Category Archives: Plants & Fungi

plants & fungi

Not in Your Field Guide

Plants & Fungi, Schenley Park


This flower stumped me for years.

It’s everywhere along the trails in Schenley and Frick Parks but I could not key it out in my Newcomb’s Guide — and for good reason.  It’s not in the book!

Last weekend I learned that this is goutweed, ground-elder or bishop-weed (Aegopodium podagraria), a Eurasian plant in the carrot family that’s gone wild.  It is so successful that it’s now ranked as invasive in six states.  Pennsylvania is one of them.

I’m embarassed to say it’s in my front garden but I didn’t plant it there.  It spread from my neighbor’s garden next door.

When it arrived I thought it was pretty.  Little did I know that nurseries advise – or ought to advise – that this plant should be kept isolated.

In Schenley Park its leaves are solid green as in this photograph but in my garden the leaves are variegated.  That pretty trait is lost when it goes wild.

And wild it is!  The plant forms dense, deeply-rooted patches whose removal is back-breaking work.

Since I don’t have the time to do that right now I am hoping a miracle will keep it at bay for another month until I begin the task.

I wonder if that would be waiting too long….?

(Thanks to Chuck Tague for this photo and for identifying it for me)

Now Blooming: Blue-eyed Grass

Plants & Fungi


This is not a peregrine.  😉

Today I’m taking a break from peregrines to look at flowers and other birds.  I won’t be holding Fledge Watch at Pitt but John English and Sharon Leadbitter will be downtown at two sites watching the peregrines at Gulf.  Click on their names for time and location.

Here’s a flower I found blooming at Moraine State Park last weekend. 

Blue-eyed Grass is in the Iris family, the Sisyrinchium genus.  There are at least five species — Stout, Eastern, White, Slender and Common Blue-eyed Grass — but they are similar and I didn’t have a field guide with me so I don’t know which one I saw.

I like the name though.  I take it apart to make sense of it.  The flower is “Blue,” it has a yellow “eye,” and the leaves look like “grass.”

The flower is 0.5-0.75″ wide. The stem is 12-18″ tall.

You’ll find it blooming in May and June in moist meadows, marshes and at the edges of woods.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)

Now Blooming: Deerberry

Plants & Fungi


If you’re hiking in the Laurel Highlands today to beat the heat, you may come across this blooming shrub.

Deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum) is a plant in the blueberry family that grows in well-drained, acidic soil.   The berries are eaten by many birds and mammals, and though the berries are too large for a small bird to eat in one bite they break open the ripe ones for a tasty meal.

Deer are fond of the berries and will eat most parts of the plant including its leaves and twigs.  In an over-browsed forest deerberry may suffer but it’s otherwise doing very well throughout its range.

Watch for it on dry uplands in the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains.

Dianne Machesney found this one at Quebec Run Wild Area in the Forbes State Forest.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

p.s. Speaking of heat, because of high temperatures our air quality will be poor today. (ozone!)

Now Blooming … and a Quiz

Plants & Fungi, Quiz, Schenley Park


This week in Schenley Park, the hillsides are dotted with the white plumes of False Solomon’s Seal.

False Solomon’s Seal is a perennial plant in the Lily family that grows in moist woods and thickets.  It goes by many names including Solomon’s plume, False Spikenard, Treacleberry, Maianthemum racemosum and Smilacina racemosa.

The plant sprouts every year from creeping rhizomes so you usually find its long slightly zigzag stems in sizable clumps.  The leaves’ upper surface is parallel to the stem so the plants lean to one side.  Interestingly, an entire clump tends to lean the same direction, all of them showing their leaves to the sun and their white flowers to pollinating bees and beetles.  It looks like the whole clump is doing “The Wave.”

False Solomon’s Seal produces red berries in the fall that are eaten by birds and rodents.  People sometimes use the plant as a laxative and deer browse it occasionally but it’s not one of their favorites.  Perhaps the deer know about its laxative effects.

So this is False Solomon’s Seal, but what plant is “true”… and why?  Leave a comment with your answer.

(photo from Wikipedia.  Click on the photo to see the original)

Now Blooming: Miami Mist

Plants & Fungi


Miami Mist is blooming now in western Pennsylvania… but good luck finding it.

It’s so unusual in western Pennsylvania that botany buffs make special trips to see it.  The only place I’ve seen it is at Enlow Fork.  On Friday, Dianne Machesney found it for the first time at Raccoon Creek State Park where she took this picture.

Miami Mist (Phacelia purshii) is a strangely named flower.  The word “mist” probably comes from its fringed leaves but the “Miami” part is a mystery.

The plant ranges from Ontario to Georgia but does not grow in Florida.   My best guess at “Miami” is that it was named in Ohio or Indiana where the word “Miami” occurs frequently.  There are three rivers (the Great Miami, the Little Miami and the Maumee), many towns and townships, a county and a university all named for the Miami tribe of Native Americans.

This hunch is bolstered by the flower’s scientific species name.  Purshii refers to “Frederická Traugott Pursh, a Saxon explorer, collector, horticulturist and author who received plant collections from the Lewis and Clark expedition”(*) and was first to publish on them.

