In late summer the grass doesn’t grow fast and we all get a break from cutting it.  In our yard we have a good crop of weeds because we don’t use weed killer and the grass has gone dormant during this month’s dry spell. 

The dominant weed in our yard is English plantain, raising its bald, knob-like flower heads eight inches above the grass.  It’s the only thing that needs cutting.

My husband debates with me, “Do I really need to run the mower over those knobs?  The grass is short.”  We aren’t gardeners so the plantain stays.

In Maine they have much prettier weeds.  The grass is going dormant here too but instead of ugly English plantain, their hawkweed is in bloom. 

Hawkweed is in the Aster family and there are many varieties.  The flower I see in Maine yards is probably Field Hawkweed or Pale Hawkweed.  Both grow one to three feet tall and produce pretty yellow flowers.  In mowed areas the flowers don’t reach that height so they’re about as tall as my plantain. 

In my opinion Hawkweed of any kind is much prettier than dandelions. 

No debate here.  Don’t cut the hawkweed!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons by D. Gordon E. Robertson. Note that the flower pictured above is Canada Hawkweed. Click on the photo to see the original.)

Arrowhead is blooming now in a wetland near you.  This plant is at Green Cove wetlands in Washington County.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Watch for Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) blooming now in western Pennsylvania.

Boneset’s common name comes from the old-time theory that boneset’s joined leaves meant it would heal broken bones.  Its scientific name, perfoliatum, also refers to the joined leaves which are perforated by the plant stem, as shown above.

If you haven’t seen boneset blooming yet, you can find it at Jennings Prairie.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

A week ago this flower had me stumped when I found it at State Gamelands 95 in Butler County. 

The plant is six feet tall and has big, lobed, alternate leaves, but how to describe the flower?  It looks like it never opens.  Nonetheless I posted my vague description of it on PABIRDS and hoped someone would enlighten me.

My description must have been adequate because at least five people responded and all of them said, “It’s Pale Indian Plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolium (L.) H. Rob.”

In case you come across it and are stumped too, this is what it looks like. 

But one photo isn’t enough.  The picture above is a closeup of the flower umbel by Marcy Cunkelman.  Click here for a view of the entire plant by Dianne Machesney.

Now you know.

(photos by Marcy Cunkelman and Dianne Machesney)

Here’s a beautiful flower that used to stump me every year when I found it near the bridge at Jennings Prairie.

This is Hairy Willow Herb (Epilobium hirsutum), a plant in the Evening Primrose family that stands two to six feet tall.  Like all Primroses, the flowers have a distinctive cross-shaped pistil.  This should have tipped me off.

Hairy Willow Herb can be invasive, though it was well behaved when I first found it years ago.  I wonder if it’s gone crazy now in the wetland under the bridge.

If you’d like to find out, join the Wissahickon Nature Club at Jennings Prairie tomorrow at 10:00am for a bird and wildflower outing lead by Esther Allen, Chuck Tague and Dianne Machesney.  For information and directions, click on the “Nature Walks” link here or call Susanne at 412-771-4737.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Deep purple and shaped like a shooting star, we’d cultivate this flower in our gardens if the rest of the plant was cooperative.  But it isn’t.

Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) is a woody perennial vine that drapes itself over nearby vegetation.  The plant looks scraggly and the flowers are small.

It’s blooming now in my neighborhood in untended plots and all the places we forgot to weed.  I can’t help but notice it though, because I like the color purple.

And that makes this plant is one of my recurring topics.  See my blog about its poisonous fruit.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) is blooming now in Pennsylvania’s woods.  The flower is white, it’s the root that’s “black.”

The plants are three to nine feet tall topped by a spire of branching, fuzzy-looking flowers.  The spire makes up a third of the plant’s height and normally stands straight (this specimen is leaning) so the flowers appear to float high above the vegetation.

I encountered a large stand of Black Cohosh a week ago at Moraine State Park.  Amazingly, I didn’t notice it at first.  I bent over to identify another flower and when I straightened up I saw the cohosh everywhere like a ghostly army of flowers, white against the cool green of the forest.

Black Cohosh flowers look beautiful but they smell bad.  The purpose is to attract flies, gnats and beetles for pollination.

If you ever have a doubt about identifying this plant, take a whiff.  Eeeeew!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Now that the weather is cooler the plants look happy again.

Here’s a picture from Marcy Cunkelman’s garden in Indiana County.

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)