Ironweed is one of my favorite August flowers but it’s hard for me to photograph.  Its purple color doesn’t ring true on my digital camera (too blue!) and the plant is so tall that I’ve never been able to replicate Chuck Tague’s quintessential view of it, below.

In August ironweed is truly impressive.  At seven to ten feet tall it’s topped by a corymb (flat-topped cluster) of 30 to 50 deep purple flowers made up of 5-lipped florets. Dark red stems support long, alternate, lance-shaped leaves that are rough to the touch.

You’ve probably seen ironweed from the highway as it’s the only tall flower left standing in cow pastures.  Its stem is so tough that cows refuse to eat it, thus the ironweed name.  On foot you’ll find it in ditches, moist meadows and along stream banks.

In Pennsylvania there are two native species — tall ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) and New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) — distinguished by their bracts and florets per flower:

• Tall ironweed (gigantea) has blunt or short-pointed bracts and 13-30 florets.
• New York ironweed (noveboracensis) has long thread-tipped bracts and more than 30 florets per flower.

When you’re up close with ironweed you can count its florets.  My photo from Frick Park shows less than 30 so this would be tall ironweed.

Or maybe not!  Tall and New York ironweeds hybridize.

Tall ironweed is listed as endangered in New York state and invasive in Kentucky.  I wonder why.

(photo credits: close up by Kate St. John, corymb by Chuck Tague)

*A corymb is a flat-topped cluster.  An umbel is shaped like an umbrella, rounded on top.

Though we haven’t had many hummingbirds this year, Pittsburgh’s trumpet creeper is waiting to attract them.

Trumpet vine or trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans) is a woody vine native to eastern North America.  It’s so well adapted to the forest edge that it aggressively climbs up to 35 feet to reach the sun.

Its beauty and scent are attractive to gardeners but it requires ruthless pruning.  The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says, “To keep it in check, plant it near concrete or an area that you can mow; mowing down the suckers will discourage them.”

The flower is specially shaped for pollination by ruby-throated hummingbirds, the only hummingbird in this plant’s native range.  The tubes are large and the anthers held high. The insect above is too small to pollinate it.

Learn more in this video by the Capital Naturalist.

As a trumpet for hummingbirds, it’s probably so fragrant because ruby-throats like its scent.  Remember: we learned this month that birds can smell.

(photo by Kate St. John; video by The Capital Naturalist on YouTube)

There’s a tall plant in the Composite family (Asteraceae) that used to confuse me, especially in early summer. Here’s a trick for identifying mugwort.  It’s everywhere right now.

Mugwort or common wormwood (Artemisia vulgaris) is an aromatic perennial native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa and Alaska(!).  It may have been brought here for medicinal purposes, but it spreads easily along roadsides and waste places.  I’m surprised it’s not on Pennsylvania’s Invasives list.

In early summer when mugwort is knee high, it looks like chrysanthemums because its leaves are similar — sharply lobed.  The trick for telling them apart is this:  Look under the leaf. The underside of a mugwort leaf is white (above).

By late August mugwort is three to eight feet tall with insignificant green flowers clustered at the leaf joints and at the tips of the stems.  The leaves near the flowers look different. They’re linear, not lobed.

But it isn’t beautiful.

In August a mugwort patch looks tall and messy.

Wondering what it is?  Flip a leaf.  It’s probably mugwort.

(photos by Kate St.John)

Is this a daisy-like green flower with six petals?

No.

The green “petals” are sepals. The two lavender and white tubes on the left provide a clue. The central disc used to hold the flowers.

This is wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).  When in bloom it looks like this.

Still don’t recognize it?  Click here to see a flower bed full of Monarda fistulosa.

It’s a challenge to identify flowers when they’ve gone to seed.

(photos by Kate St. John)

On a sunny day last week I went to Jennings Prairie to see the wildflowers.  My old favorites were there — dense blazing star, tall sunflowers, culver’s root — but this plant was new to me.

Hog peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata) is a member of the Bean family (Fabaceae) but its leaves caught my eye because they share some field marks of poison ivy.

Like poison ivy, two of hog peanut’s three leaves are asymmetrical and have no stem, the middle leaf has a stem, and the vine is hairy.  Unlike poison ivy, hog peanut leaves are egg-shaped and have smooth edges.  See the difference for yourself by comparing these photos of poison ivy leaves and vines.

Hog peanut got its name because it produces edible beans that are eaten by ruffed grouse, ring-necked pheasants, mice, voles and — apparently — hogs.

Most of the beans are produced by its insect-pollinated flowers shown below but some come from self-fertilizing flowers that grow on runners along the ground.

Although hog peanut is an annual, chances are good that you’ll find it in the same location year after year because its ground-based flowers go to seed.

Look for hog peanut in wooded areas along streams and seeps and on floodplains.  I found this one at the “Detour” bridge at the prairie.

(Note: The big bridge on the Blazing Star Trail is under construction.  The detour is obvious and easy.)

(photos by Kate St. John)

This Japanese shrub is prized for its pretty flowers and fruits.  Unfortunately it’s invasive in forests of the eastern United States.

Jetbead (Rhodotypos scandens) is easy to find in Schenley Park where it was planted as an ornamental.

In the spring I misidentify its four-petaled white flowers as mock-orange because I don’t pay attention to the leaves.  Jetbead has opposite, deeply toothed leaves with narrow tips and pronounced veins.

The fruits are unmistakable, though.  When ripe, they form a cluster of four shiny black beads — jetbeads — shown above.

We’ll look for jetbead tomorrow on my Schenley Park outing.  Meet me at the Westinghouse Memorial Pond.

(photo of jetbead fruit by Kate St. John; photo of flower from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)

In July you’ll see white “fairy candles” blooming in the woods.  They’re the flowers of black cohosh, raising their spindly stems toward the light.

These “fairy candles” are also called “black snakeroot” because the root is black.  Native Americans used the root to treat pre-menstrual symptoms, an herbal treatment that’s still in use today.

Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, syn. Cimicifuga racemosa) looks a lot like mountain bugbane (also known as American bugbane, Actaea podocarpa) because the plants are related.  Mountain bugbane is endangered in Illinois and rare in Pennsylvania.  Get a whiff of the flowers to tell the diffrence:  Mountain bugbane smells good, black cohosh smells bad.

Unfortunately some people dig up both plants thereby killing them and making them harder to find in the wild.  Whether digging is legal depends on the rare/endangered status of the plant and who owns the land. It’s legally complicated but ethically simple: Removing shared beauty for private use leads to the Tragedy of the Commons.

p.s. U.S. Forest Service has a good article — here — about the legality and ethics of taking plants on Federal land.

(photos by Kate St. John)