Spring Finally - Wildflowers April 19

It's been a long hard winter and spring is arriving late this year.   Migratory birds are about three weeks behind schedule, I've been told. 

On Saturday, April 19 it was about 50 degrees at 9:30.   Len and Dorothy Cebula, Bill Brown, Nancy Steelman, and Maggie Heineman walked along the Red Trail from the back parking lot, past the dock, to Meditation Garden and back through the courts to the Atrium.    There was lots of Skunk Cabbage, Spring Beautyy and Lesser Celandine, of course.  May Apples had buds- probably in bloom next week.   Blood Root, was not yet in bloom, but theres were quite a few plants along the Red Trail east of the road that goes down to the dock from Parking Lot A.   There were two colors of violets.   Volunteer Leatherleaf Mahonia is doing well along side Pebble Run -- and can be seen in several of the courts.

Bill Brown is going to be mapping where the plants were for future reference.

Looking back
 -- March 17, 2012 has photos of  Blood Root among other things.
http://medfordleasarboretum.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-17-wildflower-walk.html

-- April 6,  2013  we were complaining that spring was late -- but .the record shows that we saw Trout Lily on April 6 last year,  so spring was even later this year, 2014.
http://medfordleasarboretum.blogspot.com/2013/04/finally-spring.html

Jane Bourquin's Photos

Jane Bourquin Photos

Two years ago I copied these photos from Jane's Computer.   Wonderful wonderful.

 I will visit her and get captions for all of them.

Jane Bourquin's photos 

(I don't know why the titles of posts aren't working anymore) 

May 18 Wildflower Walk

The weather was nice,  the Wild Geraniums were in bloom; there were five people and one dog. We picked up the red trail at the parking lot (Ranunculus, Solomon Seal), hen  took Yellow Trails #12, #11, and #10 to see the Island (False Solomon Seal, Trillium, and May Apple), Pebble Run (Lesser Celandine is gone now) and the stepping stones down to the Dock.  The we went up the road (Money Plant) to the red trail (Wild Geraniums), back on the road behind Karen's house (Sweet Pea, Wild Azalea),  The labelled, commented photographic record of this walk, located on a  Picasa Album called  2013May18WildflowerWalk,  shows the other wildflowers seen on this walk.  I think I like this new system.  One or two photos for the blog, and the photographic record elsewhere.

Bill Brown, Judy Kruger, Mary Sharp, Karen Sannwald and Taco.
photo by Maggie Heineman, link to bigger photo

Wild Geraniums

Finally Spring.  

After two postponements the first wildflower walk of the season was April 6.
 In 2012 we saw  Bloodroot and Skunk Cabbage  a month earlier
http://medfordleasarboretum.blogspot.com/2012/03/march-17-wildflower-walk.html

This  year March was a  bust.  Only the Lesser Celendine came early.    There were five of us:  Anita Solomon, Karin Sanwald, Barbara Trought, Mary Chisholm-Zook and me (Maggie Heineman).    We started down the ramp near the theater, passed by the bridge to the "Island"  -- which wasn't an island - quite dry in fact.   Skunk Cabbage was starting, but not as abundant as it will become. It was young.  Later in the walk we did see some with the emerging dark red spathes which surround  the spherical flower heads, the spadix.   As expected we saw plenty of Lesser Celendine which are especially attractive in the stream bed of Pebble Run.  Bloodroot was in bloom.  Anita identified the bushes coming into bloom as Spice Bush, Lindera benzoin. It seems that we saw quite a bit of Trout Lily coming up-- not in bloom. Karin said it was Trout Lily and  I was skeptical because it was so abundant.  However,  looking at photos of Trout Lily leaves, Karin was  right.   Barbara spotted some Trillium - not in bloom. Mayflower was coming up, only about 4 inches high today. We saw a lot of something  with chrysanthemum-like leaves.  Not mugwort, I'm guessing that it was  Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) which is another early invasive.  See photos in that March 17, 2012 post that is linked above. Not sure because there were no flowers.

 I didn't  take photos of the plants which we all could recognize.  Instead what follows are  the photos of plants-  not yet in bloom - which we were curious about,  These pictures are for Jane Bourquin and for anyone else who can tell us what we saw.  We followed the Red Trail and then took  the cut-off that leads to Meditation Garden where the Hellebore is in bloom (it's also in bloom at the Atrium.
Two lovely Magnolia Trees were in bloom in Court 2.  Neither Anita nor Mary had seen Court 7, so we stopped by there, and then again at Court 4 where Betsy Snope took the photo of our group.

With Spring Beauty coming into bloom soon, and maybe Trout Lilies, plus our various mystery plants, we decided we really must have another Wildflower walk this month.   It's not on the monthly calendar  but it will be on the weekly calendar.   Tuesday,  April 23 at 9:00.  Dog show at 11:00.

