Aromatic Asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) are visited by bees, butterflies and skippers, seeking nectar and in the case of the bees, pollen. The caterpillars of moths and of Silvery Checkerspot Butterflies eat the foliage. This Crab Spider is hanging around hoping to catch some dinner, just waiting for the perfect insect to come along.
I’ve got some Aromatic Aster blooming like crazy right now. A stunning show is put on by this perennial plant.
Aromatic Asters are native to northeastern and central United States. I’m looking forward to dividing my plant in the early spring of next year. The more the merrier.
Popping up with their bright pink petals on trail edges. Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum), an herbaceous perennial native to eastern North America.
Before they send up their buds Wild Geranium looks like this. The leaves are palmate with five sizable lobes. The leaves also have smaller lobes and jagged edges. This is what you need to watch for if you want to find Wild Geranium before the blossoms.
Pollinators of Wild Geraniums are many types of bees, including honey bees, bumblebees, and mason bees, flies such as syrphid flies, and butterflies and skippers.
Normally I see small groups of these flowers blooming their hearts out sending good vibes. This must be a particularly content bunch of Wild Geranium bundled together at the edge of a trail.
So many blooms. So many different species of flowers and trees celebrating spring. All calling to me to join in the revelry.
I’ve got itty-bitty buds on my Virginia Springbeauty (Claytonia virginica). Buds that look very much like really teeny tiny jalapeño peppers. What looks to me like those jalapeño peppers are sepals. Sepals are leaf-like structures surrounding and protecting the maturing bud. The number of sepals varies in difference species of flower. In Virginia Springbeauty there are two sepals for each flower. Look at the bud that has just opened in the lower left corner of the above image. The bud looks as though it is coming out of the mouth of (hmmm what? maybe . . . ) a crocodile. That “crocodile” is the two sepals that are opening for the bud/flower to come out.
Virginia Springbeauty is found in and is native to eastern North America.
The plant emerges from a tuber (also called a corm) as a stem with leaves at ground level. Halfway up the stem there are two blade-like leaves and further up the stem are the flowers. The flowers of Virginia Springbeauty are about one half inch across.
The flowers are pollinated by bees, flies and sometimes butterflies and skippers. The resulting fertilized flower will produce a capsule that contains seeds with appendages called elaiosomes which ants like to feed to their larvae in their underground nests, producing the perfect “ant farmer” situation.
I think it’ll be perhaps a week until my flowers open. Open during the day, closed at night or during cloudy days. I’m looking forward to finding them open, looking like peppermint candy.
