Spring wildflowers

With the recent warming trend, wild flowers are emerging in west central Arkansas. This season is about a month behind last years heat wave. Looking forward to a beautiful wild Spring.

Trout lilys are so beautiful and I miss them - they grew wild in Missouri.

Same here on being about a month behind last year. The wood poppies were in full bloom this time last year. Enjoyed those trout lilies.

Of course the wild violets (v. sororia) are blooming and so is the henbit. I'll have to get a shot of the latter. It's fairly spectacular this year.

Cville - glad to find someone who appreciates Henbit. I think few people take the time to examine the small flowers up close, they are quite lovely. While a bane to many gardeners, it does not seem inclined to grow in my yard and I have to resort to "rescuing" plants from relative's yard each spring to put on my deck rail where I can view them.

Hello fellow henbit lover! Here's a shot of some of the back covered in blooming henbit and wild violets this time of year.

Cville - Is that Henbit or Purple Dead Nettle? Can't tell from this distance but unlike Purple Dead Nettle I've never seen Henbit so thoroughly cover an area.

It is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium_amplexicaule

Thanks, that's the one. Just checking as many people confuse the two plants.

We call it henbit here. What do you call henbit?

Henbit is lovely in mass. Last Sunday on a trip to visit relatives, I noticed there were acres and acres of fields in NE Oklahoma of henbit. However, some areas did have large amounts of purple dead nettle too.
I need to get out into the Ozark and Cherokee hills this weekend for emerging wildflowers and butterflies.

Cville - I call Lamium amplexicaule henbit, my point was that so many people erroneously identify Purple Dead Nettle as Henbit that I no longer assume that folks are talking about the plant that they think they are. Below is a photo of Purple Dead Nettle I took today.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2013 7:34 AM

One of the problems with using common names.

Greenthumb99, nice pic of purple dead nettle. I have both henbit and dead nettle as volunteers in flower beds. They look nice to me but my better half calls them nasty weeds. All in the eyes and mind of the beholder.
By the way, what is the small blue wild flower in the background ?

shorthog - The small blue flower in the background is a Veronica sp., one of the Speedwells. They are fairly difficult to tell apart, especially if you are never presented with a positively identified specimen to study and commit to memory. Photo is of a patch of this plant taken on the same walk and a few feet away from my photo above.

Thanks greenthumb99. My son's yard in NE Oklahoma has a lot of these lovely blue flowers but most got mowed today.

From the mohave desert

Purple deadnettle is bigger, and much more prolific and vigorous in my yard than hen bit. I don't knwo if that holds true widely though of course.

Saxifraga virginiana that I posted to plantfiles a couple weeks ago is now LOADED with blooms! Thanks again green thumb!

Sally, this must be a good spring for Saxifraga virginiana locally as mine are more floriferous than in past years, though perhaps shorter. Photos taken today in our yard:
Early Saxifrage - Saxifraga virginiana
No ID Violet
Bi-color Bird's Foot Violet - Viola pedata var. bicolor
Virginia Bluebells - Mertensia virginica
Virginia Wild Ginger - Hexastylis virginica

Later today we were over by the Potomac River and I took these photos

1 - Spring Beautys - Claytonia virginica blooming amid non-native English Ivy. While seeing the ivy in this woodland setting was dismaying, I thought the combination was attractive.

2 - Equally out of place was the Creeping Charlie - Glechoma hederacea, but the little flowers are lovely.

More natives in my yard:
Toadshade - Trillium sessile
Bluets - Hustonia caerulea
Rue Anemone - Thalictrum (Anemonella) thalictroides
False Rue Anemone - Isopyrum bitenum
Jacob's Ladder - Polemonium reptans

very nice!
Bluets are very common around here on sandy sunny sites

Pouring rain today. Went to Haw creek falls in the Ozark National Forest yesterday on a butterfly adventure, noted several wild flowers in the woods as well as the ever present verbena on road edges.

Nice shots, greenthumb and shorthog. Cute avatar, sallg. :)

Amazing how rapidly the yard is changing since the abrupt change in the weather here. Plants in bloom just since day before yesterday:
Yellow Trillium - Trillium lutea
White Trillium - Trillium grandiflorum
Woodland Phlox - Phlox divaricata
Foam Flower - Tiarella wherryi
Pale or Cream Violet - Viola striata

Woodland wonderland you got there green thumb!
spellcheck keeps 'correcting' your name on me.
I have to go out and change a label, I have one of your 'Viola triloba' mislabeled, and you just answered another question of faded label, I seem to have a Woodland Phlox too!

