Chicory / Ragged Sailor

Chicory is another one of those quiet participants in human history. During the two world wars, when many things were rationed, coffee was hard to get. The Chicory root was roasted and ground and used as a coffee substitute. Even when crops of the coffee bean have been damaged, which drives up the cost, the large coffee manufactures added chicory to the coffee sold here in the U. S. to keep costs down . I have always known this flower to be called Ragged Sailor . It is another of those plants that seem to bloom only until noon or mid-afternoon and then close up. It opens in the morning a lovely blue, and by afternoon it has faded to sometimes almost white and looks quite ragged, not unlike sailors of old who left port looking quite dashing in their blue uniforms only to return months later quite faded by the sun and ragged from the wear and tear at sea.

Where I found it : in the field

Trumpet Vine

 Trumpet Vine is considered an invasive weed, but it is an important food source for Hummingbirds. It also goes by the name of Cow Itch, because it can cause a rash similar to Poison Ivy effecting most mammals.... I am guessing including cows. It has a great seed pod. It is three to six inches long containing many winged seeds that are dispersed on the wind. The genus name is Campsis and it means bent or crooked referring to the stamen which are curved or bent.

Where I found it : on the side of the road growing along the guard rail.

Broad - Leaved Helleborine

Broad Leaved Helleborine is an orchid that is not native to North America and is actually known to be invasive. Some articles even refer to this orchid as a weed. It is so beautiful .... I cringe at it being called a weed. This is not a self - pollinating orchid, it depends on insects for pollination. In nature some plants produce a scent or chemical to warn insects that depend on the flower for its nectar and or pollen that the plant is being attacked or eaten by other insects. Those insects that depend on the flower as a food source come to protect it. This orchid does the same thing but it is not being attacked. The chemical scent causes wasps to come to its rescue, and then as they investigate the supposed crime scene they pick up pollen, and moving about the other flowers they achieve the goal of pollination. Another ploy this flower may use is the fact that the nectar of  this orchid is a little, or a lot like alcohol and intoxicates those who partake of its nectar.

Where I found it : A friend found quite a few growing against her foundation.

Birdsfoot Trefoil

This Trefoil has long seeds - pods that resemble a birds foot, hence the common name. In some places they are known as Granny's Toe - nails for the same reason. For such a bright and sunny little flower it is one of the few flowers to have a negative meaning in the "Language of Flowers". Where some flowers are known for love, honesty, or purity..... this flower is revenge and retribution.

Where I found it: on the side of the road

Canada Lily

 When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.       Chinese Proverb

Lilies are the second most favorite flower in the world, second to the Rose. You will often see them at weddings and in arrangements across the globe. This Lily is native to North America. The Canada Lily is one of the nodding Lilies,  they hang downward from their stem. The American Indians would gather the buds and roots to eat.... I imagine they are similar to squash blossoms which are used today in cooking.

Where I found it : In a friends yard

Heal-All

 If you look closely at the little flowers on this plant you will see that they look like a fringed orchid. The Heal-All  only stands about five inches tall and the flowers are smaller than a quarter inch in size. The flower spikes were considered to look like a throat so .... Doctrine of Signatures ( and ancient way of using plants for healing ) dictated that they would be useful in healing the mouth and throat. I have read that they are of little use in healing anything... and then I have read that they can be used in all sorts of concoctions to heal all sorts of ailments.... even some thoughts that it may contain properties that may be helpful in healing cancer........ Isn't it interesting that some of these little flowers that we walk by everyday have played such and important part in our history.

Where I found it : in the lawn

Spiderwort

 Its genus name, Tradescantia, is after King Charles's the First gardener, John Tradescant, who planted Spiderwort from the New World in the King's garden. Its common name is not so easy to track down the meaning..... some say it is the hairiness of the sepals and buds that look like the spiders silk and others say that it is the sap from the leaves .... if you break the tip of a leaf and wait for a droplet of sap, you can touch it and then stretch it so that it also resembles the silk of a spider. Spiderwort lives for only a day. It opens at dawn and closes by mid-afternoon. A very interesting tidbit about this flower (though I don't completely understand it.... you may) is that the hairs around the stamen are one of the few tissues that is known to serve as an effective way of detecting ambient radiation levels (Wicked). The little hairs are normally blue in color but I think that I understand that they turn pink with higher ambient radiation levels. Such a big job for such a little flower.

Where I found it : in the corner of a parking lot

Indian Pipe

Ghost Flower and Corpse Plant, are two other names it goes by .... It is cold and clammy to the touch, and a translucent sort of white, much like a corpse is suppose to be... I have always known it to be called Indian Pipe. This flower is not green because it has no chlorophyll and so photosynthesis can not occur. It gets its nutrients by reaching its roots out to fungus in the soil which passes on the nutrients that the fungus gets from decaying plant matter.. When the flower is pollinated the drooping flower head will turn upright to develop the seed capsule. Such and odd little plant. Its differences make it all the more beautiful, so remember to be who you are, your differences make you unique and beautiful.

Where I found it : In the woods

Asiatic Dayflower

 I think it was Romeo who said " What's in a name....? ".  In the flower kingdom, it seems, quite a bit! The genus name, Commelina Communis,
tells quite a story. There once were three Dutch brothers......... The two blue petals represent the two brothers that went on to become botanists who were well known in their time; the little petals represent the third brother who achieved little before his death...... The second genus name refers to how this plant can develop a community of flowers by rooting from the stem nodes. This plant is from Asia. The flowers blooms only for a day. I hope you will click on the picture to see the little yellow flower like feature of this flower..... this is something that most people miss.

Where I found it :  in the yard

Evening Lychnis or White Campion

Lychnis means "lamp", the leaves were used as wicks to light in oil lamps. This flower opens at night and attracts moths for pollination. The Female flower has five curved styles and twenty veins striping the inflated calyx that looks like a balloon at the back of the flower. The male flower has ten stamen and ten veins on its calyx which is not inflated. There has been a Red Campion (which is pink) growing in our orchard for quite a few years now... it is quite rare, but I have not seen it this year........

Where I found it : in a field

Fragrant Water Lily

Thoreau wrote " How pure its white petals, though its root is in the mud!"
Nymphaea Odorata is the Greek name for this plant, named Nymphaea after the Greek deities called Nymphs who were beautiful and lived in the water. Odorata means scented. When the Lily is fertilized the flower closes and the stem holding it to the surface of the water curls downward pulling the flower under water where the seed matures. When the seeds mature the seed pod breaks away and floats to the surface and seeds are released. This water lily opens in the morning and closes at about noon, and only on sunny days.

Where I found it : Dead Cat  Swamp

Hawkweed

I am not sure if this is how this plant got its name .... but an ancient Greek named Phiny thought that hawks would suck the sap from these flowers to improve their eyesight. I, personally,  have never seen a hawk from the Americas eating Hawkweed. This flower is a member of the composite family. If you remember... composite flowers usually have two flowers, ray and disk flowers, like the sunflower or daisy, but the Hawkweed only have ray flowers. If you look closely at this flower in the wild you will notice it is covered with hairs, and if you bring along a magnifying glass you may notice that on the green bracts underneath the flower head there are glands at the very tip of each of the hairs.

Where I found it : in an open field

Deptford Pink

This is a very small flower, but it is able to grab our attention because of its vibrant and rich pink color. Bees are attracted by color and patterns so even though this is a small flower, its color is sure reveal it to passing bees. If you look closely, or click on the photo, you will notice that it has tiny little polka dots ..... I love this added touch. Its scientific name is Dianthus ameria, Divine Flower.  Dios meaning God, and anthos meaning flower. Ameria is the name of an ancient town in Italy..... I am pleased that a flower so tiny, and one that often goes unnoticed, can be considered Divine.

Where I found it : In an area in my yard that has poor sandy soil

Cananda Anemone

The Canada Anemone is on the Endangered list in Connecticut, though they are still quite common in the Midwest. The Ojibwa Indians called it the "Echo Root", though I didn't see why they called it that. It is an Anemone and so it is also called a "Wind Flower"  and the explanation for that name is that its delicate stem causes it to sway quite a bit in the wind, as one writer put it, " they tremble in the slightest breeze ". It is an aggressive plant and can take over where other plant life would normally grow.

Where I found it : a friend invited me up to see a patch growing by her studio

Purple Robe Black Locust

It seems that this flowering tree is a member of the Black Locust family. The flowers are very attractive to bees. The flowers look very much like Sweet Pea flowers. The leave are pinnately compound with 11 to 15 leaflets, that create a kind of twinkling shade. The wood of the Locust family is very rot resistant and very hard. Their wood is used for anything from ship masts to fence posts and even tool handles. Its leaves and seed pods are eaten by livestock and I'm sure other wild animals.
Click on the image to see up close how beautiful this flower is.

Where I found it : in Maine on the road side

Indian Blanket

According to Aztec legend this flower was completely yellow before Hernan Cortes arrived in the new world. The flower was then stained with so much American Indian blood that it has remained red. Another, less violent story is, that it is called Indian Blanket because it can carpet a field or roadside for miles, covering the ground like a blanket. Some other names for this flower are  Sundance and Firewheel. It is native, and grows across the United States in zones 3 to 10.

Where I found it : in a sandy driveway in Maine

Marsh Marigold Seed Pod

This I thought was a new flower I had not found before ..... something to add to my "life list". But, after about 2 hours of looking through one identification guide after another and about an hour or so on the Internet...... I found that this is not a flower at all..... it is the seed pod of the Marsh Marigold. This one is empty of seeds, which are usually very plentiful....  Isn't it beautiful?

Where I found it : in a swamp

Crown Vetch

Here is another beach find, though it is not just a coastal plant. The flowers look like it is from the pea family, and it is. The Crown Vetch is one of the flowering plants that help to bring nitrogen to the soil. It was originally from Europe but is now naturalized here in this country. It was planted along roadsides to help with erosion but quickly spread and now is considered a management problem because it can quickly take over places that native plants grow. It is now found in remnant prairie land, and hay fields, pastures and at the edges of woodlands. The seeds they produce can be dormant and viable in the soil for up to fifteen years.

Where I found it : along the roadside

Yarrow

Like the Daisy this is a Composite flower, a flower composed of two different flowers, rays and disks. Unlike the daisy, which has many white rays and many,many disk flowers, the Yarrow has a tiny disk made up of a few disk flowers and only five or six rays on each flower. The Yarrow makes up for this by having so many flowers grouped together. The scientific name is Achillea Millefolium.... so it is mentioned in tales of Achilles in ancient Greece, and all through history has been used for what was thought to be its healing qualities. Witches used it in spells, the love lorn used it to devine true love, and the Chinese used it to tell the future.  Even many Native Indians of North America give it the status of  a native plant because of how much is was used in medicine among the tribes. For such a humble plant it has quite a history.

Where I found it : In a field

Red Clover

This may be one of the more under appreciated flowers, but it is a very important flower in many ways. Bees, honey, soil, horses, cattle, rabbits and even the notorious Wood Chuck that lives on this farm benefit from the flowers, foliage and the nitrogen converting ability of the roots. The roots have these little nodules that host a bacteria that is able to do what plants can't, the bacteria can take atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into a usable form that the plants can absorb. This makes it a nitrogen rich plant that can be turned back into the soil as a green fertilizer. It is a little super hero of a plant.

Where I found it : in the yard

Solomon's Seal

This is Solomon's Seal. It is believed the it got its name because of the scars on the rootstock. These scars appear each year on the rootstock as the dieing back of the above ground plant takes place. You are able to tell the age of the plant by how many scars it has. This scar looks like the impression  a ring might make on the melted wax when it is pressed in to seal an envelope. The pattern that the scar leaves on the rootstock is said to look like characters from the Hebrew alphabet.

Where I found this : in the woods

Beach Heath

I have ventured outside of Western Massachusetts to visit the coast of Maine. This is Beach Heath or False Heather. Each little yellow flower lives for only one day. The leaves grow along the stem almost like scales as they cleave closely to the stem. This plant also go by the name of Poverty Grass because they grow on the sandy coast where little else can grow.

Where I found it :  at the base of a dune in Maine

Bitter Sweet / Nightshade

I once argued with a friend over whether this was Bittersweet, the Bittersweet that girdles trees and kills them.... I was wrong, and she was correct. My mistake was in assuming that there was only one Bittersweet. The flower to your right is Bittersweet Nightshade ... but it is not the Bittersweet that strangles our trees. That would go by the name of Oriental Bittersweet ... it is very invasive and is slowly reducing the number of American Bittersweet (another Bittersweet) by encroaching on its territory. I am glad this purple flower is not the destructive Bittersweet because it is very pretty. One of the big differences between the Bittersweet Nightshade and Oriental Bittersweet is that the Oriental Bittersweet has very showy and colorful fall fruit.... yellows and oranges, and they are used in Fall wreaths. I have a stand of fifty foot high  Spruce trees that are beyond saving because the Oriental Bittersweet vine has wound around them and strangled them. Heart Breaking!



Where I found them : in my yard

Blue Flag

 The Blue Flag is an Iris that is found in wet lands around New England.  Some believe that it is called a flag because the Iris (white) is what one of the French King Louis' adopted as an emblem for his flags as he set off for the Crusades..... The Iris emblem became known as the fleur de lis, or flower of Louis. An interesting thing about the Blue Flag's leaves, is they are able to assimilate the sun light on both sides of its leaves. Most plants assimilate the suns rays into energy through the top surface of their leaves. Thoreau was not a big fan of this vision of loveliness and said "This is a little too showy and gaudy, like some women's hats". I don't agree ... bring on those gaudy hats!

Where I found it : in wet lands beside the road