Alpine Shooting Star

Posted on February 24, 2023 by tspuckler

While hiking on Mount Charleston near Las Vegas, Nevada, I came across this neat wildflower. This species ranges from northeast Oregon to the southern Cascades and Sierras and east to Utah and Arizona.

This plant is a showy member of the Primrose Family. It is usually seen in in moist meadows and along streams at high elevations in mountains. It can best be described as locally common.

The flower of Alpine Shooting Star resembles the shape of a rocket and its plume of exhaust. The “plume” of the petals reveals a fantastic transition of colors from near-black to yellow, white, and finally a lavender-pink.

Each flower points downwards and a single, elongated stigma protrudes from the blossom, the “nose” of the rocket. Its is held firmly by four black anthers between the petals and the stigma.

This plant is of special value to Bumble Bees and requires their ability to buzz-pollinate for successful reproduction. Buzz-pollination is a technique used to release pollen which is firmly held by the flower.

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Coralberry

Posted on January 6, 2023 by tspuckler

While visiting Carmel, Indiana for Thanksgiving, I went on a hike and noticed this plant. It is commonly called Coralberry, Buckbrush or Indian Currant and is a woody species of flowering plant in the Honeysuckle Family.

This plant has a spectacular display of berries that mature in coincidence with Autumn colors each October. Its coral-pink to almost purplish berries are an attractive ornamental aspect that provides Winter forage for birds.

In addition to birds, Coralberry supports a host of mammals, being a favorite deer browse plant, which inspired its alternative common name of Buckbrush. Although inconspicuous, its spring flowers support bees, wasps and flies with nectar and pollen.

This dense, bushy deciduous shrub has soft downy foliage that makes an attractive leaf pattern. It typically grows 3 to 4 feet tall. It is also a host plant for the caterpillars of three native moths.

Coralberry is native to the eastern and central United States as well as central Canada (Ontario) and northeastern Mexico.

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Twinleaf

Posted on August 12, 2022 by tspuckler

This is a wildflower that I noticed not because of its blossom, but rather due to its fruit, which resembles a green acorn. I came across it last Summer and went back in April of this year to see its flowers.

Twinleaf’s large, conspicuous blooms feature eight snowy-white petals which drop within a day or so. This plant is a perennial and often forms small colonies.

This wildflower features long-stemmed, blue-green leaves up to 6 inches long, which are deeply divided into two lobes that give the appearance of being two separate leaves, hence the common name.

Its unusual seed pods are on stalks that have hinged lids that open to drop shiny, brown seeds for ants to scatter.

This showy wildflower’s scientific name, Jeffersonia diphylla, commemorates our third president, Thomas Jefferson, who was a great naturalist and once president of the American Philosophical Society, which by the late 1700’s was the country’s leading scientific organization.

Unlike many of Ohio’s Spring wildflowers, Twinleaf is not a true spring ephemeral, as its leaves remain green and actively produce chlorophyll throughout summer. It tends to grow in the rich, damp soils of deciduous forests.

This neat plant is also known as Helmet Pod, Ground Squirrel Pea and is enjoyable to encounter on my northeast Ohio hikes.

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Giant Wakerobin

Posted on June 10, 2022 by tspuckler

While hiking along a woodland creek, I noticed this California species of spring-flowering perennial plant. It is found in the Pacific Coast Ranges and in the Sierra Nevada Foothills.

Giant Wakerobin’s large, showy, solitary, three-parted flowers rise directly out of the leaves; its flower color is variable, but is most often dark red to white. Its leaves, which are up to 6 inches long and 5 inches wide, are in whorls of three and often mottled with dark blotches.

It prefers a shady habitat and is clump-forming, growing to 12 to 18 inches tall. The plant often seen in wooded or streamside situations (or both). It is a classic Spring wildflower, in that it blooms from Spring until early Summer, when there are very few leaves on trees, allowing it to get the light that it needs.

Trilliums use a strategy called myrmecochory for seed dispersal. A white, fleshy appendage on the seed tip is a nutrient-rich food packet that attracts ants. Ants carry seeds to their colony up to one mile away, feed the packet to their larvae, and discard the seeds, effectively planting them.

Not only is it an interesting plant, Giant Wakerobin is an incredible beauty and a welcome sign of Spring.

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Pacific Hound’s Tongue

Posted on May 13, 2022 by tspuckler

This is a distinctive wildflower that I sometimes encounter on my April visits to California. It is native to western North America, where it grows in shady areas in woodland and chaparral.

Its flowers change color, perhaps telling pollinators whether a specific flower is worth visiting for pollen and nectar. Bees can see blue colors, but not reds. Immature pink flowers may signal to bees, “Not ready; move on;” the mature blue flowers, “Ready for pollination;” and the fading blue-purple of the aging flowers, “I’m done, don’t bother.”

Pacific Hound’s Tongue Hound’s grows from a heavy taproot and is an early-blooming perennial plant that supposedly gets its name from the resemblance of its leaf shape to that of a dog’s tongue.

