Chimaphila maculata Such a dainty, intriguing flower! I’ve been stalking it for a month now, waiting for it to come into bloom. Finally! Here it is in June at Pandapas Pond, near Blacksburg. This perennial evergreen herb is another forest floor inhabitant that could easily go unnoticed due to its size. In flower it is…
Tag: Appalachia
Green and Gold
Golden Star or Green and Gold Chrysogonum virginianum You might be familiar with this plant from home gardens. It is a native wildflower with a spreading habit and long-lasting flowers, so it makes an excellent ground cover in the garden. The bright yellow flowers with contrasting brown stamens are held high above the light green,…
Fire Pink
Silene virginica is Fire Pink Hot stuff! Five long, radiant, red petals adorn this flower. Each petal has a cute little notch at the end. The petals lead down to a long tube that holds the pistil and stamens. Given the tube-like shape of the flower, fire pink requires a pollinator with a long tongue or…
Putty-root Orchid
Adam and Eve Orchid or Putty-root Orchid Aplectrum hyemale Putty-root orchid is found throughout Virginia in moist forests, but it is often obscured by other herbaceous growth in the spring and summer, and by leaf litter in the fall and winter. In early May, you’ll notice the flower stalks emergining from the ground. In the early…
Philadelphia Fleabane or Common Fleabane
Philadelphia fleabane Erigeron philadelphicus This aster-like flower is a composite: the flower you observe is really a “composite” of many smaller flowers. The genus, Erigeron, includes scores of species, but I’ll take a chance and say that the one pictured here is Philadelphia fleabane, because of the way the leaves are wrapped around the hairy…
Mayapples
May Apples (Podophyllum peltatum) Mayapples are beautiful, umbrella-like plants that grow in moist woods. Some of the plants have just one large, deeply divided leaf, while others have two leaves. A relatively large white flower appears under the 2-leafed plants sometime in May; a green berry or “apple” develops soon thereafter. By mid-June, the plant begins to fade to…
Wild Geranium
Wood Geranium, Cranesbill, or Wild Geranium Geranium maculata What a spring it is for wild geranium! Today I found drifts of them growing along the roadside next to Big Stoney Creek in Giles County. Although these were open-grown, I also found plenty growing in the woods around Glen Alton and White Rocks campground. Wild geranium…
False Solomon’s Seal
Smilacina racemosa Note the placement of the flowers of this plant at the tip of the stem. It is otherwise very similar to Solomon’s Seal in appearance: an upright, unbranched stem bearing alternating oval leaves. The plant produces bright red berries later in the season. Click on any image below to open the gallery.
Showy Orchis
Galearis spectabilis is the Showy Orchis! This orchid miraculously appears on the forest floor in April and May in Virginia. It likes limey soils like we have here in Montgomery County, and it is often found on the edges of swampy terrain. This week it is coming up on the hillside at my house and near the…
Shooting Stars
Dodecatheon meadia Shooting Stars! What a great name! This spring-blooming, perennial plant has a basal rosette of oblong leaves, each about 6 inches long and 2 inches wide. In late April and early May, a stalk (or inflorescence) comes up from the center of the rosette and unfurls into a half-dozen or more white or…
Goldenseal
Hydrastis canadensis or Orange-root Goldenseal is also known as orange-root because of its thick, yellow rhizome (or underground root). This inconspicuous wildflower is in danger of being over-harvested because the plant has numerous medicinal uses. It is purported to have anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and laxative effects, among others. Extracts of farm-raised goldenseal are sold in salves…
Solomon’s Seal
Polygonatum biflorum This handsome woodland plant grows upright as an unbranched stalk of alternating, oval leaves. The leaf edges are smooth. The plant has a look-alike, false solomon’s seal, but the two are easy to tell apart if the plants are in bloom. The flowers of solomon’s seal are born underneath the leaves, as seen in…
Indian Paintbrush
Castilleja coccinea or Indian Scarlet Paintbrush The color of this flower makes it a showstopper, and as you can imagine, hummingbirds love it. According to the “Easy Wildflowers” website, “The inconspicuous flowers bloom within a dense cluster of beautiful leafy bracts that are brilliant shades of orange, red, or sometimes yellow. Wild Indian Paintbrush flowers…
Gaywings
