WILDFLOWER STATION

Let your steps slow. The water is tantalizingly close, sparkling through the trees. Birds chirp nearby. The woods are cooler here, on the south side of the pond. Although there may be fewer wildflowers, finding them can be a rare delight. Breathe deeply, savoring this natural retreat from your busy day.

In spring, the light-green fiddlehead stage of fern fronds push through the brown leaf litter, as do some of the more fleeting woodland wildflowers. You might see them between or even underneath the fern fronds. Keep an eye out for:

Mayapple, with single white flowers hiding beneath umbrella-like leaves;

Canada Mayflower, with small spires of tiny white flowers rising 4-6 inches above green leaves;

Jack in the Pulpit, which grow 1-2 feet tall, topped with a green, cream, and reddish striped trumpet, with one side petal flopping over like a hood.

Nodding Trilliums, lovely, mainly white, three-part flowers and leaves, growing sparsely in full shade.

Finally, and perhaps easier to spot, you may find red wild columbines, with their many little trumpets hanging down from 1-2-foot tall, delicate, arching branches. They are more often found in dry, partly-sunny woodland edges, where hummingbirds will find them.

Once June has come and fern fronds are taller, these wildflowers will wilt and disappear until the next spring. That is why they are called “spring ephemerals.”

Summer

Where sunlight filters down to the forest floor, you may see Poison-ivy and some invasive plants that love woodland edges: Bittersweet Vines, Common Barberry, and Bush Honeysuckle. If you’re lucky, you may also see some native Jewelweed (3-5’ tall, sporting orange and yellow trumpet-shaped flowers), Joe-Pye Weed (rose-colored, flat-topped flower clusters), or certain yellow Golden-rods, as many of them do not mind part-sun.

On your left, watch for Spicebush. In April it has yellow blossoms and aromatic foliage, and in September, red berries and yellow leaves. Caterpillars of the Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly feed and mature on this plant. Look also for Elderberry shrubs, with flat clusters of small white flowers in June and purple-black berries that attract wildlife in August.

Late summer and fall

In late summer and fall, you’ll have better luck finding meadow wildflowers that love full sun as you leave the woods.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
Mayapple: a rare wildflower

Canada mayflower, wild lily of the valley (Maianthemum canadense)
Wild Lily-of-the-Valley

Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Land of Swamps

Jack in the Pulpit

Nodding Trillium (Trillium cernuum)
Treasure-hunting for trilliums

Wild (red) columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
Wild Columbine Spring

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans, Rhus radicans)
Feasting on Poison Ivy
Birds feast on berries in the natural landscape

Asian (oriental) bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)
An Invasive decoration

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)
Jewelweed is ready to pop

Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum, Eupatorium maculatum)
Spotted Joe-Pye-Weed in purple landscapes

Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)
Late-summer sneezing

Northern Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
Good things from spicebush

Spicebush swallowtail butterfly (Papilio troilus)
Good things from spicebush

Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra)
Elderberries for wildlife