is an essential flavoring ingredient in Earl Grey tea.

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