Fringed Polygala or Gaywings Polygala paucifolia At first glance, the color and texture of this flower call to mind an orchid. The complicated structure, complete with wing-like sepals, resembles a flying bird or airplane. Two petals are joined together to make a tube; a third, lower petal is fringed. The rosy pink or purple flowers…
Squawroot
Cancer-root, Squawroot, or Bear corn Conopholis americana Squawroot is a spring flowering plant, but it is non-photosynthetic. Instead, it is parasitic on the roots of trees, usually oaks and beeches. The above-ground part of the plant is the flowering structure, and it looks like a pine cone, or even a corn cob (Bear corn), rising…
Eastern Red Columbine
or Wild Columbine Aquilegia canadensis This beautiful red and yellow flower grows in thin soil on rock ledges and along rocky slopes in woods, ravines and bluffs. The dainty flowers dangle from delicate stems, rocking constantly in the breeze. You can find columbine growing from April to July in Virginia. The elaborate flowers are only…
Largeflower Bellwort and Perfoliate Bellwort
Largeflower Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) and Perfoliate Bellwort( Uvularia perfoliata) Here are two bellworts with “perfoliate” leaves but a few subtle differences. Large-flowered bellwort is a tall, nodding plant in springtime with large, dark yellow flowers that are sometimes hard to see because they can be hidden in leaves. The yellow “petals” hang in a disorderly, twisted fashion and the petals are…
Heartleaf
Hexastylis sp. Here is a kind of ginger that is evergreen. That means you can find it in winter woods when there is otherwise very little green to be found. The waxy green, heart-shaped leaves of Heartleaf are often mottled with white (variegated); the leaf margins are smooth (or entire). The leaves and rhizomes are…
Wild Ginger
Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) You will find wild ginger, or Canadian ginger, growing in deciduous forests throughout the east coast, including Appalachia, but don’t bother looking for it in winter. This ginger is a deciduous, herbaceous plant (leaves disappear in fall). Ginger colonies form in the springtime from branching rhizomes that form just below the…
Honesty
Money Plant or Honesty Lunaria annua A native of Europe, this biennial has spread across much of the United States because it seeds so easily. In it’s first year it is a small plant, but in the second year it grows to 3 feet in height before it flowers and goes to seed. Well established now…
Dames Rocket
Hesperis matronalis Dames rocket looks (and acts!) a lot like honesty: a tall, introduced, spring-blooming plant with four-petaled flowers in pinkish purple or white. However, the leaves of damesrocket are elongated and lance-shaped,with a slightly toothed edge. The seedpod is also very long and thin, not round like money plant. It blooms in mid-May, while…
Morels
Morels Obviously, this is not a wildflower… but morels need to be included among my springtime posts because they are such a favorite. At our house, we wait for morel season with great anticipation! Our most consistent observation has been that we find morels under dead or dying elm trees, and under tulip poplars, ash…
Wood Poppy
Celandine Poppy Stylophorum diphyllum Among the earliest wildflowers to come up in my yard in April, wood poppies are tough and cold resistant. These native Virginia wildflowers grow quickly into tall plants that reach about 2 feet in height; they produce a profusion of bright yellow flowers from early spring through the summer. The large flowers will eventually give way to fuzzy, elongated seed…
Twin Leaf
Jeffersonia diphylla Twin leaf emerges in mid-March or early April, and blooms soon after the first leaves appear. It is found in damp, loamy soils in open woods in the eastern U.S., primarily in regions north of Virginia. The genus was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, who apparently grew it in his home garden at…
Dutchman’s Breeches
Dutchman’s Breeches(Dicentra cucullaria) I love these little Appalachian beauties! The plant gets its name from the shape of the white flower, which looks like a pair of pants, or “breeches”. The bright little pants dangle from a raceme above the plant, as if they were suspended from a clothesline! Dutchman’s Breeches have delicately cut leaves…
Hepatica
Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis) Three-lobed leaves that resemble the human liver! Hepatica! Liver leaf! On the east coast, you may find this early-blooming spring wildflower in the sharp-leaved or round-leaved form. And just to make it more complicated, they sometimes hybridize! Here is a description of hepatica from Wikipedia: “Bisexual flowers with pink, purple, blue, or…
VIRGINIA WILDFLOWERS 