Native Plants found in the Wild part 2

Beautiful flowers everybody !!!!

Beautiful photography and flowers!!

CajuninKy, I think that might be Buttercup, Ranuncahus. I just found some growing here too.


Heal All, Selfheal, Prunella vulgaris is starting to bloom

That is adorable, I have never seen them so tall.

CajuninKy, that is definitely a Buttercup, but I don't know what kind. We have them growing all over our yard about now.

The only buttercups I knew of were the pink ones that look like crepe paper. Nice to know there are more of them.

Here is another I took on the same day right next to the yellow ones.

This may have helped me to find the pretty flowers. :)

WOW, Cajun, is that cool! Did you pick it & press it? :D

~Kristy

No. I was just getting started on my walk so I left it there. There were 2 of them right next to each other and I meant to let DGS and his little friend "find" them but we got involved in something else so they are still there. That is, if the flood yesterday did not wash them off.

Wow, 2 side-by-side, that's amazing! How sweet of you to leave them for your DGS (dear grandson?) & his friend to find. :D That's white clover, right? I know you're not supposed to pick some wildflowers, cause they could be endangered - but I'm pretty sure both red & white clover are abundant enough for that not to be a concern. At least they're incredibly plentiful by me! I need to shrink down my wild plant pix so I can join this thread! :)

I have always heard it called white dutch clover. Don't know if that is correct. It is plentiful here. People also plant their pastures with it and the red clover.

It is raining here again so I won't get any pictures here today. Here is one from a week or so ago. This is a fruit tree that grows wild all over the mountains. I don't know it is called. The fruit is small. dark red, fleshy and very tart. I like them raw but most folks won't eat them that way. They make delicious jelly.

Also got some dogwood blooming all around. The white is much more abundant.

How does one go about saving seed from a dogwood?

Here is the pink. I like it better. It reminds me of the crab apple trees in South La. It may not be a real crab apple but that what everybody has always called it. The fruit is about as big as a half dollar. It starts out dark green and turns yellow. It stays very tart but is good eaten with salt like a lemon. It makes wonderful jelly.

This message was edited May 5, 2009 10:59 AM

Those pink buttercups might be the native cranesbill, Geranium maculatum.

For dogwood seeds, you'd want to pick the ripe berries, which contain the seeds. The seeds would probably need to be cleaned and "roughed up" a bit with sandpaper to mimic a bird's digestive system, but I've never tried germinating dogwoods.

According to Jill Nokes: dogwood seeds can be harvested as soon as the fruit is soft enough to squeeze and release the seed inside. Remove the pulp before sowing or storage. The seeds may be sown immediately outdoors or later stratified for 30-60 days at 41°.

Does the fruit come after the flower like a vegetable or edible fruit tree? Does it come from the flower?

The berry should be where the flower was...or maybe it starts before the flower petals drop, not sure. I myself have Roughleaf Dogwood growing, not the other one...and haven't yet gotten seed from my two plants. But they're about to bloom now...so maybe soon!
http://www.plantcare.com/encyclopedia/boxwood-2247.aspx

Thanks fro the info. I will keep my eyes open. Somebody might like to trade for them.

I LOVE this thread! One of my favorite things to do is find wildflowers & try to figure out what they are. Beautiful flowers/photos, everyone! :D

Yeah, Cajun, your yellow flower is a buttercup - I think it might be Swamp Buttercup (Ranunculus septentrionalis). And the pink one is a wild geranium. I've always called them cranesbills, too, JSorens, but my field guide actually lists Cranebill as a western species & the flowers look a little different. I think it's Geranium maculatum, too, but that's just called "Wild Geranium" in my book. Guess that just goes to show how useful the scientific names are, huh? I have another book that lists about 10 or more folk names for every plant & there is a lot of overlap. Some folk names can refer to 5 or more different, unrelated plants. I've just heard the clover referred to as either red or white, but I've heard of Dutch clover, too. I wonder if that's a different kind or just another name for the same thing? Anyway, here's a scan of another kind of clover - Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis).