Known scientifically as Cynoglossum grande, the shape and rough texture of the leaves are described in the genus name, which is derived from the Greek – “cynos” for dog and “glossa” for tongue. The species name, grande, means showy (or big).

Pacific Hound’s Tongue is in the same family as the Forget-Me-Not, which its blooms resemble. Its flowers attract native bees and hummingbirds and is an occasional larval host plant for moths and butterflies.

According to folklore, a piece of hound’s tongue placed in one’s shoe will protect from being barked at by strange dogs!

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Yellow Sand Verbena

Posted on April 9, 2022 by tspuckler

While exploring Point Reyes National Seashore, this low-to-the-ground plant with striking yellow flowers caught my eye. It is native to the west coast of North America, from southern California to the Canada–United States border.

Most members of this genus have pink or purple flowers, but those of this species are bright yellow, making it easily recognizable.

Yellow Sand Verbena grows on beach dunes and sand dunes of coastal bars and river mouths along the immediate coastline. It is an important plant in helping to stabilize dunes to resist erosion.

It bears attractive neatly rounded heads of small, bright golden flowers. The individual flowers have no petals; rather, they are composed of yellow bracts forming a trumpet shaped around its stamens.

This plant is seen exhibiting psammophory, a method by which plants save themselves from herbivores by attracting sand to themselves, making them difficult to be eaten.

Yellow Sand Verbena’s leaves are succulent-like, in common with many other coastal plants and are about as long as wide, growing on short, thick stalks. Its roots are edible and traditionally eaten by the Chinook Indians.

A member of the Four O’clock Family, this wildflower is also known as Coastal Sand Verbena.

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Nuttall’s Linanthus

Posted on February 25, 2022 by tspuckler

While hiking on Mount Charleston in southern Nevada, I noticed the small flowering plant growing close to the ground.

This member of the Phlox Family is a sweetly aromatic, clump-forming perennial with a round mound of stems clad with a distinctive whorled foliage.

Native to much of the southwestern United States, it lives on dry, open or lightly wooded, often rocky slopes from the foothills to well up into the mountains.

Nuttall’s Linanthus’ flowers are very similar to many other members of the Phlox Family. They are white or pale cream in color, about half an inch across and have five unnotched petals, centered on a yellow tube.

This species was named in 1870 from a specimen collected by famed botanist and Harvard teacher, Thomas Nuttall.

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Seaside Daisy

Posted on June 25, 2021 by tspuckler

While on the Pacific Coast in April, I came across this cool-looking plant. This wildflower is native to the coastline of Oregon and California where it grows on beaches, coastal bluffs and dunes.

Seaside Daisy is a low-growing perennial, which forms a cushion of semi-double, lavender-to-pink flowers adorned with yellow centers.

This plant blooms for months from mid-spring until late summer, when its blossoms almost cover its leathery foliage of thick, spoon-shaped, blue-green leaves.

Its Latin name is Erigeron glaucus. The name erigeron is from the Greek eri meaning “early” and geron meaning “old man,” referring to the fact that the flowers bloom in spring, then turn gray like hair.

This fine plant is also known as Seaside Fleabane and Beach Aster.

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Blue Witch

Posted on May 28, 2021 by tspuckler

This is an evergreen shrub up to three feet high and wide, displaying purple flowers about one inch in diameter. It can be found in chaparral habitat and low-elevation oak woodlands in California and parts of Baja California and Arizona.

It has bright purple or blue frilly flowers with thick yellow anthers at the center. The flowers close into spherical buds overnight. Its dark gray-green oval-shaped leaves grow on hairy green stems. All parts of the plant are toxic to people and some animals. However, it is very attractive to insects.

Though the main bloom period is spring and summer, some flowers will occur for most of the year. When a Blue Witch flower finishes blooming, it bears small round green fruits which turn purple when ripe and resemble tiny eggplants.

While beautiful to look at, it is also a tough shrub which can grow in rocky and clay soils and springs up in areas recovering from wildfires or other disturbances.

This plant is also known as Purple Nightshade, Purple Witch and Parish’s Nightshade – it was neat to encounter it while hiking on Mount Hamilton during my visit to California.

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Silver Bush Lupine

Posted on April 30, 2021 by tspuckler

While exploring Mount Hamilton in north-central California, it was hard not to notice this colorful purple wildflower.

This plant grows in the hills and valleys of the Golden State. It requires good drainage and needs little water once the roots are established.

When Silver Bush Lupine blooms, its flower is light blue to purple on three- to twelve-inch stalks. Its foliage is silver with a feathery texture.

Not only is it beautiful, but this plant performs a valuable function. It is a member of the Legume Family and has nitrogen-fixing nodules on their roots.

As a result, they are important for soils, as they can take nitrogen from the air and “fix” it into the ground for the purposes of plant growth and prosperity.

Like other perennial shrubs, Silver Bush Lupine can live for many years.

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Category Archives: Wildflowers – Spring

Alpine Shooting Star

Coralberry

Twinleaf

Giant Wakerobin

Pacific Hound’s Tongue

Yellow Sand Verbena

Nuttall’s Linanthus

Seaside Daisy

Blue Witch

Silver Bush Lupine