Greenthumb99, what gorgeous Spring flowers. Thanks for naming them. It really helps me since I'm an old novice trying to learn wild plants identification.

New here. Recently moved to an overgrown, much abused and neglected acre that is mostly woods (hardwoods, mostly oaks). Previous owner removed some trees, mostly pines, which opened up a couple areas to more sun and they were quickly taken over by wild blackberry, Japanese honeysuckle, tree seedlings and saplings. I managed to clear cut a fairly good size area of all the junk, cutting one stem at a time at ground level. I had a feeling there would be many plants I wanted to keep, so didn't want it mowed. I found a lot of wild ginger. Now I have also found hawkweed, Solomon's seal, a lot of Catesby's trillium, and several varieties of violets. There are a lot more things coming up now and I will be picking everyone's brains to help me identify it all. The place is still a wild mess, but once I know what all I have, I will start managing it a bit to get some order to it.

I would really like to encourage some of these to grow in mass in spots. Right now there are a lot of them but they are widely scattered. Any tips on doing this with the violets or Solomon's seal would be appreciated. Transplant? Propagate? I know the Catesby trillium won't grow in mass. It apparently prefers space based on all my reading.

Here are some of the wild violets:

welcome, kattykorn.
It'll be fun watching things develop there.
Not sure myself if your first one is a violet. Second and especially third picture are lovely. That pic 3 looks like a 'fancy cultivar" grown by mother nature. The last pic looks like the violets that are all over my yard up here.

I believe the yellow flower you show is Chrysogonum virginianum http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/574/ . Violets transplant very easily. Just move them to where you want them, no problem.

Here are some pics of the Catesby's Trillium (T. catesbeai) which I'm sure you all have seen before. But I am a trillium freak and was so pleased to find them. I have a lot of them. Was hoping at least one other variety would show up, but so far can't find any others. A not so good picture of a trillium, with the unopened bud. Then of the newly opened white flower, then the flower turning pink as the bloom ages. Also one of some turkey tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor). This was the first place I found it. After taking this picture I found much healthier colonies of it in several other places.

Thank you greenthumb99. It appears you are correct. I am encouraged because it will transplant well and spread per the info here and in other places. Very different from yellow violet actually. Thanks for eddykating me!

Lovely trilliums, katty. Lucky you to have so many! The turkey tails are always interesting. Enjoyed all the photos.

Oooo pretty! I have been looking for Chrysogonum for a while on DG. I bought and planted some out at a garden where I used to volunteer. It's not something common in the trade though there are now cultvars of that to go with your 'Peach Melba' and 'Key Lime' heucheras. I would love to be out walking in your woods right now!

I have some Cranesbill Geranium 'Sambor' and native ajuga blooming together out back with some other ground cover with green and white foliage and yellow flowers. I enjoyed this bed last summer as I also planted some other colorful foliage plants around them. It was helpful to put the Sambor in front of something that had lighter coloring to really highlight the tiny dark flowers and the pretty marked foliage.

AmandaEsq, I can send you a bit of the Chrysogonum if you really want some. I just collected all the odd bits around the property today and transplanted them to one bed, but I have a fair stand of them in the back yard that I didn't touch because I like them right where they are.

Amanda- very pretty just keep an eye and hand on that Yellow Archangel Lamiastrum as it will quickly eat everything in its path! I have it also.

Katty thanks! But I don't have shade anymore! Power company came thru and cleared the lines last year and have to move my shade garden. I will continue to long for the green and gold (is that a Notre Dame song?).

Sally - thanks for giving me back the name of that viney thing. It is pretty aggressive - it's only the second season a few plants from a neighbor. I'm letting them bloom and then will thin. It doesn't seem to thrive as well in the neighbor's shade garden! Now that it has the sun it really is turning the corner.


Edited to say "EEEK!" I just read a few things about the yellow archangel, and I may have to get out there with a backhoe before it goes any farther.

This message was edited Apr 30, 2013 9:13 AM

I keep my Lamiastrum in a pot, in mostly shade, on a stump, surrounded by several inches of leaf litter. No escapes after several years.

We're just back from a walk in Patapsco Valley, central Maryland.
Happy to report lots and lots of spring beauties, and hundreds of large ferns, probbly Ostrich fern, and quite a few Jack in the pulpit.
Unhappy to report plenty of Garlic mustard, R. ficaria, Oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle....