Stamens – Tendrils

American Plum

A meander up the mountain two days ago. The Trilliums would be blooming. I found them, white turning to soft, delicate pink. Always special. But I noticed a small tree full of airy blooms way up there near where I usually turn around. Flowers I didn’t recognize. As is my custom I took photos and brought them back home and began the research. Just my thing. I always love a mystery. It didn’t take too much time and I had figured it out. The airy blooms are American Plum (Prunus americana).

The airy look of the blooms created by a pistil with a lengthy style, and many long stamens. Looking feathery and soft. Leaves are just beginning to peek out.

The American Plum is a small tree or shrub. It’s widespread and native to North America from Saskatchewan and Idaho south to New Mexico and east to Québec, Maine and Florida. If you look carefully in this photo, you’ll see it has many thorns, though not terribly sharp, thank goodness. I’m going to be watching as spring turns to summer hoping to see the plums that develop.

Gray Dogwood

Just like the Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) that we see most often, Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) has opposite leaves and those leaves look quite similar to Flowering Dogwood.

The flowers of Gray Dogwood arrive on dome shaped panicles, or branched clusters, in late May and June here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

The individual flowers in the panicles are one quarter inch across. Those flowers contain a short calyx with four small teeth, four creamy white petals, four stamens with soft yellow anthers, and a central pistil.

The branches of each panicle are creamy white like the petals, when the flowers are produced. In a short time they become bright red as the drupes, or fruit, matures. Anyone else see these as little teeny trees?

Nearly one hundred species of birds are attracted to these drupes from late summer into early autumn.

And as autumn descends upon these small trees the leaves turn a soft yellow with highlights of purply-red.

My favorite part of the year as Gray Dogwoods go through each of the seasons is of course, winter. Those teeny trees, which are actually the panicles that were in turn, for flowers and then, for drupes become the perfect receptacles for ice and iced spider webs as well.

Sassafras Trees Are Dioecious

Seems winter has given up. Spring has won the battle of the seasons and is stepping through the woods. Right now, mid-April, Sassafras Trees (Sassafras albidum) are in bloom throughout the woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. Creating a soft watercolor wash of pale yellow.

Sassafras is a dioecious tree, meaning any Sassafras tree that you may come upon in the woods or in your yard is either a female tree or a male tree. Each individual tree’s flowers in turn are either female flowers or male flowers. The blossoms in the image immediately above are female flowers. Each female flower is very small at about one third inch across. Each has six sepals, an elongated central pistil and six small sterile stamens.

The male flower to my eyes looks like a busier flower. These are male flowers in the photo above. Each little flower, one third inch across, consists of six sepals and nine stamens with yellow anthers.

Going from tree to tree, the flowers are pollinated by various bees, flies, sawflies, beetles and wasps. Fertilized female flowers produce oval drupes. A drupe is also known as a fleshy fruit with thin skin and a central stone containing the seed. Drupe is easier to say.

When the drupes are ripe, reaching a deep blue-black color, seated on a pedicel that appears to be a rich red goblet, songbirds, Wild Turkeys, and Bobwhites enjoy the buffet and spread seeds through the woods. Bringing us more gorgeous Sassafras Trees.

Trout Lily

If ever there was the perfect use of the word “diminutive” I think it would be for describing Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum). A lily that grows to be just six inches tall. A bit too big for a doll house but still mighty small for a lily.

It’s flower which dips shyly has no petals but six radiant yellow tepals surrounding six stamens with an ovary in the center with three stimata. Bees are the flower’s pollinators. And contents of the seed capsules will, I’m hoping, increase the population of the Trout Lilies.

Today I’ve come upon emerging Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) and Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) but still no Trout Lily. I’m looking forward to being able to share these plants with you once they are up and gleefully blooming. Stay tuned!

Cutleaf Toothwort

A spring ephemeral, a perennial native to eastern North America. Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata).

The “toothwort” of its name is thanks to the appearance of its rhizome.

The Cutleaf Toothwort likes woods with mesic soils covered with lots of leaf litter. This certainly must be the description of the woods where I live. Many of these plants greet the spring each year up here, including a few spots where colonies have formed.

Buds protected by four pale green sepals open to reveal four barely pale pink petals. At the center of each flower is a style with a sphere topped stigma which are surrounded by stamens with green filaments of varying lengths topped by yellow anthers.

Many different pollinators visit these blooms. Fruit of the Toothwort is a slender pod about an inch long containing a single row of tiny seeds.

When the invasive, Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata), starts growing in the area of a population of Cutleaf Toothwort its numbers soon decline. A good reason to fight those invasives.

Wood Poppy Revisited

I’ve written about Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) before but I enjoy the native flower with its happy yellow so much I’d like to tell you more about it.

The deeply lobed green-blue leaves of Wood Poppy are poking up from the surface of the soil here in the Blue Ridge now, as the month of March approaches its midpoint.

By the beginning of April, I expect I’ll be seeing some woolly buds ready to reveal their four golden petals.

As the flower opens the two pale green sepals that protect the bud soon fall away.

The flowers of Wood Poppy provide pollen but not nectar to their visitors. Those flowers have many stamens that are topped with rich yellow anthers surrounding a pistil, style and stigma.

After insect or self pollination a seed capsule is formed which eventually hangs below the leaves.

Many seeds are released from the capsule. Seeds which are distributed in a process called mymecocory, or in simpler terms, seed dispersal by ants. These seeds have nutrient rich appendages called elaisomes. Ants collect the seeds so that their larvae can be fed the elaisomes and the remains of the seeds are tossed away in the ant colony’s “trash room.”