Barbara, Maggie, Anita, Mary, Karin and Taco

Internet photo of the  Skunk Cabbage's spherical spadix  with flowers, inside the leaf-like bract called a spathe
this is my favorite page about skunk cabbage:
http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic4/skunkcabbage.htm

Lots of Trout Lilies?  Note the mottled leaves 

Internet photo of Trout Lily - mottled leaves 

Mystery bulbs - leaves flat like Iris, snowdrops leaves are different. 

Red mystery plant

Spice Bush starting to bloom.  A nice page about spicebush
http://www.radfordpl.org/wildwood/today/Plant_Spp_pp/Spicebush.htm

Scouring Rush -- see the comment below this post.

Persimmons and More

This post, and the three that follow, describe the September 15  Rushmore Wildflowers Walk, which started with at Persimmon Grove and ended at the Pawpaw Patch.  In between we looked at the Sandy Run Ditch, which has volunteer wildflowers, and then Ro's garden, which has planted wildflowers.  Jane Bourquin and Ro Wilson led the walk and identified the plants.

Dick Webster, Ro Wilson, Karen Sannwald (with Taco her Chijuajua),  BJ Tetlow, and Peg Scott pose for photographer Maggie Heineman.  Jane Bourquin, wildflower and mushroom expert,  arrived a few moments later and the walk began.

Dick Webster with persimmons. The ones that had fallen to the ground were ripe and sweet.

Boneset

Goldenrod was in bloom.   Ragweed is bad. Goldenrod is good , but has a bad reputation because it blooms at the same time as Ragweed.

 

Wild Primrose has yellow flowers

 

Sandy Run Ditch

 A small swampy area near the Persimmon Grove provides the headwaters for Sandy Run.  First the water goes into a ditch that runs  parallel to the Rushmore road. The ditch then disappears where the water is channeled down to a culvert that runs under Medford Leas Way and then emerges as as a small creek, Sandy Run, which flows through the woods and eventually empties into the Rancocas Creek (between the Tulip Poplar Grove and Yellow Trail #7).   As the map shows, Sandy Run goes through two culverts and under three bridges between the Rushmore ditch and the Rancocas Creek. 

To some the ditch is full of weeds.  Others see it as an excellent habitat for wildflowers, birds, butterflies and insects.  

Mostly boneset and goldenrod

Jane's cane becomes a seat.

Ro and Jane with tricycle, car, and seat-cane. Wild cherry in the foreground.. 

Grasshopper

Mystery bush with pretty flowers and invaded by grape vine.
BJ and Herry Tetlow have since removed the vine from this lovely bush. 

Knotweed

Where the mower won't go
There the trees will grow

Wild Cherry

Lots of Ageratum

The bees don't have far to fly to reach a ditch of full of wildflowers. 

After filling one bag with ragweed, Maggie gave up.  About 80% of the ragweed is still there.

Ro's Garden

Ro doesn't like lawn.  
Ro doesn't approve of lawn. 
Ro doesn't have lawn.  
Ro has a wildflower garden that attracts bird, butterflies, visitors and rubber snakes. 

Ro's lawnless garden is wild and  full of good things.    It is a  wildflower garden for birds, butterflies and hummingbirds  in a postage stamp.   To be added: photos of the goldenrod and black coshoh-cincomfuga. (spelling? -- circumfuga?)

Fennel - a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies

(non-native) Lemongrass - with rubber snake

Night-blooming Jasmine
non-native, with a wonderful fragrance

A monarch chrysalis dangling from a leaf.

When caterpillars hatch, Ro saves them from predators by placing them in a terrariam with this screen top.  

She feeds them and eventually each one attaches to the screen and forms a chrysallis.  

Next to Ro's thumb is a catepillar (green and black) which has not yet formed its chrysallis. 

Paw Paw Patch

At Ro's instigation there will be a paw paw patch between Kriebel Trail and Ro's house.   There are several plants with this name, but undoubtedly the one Ro had planted is Asimina triloba, which is native to this area.  That Wikipedia page tells all about paw-paws, including this rhyme 

Pickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocketPickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocketPickin' up pawpaws, puttin' 'em in your pocketWay down yonder in the pawpaw patch

Wikipedia explains that  "picking up pawpaws" refers to gathering the ripe, fallen fruit from beneath the trees, and that the "pocket" in the song is that of an apron or similar tie-on pocket, not a modern pants or blue jeans pocket, into which pawpaws would hardly fit.A "pawpaw patch" refers to the plant's characteristic patch-forming clonal growth habit.

The six trees that Ro had planted are a few feet apart, but hey seem healthy and with the clonal growth habit, we can look forward to a real patch in the future. 

Ro with one of the paw paw trees

Large Canna grow along the back of Ro's home

March 17 - Wildflower Walk

Maggie substituted for Jane who couldn't make it due to a death in the family.   Nancy, Barbara, Millie, and Shigeko came for the walk.

