In the winter this flowering vine earns the nickname Old Man’s Beard for its hairy, beardlike seeds.
In August it bears white frothy flowers that drape other plants like a Virgin’s Bower.
Clematis virginiana is blooming now in western Pennsylvania.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
16 August 2012
August is prime time for observing pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), a tall perennial that’s easy to find in waste places and along roadsides. Though its name is “weed,” I love its colors.
In winter pokeweed dies back to the taproot but by August it’s 6-10 feet tall with spreading branches. The succulent stems are stout and reddish with deep green alternate leaves up to 16″ long. This plant is big.
Pokeweed’s flowers bloom on racemes that curl up while flowering and droop down when heavy with fruit. This month you can see the flowers and fruits in all stages of development, often on the same raceme.
Here the flowers show five white petal-like sepals and nascent green berries in their centers. Notice how the stem is pink. Pink, white, green.
After the flowers are pollinated the green berries grow larger. On this stem the berries are all the same age, but that’s pretty rare.
More often the berries range from unripe green to ripe blue-black on the same stem. This raceme shows nearly every stage in the berry life cycle.
Ripe pokeberries are a favorite food for catbirds and cardinals, robins and mockingbirds, thrashers and waxwings. When the berries are gone the empty stem puts on a final show in gorgeous magenta.
Like many plants pokeweed is toxic though if properly prepared the young shoots can be eaten in Spring. The song about eating pokeweed, Poke Salad Annie by Tony Joe White, might lead you to believe lots of people eat it.
Don’t attempt to eat pokeweed until you know how to prepare by it! Everything you need to know is in this video from Edible Mountain on West Virginia Public Broadcasting:
On the plus side, the deep purple berry juice makes a beautiful red dye.
Pokeweed’s colors are a delight at every stage.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Blooming now in Pennsylvania, the evening primrose fully opens at twilight. Similar species called sundrops are open during the day.
Both flowers are in the Oenothera genus and are masters at opening and closing in response to light. It takes these flowers only a minute to do it. Click here to watch one opening.
Evening primroses are hardy and widespread, in fields and along roadsides. Dianne Machesney found this one at Scotia Barrens.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
p.s. Monday August 13: It’s cloudy and gray this morning. Evening primroses are open in Schenley Park.
When I visited Jennings Prairie a week ago it took me a while to remember the name of this plant.
The flower spike is interesting but the flowers are unspectacular: small, five-petaled, yellow.
However, the leaves stand out because they’re so odd with small leaflets wedged between larger ones on the stem.
By examining the leaves I remembered this plant is slightly aggravating. When it goes to seed the pods have burs that stick to your clothing.
The seeds are “aggravating” and that sounds almost like “agrimony.”
I wish I had a mnemonic for the leaves.
(photos by Kate St. John)
28 July 2012
Pictured above is shrubby St John’s wort (Hypericum prolificum), one of the many plants that share my last name.
Most St John’s worts are in the Hypericum genus including common St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) which was named “St. John” in Europe because its root was harvested for medicinal and folklore purposes on St. John the Baptist Day, June 24.
“Wort” is an Old English word meaning “root” that appears in the names of many plants including bellwort, bladderwort, golden ragwort, hogwort, toothwort and miterwort. Sometimes it means “plant” instead of root, as in the name of liverwort that was incorrectly thought to cure liver ailments.
As time passed the “St John’s wort” name spread to plants outside the Hypericum genus. In North America, Marsh St Johns wort (Triadenum virginicum), pictured below, is not a Hypericum and is not even yellow.
Naming is a fluid thing.
(photos by Dianne Machesney)
If you love birds, you can’t help but love trees.
Trees provide many birds with food, shelter, and a great place to perch. In southwestern Pennsylvania most of our birds are found in trees. We even have ducks that nest in hollow trees. (Wood ducks)
Trees are good for people too. Did you know …
Sadly many places in cities and suburbs lack trees and miss out on these benefits. In Pennsylvania there’s a statewide program called Treevitalize that works to change that.
Treevitalize helps people plant and maintain trees along neighborhood streets, in business districts, in parks, and along degraded streams. In my area the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Tree Pittsburgh, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and DCNR joined together to form Treevitalize Pittsburgh and carry out the work here. Their goal is 20,000 new trees!
The fall planting season is fast approaching so now’s the time to prepare. You can learn how to help plant and maintain trees for your own neighborhood at Tree Pittsburgh’s Tree Tender workshops.
Register online at www.TreePittsburgh.org or call 412-362-6360.
It’s a great opportunity to help neighborhood birds, and people too.
And remember the next time you complain that a tree is messy or inconvenient, look up in that tree. I bet you’ll find a bird. 🙂
(Tree facts from TreeVitalize Pittsburgh. Photo by Kate St. John)
Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) was spectacular at Moraine State Park last weekend.
I found this beautiful flower at the Pleasant Valley Day Use Area in the damp meadow near the boat launch.
(photo by Kate St. John)
How does a Common Milkweed flower go from a pink ball to a spiny gray container of fluffy seeds?
The shapes don’t resemble each other so it’s hard to imagine how one transforms into the other.
To solve the mystery I photographed milkweed’s stages and assembled them into a slideshow. Watch carefully in the slideshow below as…
Now you know milkweed’s secret.
(flower with black-and-orange milkweed bug by Marcy Cunkleman; all other photos by Kate St. John)
Does this flower look like a monkey face to you?
Apparently it looked that way to the person who named this the Monkeyflower (Mimulus ringens).
Monkeyflowers are found in wet habitats across most of the U.S and Canada. In the Pittsburgh area the one place I’m certain to find them at this time of year is in the wet patch below the wooden footbridge at Jennings Prairie.
Dianne Machesney found this one at Moraine State Park last weekend.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
Early this month I received a request: “I am trying to be a naturalist and your information about plants and trees has helped me better recognize my world here in Michigan,” wrote Matt LaMore. “Can you recommend some reading for me to better identify the plants I see throughout the woods and fields?”
As I prepared my answer I realized a lot of you may have the same question.
Last winter I wrote a series about trees and recommended the Winter Tree Guide but I’ve never discussed wildflower books. Here’s my favorite.
If you want a single field guide for identifying wildflowers in northeastern North America Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide is the one for you. First published in 1977 it covers 1,375 wildflowers, vines, and shrubs — from southern Canada to Tennessee, from Maine and the Maritimes to Wisconsin.
Instead of grouping flowers by color, Lawrence Newcomb guides you through a unique key system to help you identify the species. You examine the flower’s symmetry, count its repeating parts, look how the leaves are arranged on the stem, and determine whether the leaves are smooth-edged, toothed, or have multiple leaflets on one main stem.
After you’ve answered these few basic questions the key guides you to the appropriate pages. There you find pen and ink illustrations with descriptions to narrow your selection. Often the plant you’re seeking is right there on the first page. The black-and-white illustrations are more helpful than color photos.
With practice you’ll identify nearly every flower you see. I am so well-trained by Newcomb’s that I now think of plants in terms of his key so I can look them up later if I don’t have the book with me. (I’m not a botanist so my field notes include cryptic references like “5, alternate, divided” which I look up when I get home.)
This is a book you’ll want to own and carry with you. Click on the book cover above to buy it at Amazon.
(image of book cover from Amazon.com)