I'm so pleased that most of the plants I've seen on this thread are not the ones I see on my forest & meadow strolls around here. ;D Really interesting to see the Western flowers. I'm about 20 minutes from Chicago & usually go to our forest preserves to see the wildflowers. But we have a *little* wooded area behind our house & have been surprised with some nice "weeds," back there. Even get some cool "volunteers" in my garden beds, from time to time, hehe.

These are the common wildflowers/weeds I see around here a lot (that I can identify): dandelion (duh), clovers, anemones, buttercups, mayapple, nettles, pokeweed, chickweed, purslanes, sunflowers, violets, black mustard, dame's rocket, shepherd's purse, milkweeds, cinquefoils, virginia creeper, grape vines, geraniums, wood sorrels, queen anne's lace, golden alexander, poison hemlock, eupatoriums, nightshades, morning glories, phloxes, mints, gill-over-the-ground, mullein, motherwort, teasel, honeysuckles, asters, solidagos, fleabanes, cocklebur, ragweeds, black-eyed susan, zinnias, oxeye daisy, yarrow, fireweed, thistles, burdock, wild lettuce, onion, garlic, leek, chicory, spiderwort, trilliums, lilies, irises, roses... sorry, I got carried away, lol.

Here's an unusual, but cool "volunteer" that popped up in one of my garden beds.
Flower-of-an-Hour (Hibiscus trionum) - photo taken August 6, 2006.

Edited to say - All my photos are from years past. I'm gonna edit the posts I've already made to show when these flowers were blooming.

This message was edited May 6, 2009 6:27 AM

I think the leaves look neat. The flowers do only stay open for a short amount of time before they die. Kinda like the daylilies do, but faster.

This message was edited May 6, 2009 5:48 AM

I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). I like the pokeweeds because they're colorful & provide food for the animals. I like how the stems turn red & the green berries turn to dark purple. It's also the first wild plant I ever identified, so it holds a special place in my heart because of that, lol. (That being said, if you get one in a garden bed, it is a PAIN to get rid of! Not only do they grow huge quickly, but any little piece of that GIANT long taproot left in the ground will grow a new plant. ARGH! Nice in the woods, horrible in the garden.)

My 1982 version of Reader's Digest's North American Wildlife (my favorite plant & animal guide) says pokeweeds are useful, but dangerous. The berries were used for ink, so it was also known as Inkweed. I tried to make some ink from the berries, once, without knowning what I was doing - big mistake, lol. I've heard some people say they've eaten this, but I'd never try it. Apparently, you're supposed to boil the *young* shoots in several changes of water. My book says the berries, seeds, roots, stems, & leaves are poisonous, so I'd never even think of eating any part of this plant. Children will die from eating the berries, but apparently some animals are immune to the poison (birds, squirrels, both?) cause the berries always disappear on mine. Still a pretty plant, I think. Photo taken September 10, 2006.

This message was edited May 6, 2009 6:29 AM

Some common blue violets (Viola sororia), gossiping, lol.

"Did you hear what happened in the forest, today?"
"No? What?"
"Well, apparently, Mr. Squirrel..."

Photo taken April 24, 2006.

This message was edited May 6, 2009 6:31 AM

Ok, here are some photos from my favorite place to look for wildflowers. The forest preserve by my house has a large hill in a meadow, in front of the woods that have a creek winding through them. So I get 2 habitats for the price of one. ;)

Here's some White Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium albidum) from the field in front of the hill. They're part of the iris family, which you can tell by the blade-like leaves. I can't remember what those big leaves belong to, right now, ugh.

Photo taken May 22, 2007.

This message was edited May 6, 2009 6:40 AM

Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron linearis).

From Reader's Digest's North American Wildlife:

Poke is a common food hereabouts. My DH likes it raw in salads but most folks eat it cooked like greens and fry the stalks in cornmeal and oil. I don't eat it because I don't like greens. They say it is stronger than mustard greens. DGS and I gathered some day before yesterday for a friend. The berries will indeed stain you up. It grows on the farm where we pasture 4 of our horses. We had rescued a white horse (that we have since rehomed) and she was covered in purple stains where she'd walk passed the tall poke plants and get into the ripe berries. She looked like a painted up war pony. LOL

Oh my goodness, you can eat it raw? I'm assuming your DH uses young plants? Hmmm, I've never heard of frying the stalk, that's interesting. LOL, that's hilarious about the horse! I bet it took quite awhile for those stains to come off, huh? Actually, that'd be kinda fun. Draw on the horse with the berries, lol. Where's Inez at? My mom is from Kentucky.

~Kristy

I think these might be Heartleaf Alexanders (Zizia aptera) - but they could just be Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) and those big leaves belong to something else. Here's what my book says:

Fivefingers (Potentilla simplex). Potentillas are cinquefoils. I thought all cinquefoils had 5 leaflets, but my book says some can have between 3 to 15. Other interesting facts: there are about 300 species of cinquefoils & about a third grow in North America. They're found in many habitats & their flowers can produce viable seeds with or without fertilization. Photo taken May 22, 2007.

Are those golden alexanders edible?

Yes, he eats the very young leaves. Too strong otherwise, he tells me.

Inez is at the extreme eastern point of Ky. We are 8 miles by road from WV. Just a mile as the crow flies. But I can't fly, so it's a moot point. LOL


Here is a violet I found by the riverside when we drove down to Breaks Interstate Park.

I'm pretty sure this is Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis). My book says they were brought to America as garden plants, but escaped into the wild. It also notes they've been grown in gardens since Roman times & were supposedly Marie Antoinette's favorite flower. Photo taken on May 22, 2007.

Oh, I have no idea about the Golden Alexanders, lol. Sorry. Awwww, your violet is so cute, in between those two rocks. ;D My mom has heard of Inez. She was from Freeburn, Ky. After she moved, her parents moved to Phelps. I've been down there to visit a few times & it's lovely. They laugh at me cause I call the hills "mountains," lol. Hey, everything is flat here! That's a mountain to me! lol.

I'm not sure if this is Beach Pea (Lathyrus japonicus) or Cow Vetch (Vicia cracca). I'm leaning towards Beach Pea, because of the leaves. My book says the wild peas & vetches are so closely related that botanists tell them apart by "the placement of small hairs inside the flowers." So I don't feel so bad that I'm confused, lol. Photo taken May 22, 2007.

Now, that is what I call splitting hairs. LOL

I thought these looked neat. Another DGer IDed them as some kind of sedge, but I forget the specific name, right now, doh. Photo taken May 22, 2007.

LOL!

That sedge is neat. Looks like the balls on gum trees. When my kids were little we'd use them to make Christmas ornaments with.

Not completely sure what kind of berry this is. Maybe dewberry? My book only has Highbush Blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis) listed & I'm not convinced that's it. Photo taken June 19, 2007.

Thanks, Cajun. Yeah, they do look like those, don't they?

Here's some Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), getting ready to pop. The back of the hill is covered with these every year & I love going there, then. There are tons of Monarch butterflies everywhere! ;D Photo taken June 19, 2007.

That looks like a common black berry to me. Seems dewberries are larger. They are prolific in south La.

There is something here they call a pie berry. It gets good sized but stays red. I wonder if it may be a wild raspberry?

Here is a patch of common black berries I enjoyed on a hike a few years ago.

That looks more like a blackberry plant to me. There are many species. Blackberries are larger plants than dewberry and the branches go up first, then as the branches get long enough they will arch over and downward. The dewberry is smaller, a bit more ground-hugging and often roots again as it trails out over the ground.
Oh, in Texas I haven't seen any dewberry berries that are larger than the blackberry berries. My Kiowa Blackberry produces some pretty large berries!

This message was edited May 6, 2009 10:43 AM