We started by studying the dead nettles by the Nature Center and then had no trouble identifying this invasive throughout the rest of the walk -- lots and lots of it.  The flowers are pretty, and it's okay if you want it for a ground cover.   The photo shows a plant between two fingers of my glove.  That's how small the lovely blooms are.

We then went down the fire road to see the Herb Robert.   There is quite of lot of it in bloom.

Again, this is a very attractive invasive.  which can thrive in forested communities as the dominant ground cover, replacing native and beneficial plants.    We saw a lot of it and it's quite lovely.    There's more about it on this "noxious weeds"  site.

We walked across to meditation garden where the whatever was in bloom then down toward the dock where we saw Bloodroot in bloom - at last a wildflower that isn't considered a pest.   Lesser Celendine was in bloom and plentiful.  Another beautiful invasive. Millie has it in her lawn and it the lawn still thrives.  But in general it's a big problem - an "ecological threat."

Wildflower Walk March 3, 2012

At the bottom of this post there's an embedded video about edible weeds including wintercress which we were looking at this morning and which is abundant thoughout Medford Leas.   

It was drizzling this morning and Jane Bourquin, the walk leader, and Maggie Heineman (that's me) were the only ones who showed up.   Jane had scouted during the week and neither the skunk cabbage nor the bloodroot were in bloom.   However Jane had seen Herb Robert in bloom.  This page on Wikipedia has a short explanation and a photo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium_robertianum    A website in King County Washington has this to say on it's "noxious weeds"  site.

Herb Robert
Geranium robertianum

Herb Robert escaped from ornamental plantings and thrives in forested communities as the dominant ground cover, displacing native and beneficial plants.

Herb Robert's 5-petaled flowers are in all shades of pink and sometimes white. Overall the plant is covered with short glandular hairs, giving the plant a sticky feel and a distinct odor (sometimes this plant is known as "stinky Bob"). Shallow, weak roots make this plant easy to pull although large infestations can be highly labor-intensive to remove.

I took a couple of photos.  For size the closeup includes Jane's thumbnail, but one of the five petals had dropped off.

The Herb Robert was quite abundant down the firelane just a little past Parking Lot C.  

Weeds were coming up through the mulch around the trees - there was a lot around the flowering crababble.  Without flowers we had to do some studying to determine that the weed we were looking at was not chickweed but wintercress.



Chickweed flowers (Stella media) are easy to identify and now we know the difference between the leaves of chickweed and wintercress.   Follow the link to mlra wildflowers site to see chickweed.  Wintercress isn't on our site.  It should be.  Wintercress has a rosette of basal leaves which are unmistakable -- look at the base of the crabapple.

http://mlra.org/wildflowers/flowers/Stellaria_media.htm

Jane had brought a bowl of weeds with her -- along with the wintercress there was some Gill on the Ground. http://mlra.org/wildflowers/flowers/Glechoma_hederacea.htm   

I took some photos of Jane's poster of edible weeds and while writing this blog, googling for wintercress, I came up with an interesting video of edible weeds -- including wintercress.  This video is one of a series on edible weeds.

Wake Robin Hunt

That Jane Bourquin is really something.  We were on The Island - and off to the left of the (Yellow 12) trail there was a pretty good patch of White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) but no Trillium erectum,  which is referred to as Red Trillium, Purple Trillium, Blue Trillium, or Wake Robin.  Well at least it was obvious to everyone but Jane that all the flowers were white.   Nonetheless Jane went tramping through the Trillium, careful not to step on any plant, and kept searching.   In time she spotted a plant with a tiny bud, which was sort of dark.  Jane announced that this bud would become a Blue Trillium.  We marked the location with two crossed sticks (X marks the spot).  We expect that Jane is right and that we'll see the Wake Robin next week.

The photo of the Red Trillium was taken by Jane a few years ago.  The photo on the right of a patch of White Trillium was taken by Maggie today. -- click it to see it bigger.   Jane explained that May Apple flowers always occur in the notch between two leaves at the top of the plant.  If there's only one leaf, the plant is sterile.

click pic to see it large

Also in bloom: Lesser Celendine, High Bush Blueberry, Spring Beauty, Trout Lily, Dead Nettles, Ground Ivy (Gill Over the Ground) 

Each of the links above goes to the flower's page on mlra.org -
For comparison, here is the page for the Marsh Marigold, which we did not see.   We also saw a small white flower, the size of a Spring Beauty, but with six petals, not five.  It looked somewhat like the photo of the Star of Bethlehem, but I doubt that's what it was.  We also saw both yellow and purple violets.  This page has the six varieties of violets which were identified by Rudy Salati.  I think what we saw were the common yellow violet and the marsh violet.  There may have also been field pansies.

 Pebble Run Bridge, l to r: Jane, Cecile, Ro.  Milly behind Ro