Last weekend at Slippery Rock Gorge I found spikes of white flowers surrounded by compound leaves.

At first I thought it was Black Snakeroot (Actaea racemosa) but my Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide reminded me that snakeroot doesn’t bloom until the summer.

On closer inspection I realized it was White Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda), also called Dolls’ Eyes because of its unusual berries.

Here’s what they look like in the fall.

Don’t be fooled into eating the berries.  The entire plant is poisonous to humans but amazingly has no effect on birds.  Birds eat the fruit, perhaps attracted by the beautiful red stems and white berries with purple dots.

I’ll have to take the same hike this fall and look for berries.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the images to see the originals)

Violets with amazing colors are blooming now if you know where to look.

Dianne Machesney found these bird’s-foot violets (Viola pedata) at Sideling Hill just south of the Pennsylvania border in Maryland.  They prefer dry, undisturbed soil so they don’t do well in gardens where the loamy, moist soil is turned over often.

Above, a close up of the flowers.  Below, the entire bouquet shows the birds-foot shaped leaves.

Most of the flowers are one shade of blue.  The two-toned blooms are extra special.

(photos by Dianne Machesney)

This flower has a scary sounding name but is quite beautiful up close.

Native to Europe and Asia, purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) is often found in North American gardens where it escapes to the wild.

“Deadnettle” sounds daunting but is a happy name that means “similar to nettle but doesn’t sting.”

Two features make purple deadnettle easy to identify.  Its leaves are green at the base of the plant and purplish on top, and it has a uniquely shaped hood-and-lip flower that’s a favorite with bees because it blooms in early spring when other flowers aren’t available.

The lip provides a perfect landing pad.

Charlie Hickey’s close-up shows us what the bee sees.

(photo by Charlie Hickey)

Here’s a flower with a bird’s name.

Blooming now in western Pennsylvania, the red trillium (Trillium erectum) is sometimes called wake-robin, perhaps a reference to the robin’s red breast though their colors aren’t the same.

The flowers smell like rotting meat because they’re pollinated by flies. This gives the plant another name: Stinking Benjamin.  Have you ever noticed that fly-pollinated flowers are often this color?

Look for wake-robin in woodlands this weekend.   Dianne Machesney found these near Monroe Road on the Butler-Freeport Trail.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)