That trash room in an underground ant colony is the perfect place to start growing seeds. Of course the ants aren’t aware of it, but they are perfect little ant farmers. Starting a new cycle of Wood Poppies.

Rue Anemone

Here in the Blue Ridge depending on your elevation you’ll be seeing Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) beginning to bloom around the middle of April.

This spring ephemeral is native to deciduous woodlands of eastern North America. So small, you must really look for them along the trail. They grow to only four to eight inches high.

Also known as Windflower, the flower’s thin stems give way to their waving in the tiniest breeze.

The flower itself has no actual petals, but is a circle of white or pink sepals with a dense cluster of small green pistils in the center. Those pistils are in turn surrounded by stamens with white filaments and soft yellow anthers. In summer each of the blooms are replaced by four to fifteen pale green turning to dark brown achenes, which is a fruit containing a single seed.

In May, trailside with another native flower, Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea).

And in the middle of August as things begin to shut down, take a rest, slow down and recharge for next spring.

Bloodroot

It’s hard for me to believe since I’ve still got snow on the ground, but spring is nearly here. At least meteorological spring. It arrives on March 1. The weather here is assuredly unpredictable. We’ll see what the month of March brings forth. Spring or more winter? But plants will be sprouting no matter. One of the plants I expect will greet me later in March is Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). A plant that’s native to eastern North America.

Take care when you’re out hiking, particularly when you aren’t on a well established trail. These little first sprouts of spring are not necessarily obvious.

Bloodroot emerges from the soil, stem carefully wrapped in a deeply veined dark purply leaf.

As the bud grows the leaf unfurls and turns to a rich green with a silvery-green ventral side. With each flower there is a single deeply lobed basal leaf. A leaf with five to seven lobes that grows to be three to five inches across.

The flower is a burst of eight to sixteen snow white petals centered with an oval yellow-green pistil which is topped by a pale yellow stigma. The pistil is surrounded by bunches of stamens with glowing yellow anthers. The blooms don’t provide any nectar but the pollen on the anthers brings bees, flies and beetles that pollinate the flowers.

And that pollination allows the seed pod to expand. Filling with seeds that have appendages called elaiosomes. Ants bring those seeds to their larvae. The larvae is fed the elaiosomes and the still intact seeds are discarded to the nest’s “trash room” which is the perfect place to start these seeds growing. This process which happens in many cases throughout the plant world is called myrmecochory. A weird/fun word which has become one of my favorites.

Jeffersonia or Twinleaf

Jeffersonia (Jeffersonia diphylla). In 1792 the botanist Benjamin Smith Barton named this plant after Thomas Jefferson. In 1807 Jefferson had Jeffersonia growing in one of the oval flower beds of Monticello. I’m proud to have something in common with my neighbor Thomas.

Within a matter of four weeks I’ll be searching for these little signs of life. Hints of spring sprouting up from the garden’s soil.

It took missing the arrival of Jeffersonia for a few springs before I etched into my memory to be on the alert. They arrive when there is still snow around. In my gardens generally mid to late March.

Jeffersonia is native to eastern North America but is listed as a threatened or endangered plant in Georgia, Iowa, New York, and New Jersey because of habitat destruction and invasive species.

The flower of Jeffersonia is atop a bare stalk. It’s composed of eight white petals which as a bud were protected by four sepals. Two of those fading sepals can be seen here drooping below the flower, a washed out pale purple with a slight hint of green.

The petals surround yellowish stamens and in the center a green ovary. Quite the fleeting bloom, the petals fall after just a couple days.

A common name for Jeffersonia, Twinleaf, comes from the shape of the leaf. Open butterfly wings. Each pair, one leaf nearly split in two.

The flowers as they decline produce a fruit. A fruit that brings a smile to my heart. Is it a fruit or actually a smiley outer space alien?

The seeds inside this capsule each have an appendage called an elaiosome which attract ants with its lipids and proteins. The ants carry the seeds to their underground nest where the elaisomes are fed to their larvae. After the feeding, the seeds are discarded in the ant’s nest to their “trash room.” The perfect place for seeds to grow. ANT FARMERS! If you would like to add a fancy word to your vocabulary, this whole process of “ant farming” is called myrmecochory.

Tall Anemone

Tall Anemone (Anemone virginiana). A gift that shows up in my gardens thanks to Mother Nature. Filled with delight when it makes an appearance as a volunteer.

A plant native to eastern North America where it can be found in 38 of the 50 United States. In the north from Maine to Minnesota and clear to the south, Georgia and Louisiana.

A beautiful flower which has a trick up its little sleeve. Those “petals” of white or pale green are not petals at all but are sepals. And take a look at the photo above, with the crab spider on the lower right sepal. It’s just waiting to pounce on a pollinator that may come by.

The central yellow green area is the pistillate head which is encircled by stamens topped with yellow or light brown anthers. Those anthers are covered with pollen that lures hoverflies, sweat bees and other small bees.

Summer moves along. The sepals fall away and the pistillate head expands as seeds are created.

Those seeds become surrounded in a woolly world. Fluff that becomes a transportation system. Caught by the wind the seeds are sent on their way.

But that transportation system takes time. See that snow? Over the winter the seed heads persist waiting for the perfect breeze. And waiting for something else.

As the pollen lures pollinators, the fluff of the seed pod lures nest builders.

Come spring birds are assembling nests. Nests occasionally of fluff.

A Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus) knows where to find its fluff. In the garden next to the daffodils. Perfect for the nest.