Friday, February 1, 2008

Literary Wildflowers - Week Three

What a lot of fun this was! :-)

Below:
Purple Coneflower Echinacea purpurea, Black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta,
Below:
Wild Bergamot Monarda Fistulosa in front of raspberries
Below:
Thanks to iboy, a positive i.d. has been made on this plant.
Germander Teucrium canadense is a native perennial.
It grows in colonies, up to 3 feet tall.
There are two horn-like projections
on each flower.

Below:
Purple Coneflower in front of a ?Sunflower? (seems like a lot of petals),
in front of Queen Anne's Lace Daucus carota (Parsley family) and, I believe, a variety of Goldenrod (not blooming).
From one of our field guides re: Q.A.Lace: "This plant is the ancestor of our cultivated carrot. It is considered a weed in Nebraska."
Below:
Thanks to i boy and mjd for identifying the Horsenettle Solanum carolinense
in the foreground. These flowers are white and turn lavendar with age. The plant and its fruit are poisonous to both humans and livestock.
I see some Wild Parsnip Pastinaca sativa (not native), about to bloom on the left. Many people are left with a severe rash (worse than poison ivy) if skin contacts blooming plant. Behind that, I think, is Daisy Fleabane Erigeron strigosus of the Sunflower family.

Some of my "helpers."

I'd Leave
I'd leave all the hurry,
the noise and the fray
For a house full of books
and a garden of flowers
by Andrew Lang

Here at home.


If Flowers Want to Grow

If flowers want to grow
right out of concrete sidewalk cracks
I'm going to bend down to smell them.
by David Ignatow

Or in this case, right in the middle of the front yard! :-)

Thanks to Wildflowers in Winter for the great idea!

9 comments:

IBOY said...

#3... maybe germander (teucrium).

#4 in front, horse nettle
Don

Molly said...

I was thinking Horsenettle for #4 too.

I like your cheery poems. I essentially started taking pictures of wildflowers with a spiderwort growing through a crack in concrete steps.

I am glad that have shown your books. Although I have several, I can always use more.

Shady Gardener said...

IBoy,
I believe you're quite right. #3 is Germander. I'd seen it in our field guide last night and wasn't quite sure. But, reading more description makes it right... it has two "horn-like" projections at the top of each flower.
You both are correct with Horsenettle for #4. Looking it up in my book, it begins as a white flower and turns blue as it ages.

mjd
I don't think we can EVER have too many books! :-)

Thanks to both of you! I'm going to edit my post.

Elizabeth Joy said...

Which book is your favorite. I should probably write about my favorite ones too. Your flowers are great! My, I'm itching for spring weather. I spent an hour looking at seed catalogs and there is more snow predicted for tonight and tomorrow! My son is jumping for joy, but I'm not! Still the flowers are a good thing to think about. They do make me feel better.

Pamela said...

That last quote is wonderful.
I'm going to bending down to smell them ... and also get on my belly to check out the bumblebee belly flowers (thanks Elizabeth Joy)...

Shady Gardener said...

Elizabeth Joy, The two books I use most for prairie flower ID the most are Field Guide to Wildflowers by Fontenelle Forest & Neale Woods Nature Centers (Fontenelle Nature Associaton has a website) which lists wildflowers and plants within their area (I'm only across the state), and Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers A Field Guide by Doug Ladd, printed by Falcon, Helena, Montana, 1995.

Has your Winter weather been as variable as ours this year? Whew!

Pamela,
Isn't it funny we both used poetry that has people "way down low?" :-) Or up-close-and-personal! That's the way I must be if I'm going about without my glasses! ha.

Unknown said...

What a wonderful post! I love seeing plants grow up in the cracks... even when I know that, for example, the hollyhock won't actually grow in that small space. They just make me smile.

Shady Gardener said...

Kim, I know what you mean! We had a petunia reseed in a sidewalk once. I just had to let it go. (It stayed pretty small, but it bloomed a full-sized blossom!) ;-)

Shady Gardener said...

njb,
Thanks for visiting. I enjoyed visiting one of your sites, for now. Will have to make a return visit soon. :-)