Meriweather Lewis began his expedition in Pittsburgh and rafted down the Ohio River to William Clark’s home at the Falls of the Ohio in Indiana.  There they joined forces and solidified plans for the expedition they officially launched near St. Louis.  I wonder if Lewis collected Miami Mist during that first leg of his journey…   Of course, this is just speculation on my part.

Miami Mist is common in Kentucky and Tennessee but it’s rare here.  If you find it this year, it may not be in the same place next year because it’s an annual plant.

Miami Mist keeps us guessing.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

p.s. On the abundant side of the scale, I’ve been seeing a lot of Mayapple “umbrellas.”

p.p.s.  The Fringetree is now blooming in Schenley Park.

Now Blooming: Blue-eyed Mary

Plants & Fungi


On Tuesday I mentioned that Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna) is blooming at Cedar Creek Park, but I didn’t show you what it looks like.

Here it is, with two pink flowers as rare as four-leaf clovers.

Blue-eyed Mary is typically blue and white but there are places where you can find pink ones.   Dianne Machesney photographed these at Braddocks Trail Park in North Huntingdon Township where she says about 10% of the flowers are pink.

This weekend I’m going to Enlow Fork where 99% them are blue.

UPDATE:  Sunday May 1 is the annual Enlow Fork Wildflower Walk, sponsored by the Wheeling Creek Watershed Association.  (Enlow Fork’s full name is “Enlow Fork of Wheeling Creek.”)  Click here for more information about the event.  I was there Friday and yes, the Blue-eyed Mary are carpeting the ground!

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Now Blooming: Virginia Bluebells

Phenology, Plants & Fungi


On Sunday I took a walk at Cedar Creek Park in Westmoreland County, famous for its spring wildflowers. 

The Cedar Creek valley was gorgeous.  The eastern hillside was carpeted in white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), the valley was coated in Blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna) and the western hill was a deep shade of blue, colored by Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) pictured here.

This is the week to see spring wildflowers in southwestern Pennsylvania.  Don’t miss them!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Two Kinds of Spring Beauty

Phenology, Plants & Fungi


In late April on a sunny day in western Pennsylvania you’ll find the forest floor carpeted with small pale pink flowers. 

The flowers are actually white with tiny pink veins that guide insects to the center, “Follow this road to the nectar.”

These are Spring Beauties, a light sensitive flower in the Purslane family that doesn’t open unless the sun comes out.  Needless to say, with all the rain these 1/2″ flowers haven’t had much “face time” lately.

There are two kinds of Spring Beauty in our area.  The most common species is called simply Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) and has thin ribbon-like leaves.  It’s quite easy to find in moist woods. 

Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana), pictured above, has wide oval leaves and is rare in western Pennsylvania.  The leaves are the clue.  The flowers are the same on both.

On the next sunny day — perhaps tomorrow — take a look in the woods for the beauties of spring.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Ticks Found Here!

Deer, Insects, Mammals, Plants & Fungi
Bush honeysuckle (photo by Marcy Cunkleman)

5 April 2011

Here’s a scary thought:  Bush honeysuckle increases the risk of tick-borne disease. 

It’s not only scary, it’s true!

A team of scientists with tick expert Brian F. Allan from Washington University in St. Louis conducted an extensive study of the relationship between ticks, deer and the invasive plant known as bush honeysuckle. 

Though the study was done in the suburbs of St. Louis what they learned applies to Pennsylvania as well.  Namely, that in dense stands of bush honeysuckle there are a lot more deer than usual, a lot more ticks than usual, and a higher proportion of the ticks carry disease.

More deer than usual?  The researchers ran deer density counts inside and outside the honeysuckle areas.  In the honeysuckle zone there were 5 times as many deer.

A lot of ticks?  You bet!  One of Brian Allan’s tick traps caught 5,000 nymphal stage ticks in a single location.  Ticks don’t walk far to get a meal — less than 10 feet — so that spot in the honeysuckle was loaded and dangerous.  

Even worse, when they ground up the ticks and tested the mash for bacterial and deer DNA, they discovered that ticks found inside the honeysuckle zone were 10 times more likely to carry bacterial disease than those outside — and they caught it from deer blood. 

So why do deer like honeysuckle so much? 

People used to think that deer liked honeysuckle for its berries but the researchers proved the deer don’t care about the fruit.  Deer hang out in the honeysuckle because it provides great cover.  It’s 18% denser than our native vegetation and it’s first to leaf out in the spring (it’s the only green shrub right now) and it’s last to lose leaves in the fall.  Deer love it.  They sleep there.

The result is that you’re much more likely to catch a tick-borne disease if there’s a lot of bush honeysuckle around.  In Missouri you’ll catch Ehrlichiosis, in Pennsylvania, Lyme disease.

Bush honeysuckle is everywhere, especially in parks and gamelands.

But there’s one positive take-away.  This news may prompt people to try harder to eradicate bush honeysuckle — and that would make our native plants very happy.

Read more about the study in this October 12, 2010 article in Science Daily.  Don’t miss Brian Allan’s description of his tick trap.

(photo of bush honeysuckle leaves in the Spring by Marcy Cunkelman)