The green umbrellas you see in the woods right now are May Apples. They only produce a flower on the plants with a double umbrella. The flowers sprout at the “Y” where the umbrellas join and hide beneath them, bowing their heads toward the ground.
The flowers appear in May, then the seed pods form in their place looking like a green “apple.” Hence the May Apple name.
Take a peek under the umbrellas and you’ll see them blooming now in western Pennsylvania.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
I love the name of this flower: Fairy Bells (Disporum lanuginosum).
The plant is about 30 inches high, the leaves droop and the pale green flowers hide beneath the leaves. The flowers are so delicate they are aptly named fairy bells. They are actually an Appalachian flower and are hard to find in Pennsylvania unless you’re in the mountains.
For Dianne Machesney these Fairy Bells were a “life flower” when she took this picture last weekend in the Laurel Highlands.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
Look close to the ground for the small dark red flowers of Wild Ginger, blooming now in the western Pennsylvania.
(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)
Here’s an unusual flower: the Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia). Its white flowers point downward like stars with streamers, hence its name. To see a close-up of the flowers, click on the link.
Shooting Star blooms in May but you’ll have to look for it quickly. The plants dies back in the summer.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
White Trillium are in full bloom throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. Last weekend I saw them carpeting the hillsides in the Laurel Highlands at Indian Creek and at Wolf Creek Narrows near Slippery Rock.
Trillium used to be quite plentiful at the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel until the deer ate all the wildflowers. Fox Chapel fenced the trail a few years ago and the flowers made a comeback. Here are some Dianne Machesney found there last weekend.
Such beauty!
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
The first time I saw Blue-eyed Mary was at Guffy Hollow near Irwin, PA. When it grows profusely – as it did there – the forest floor is carpeted in blue.
It’s blooming now at Enlow Fork. Don’t miss it.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
These beautiful flowers are blooming now in western Pennsylvania. They’re called Dutchmen’s breeches because they look like pairs of pants hung upside down on the stem.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)
…is the fitting name given to spring’s woodland wildflowers.
Their blooming period is very short, timed to fall between the last frost and forest leaf-out. In southwestern Pennsylvania that’s late April to early May – about three weeks. The flowers of some species may be present for only a few days so if you don’t visit the forest every day you’ll miss them.
I remember the first time I learned about spring ephemerals through a class in the 1990s at the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham College (now University). Until that point, spring for me was about about daffodils, tulips and lilacs. Suddenly a whole new world opened up, the world of the original flowers from which the rest were bred, the truly wild flowers that grow on their own without our intervention.
Some wild flowers, like the Bloodroot pictured here, take the chance of emerging when frost is still a real possibility. A member of the poppy family and one of the earliest to bloom, it’s named bloodroot for the red sap in its root. The sap tinges the veins of emerging leaves a faint pick color, as you can see.
This is how I normally find bloodroot with leaves folded like hands around the flower stem and the flower closed. My timing is off. It is too cold or too early in the season to see the bloom. You can see it though, if you click on the picture.
I found a single bloodroot flower blooming at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve on April 5 but none on Easter a week later. I came at the wrong time; it was very cold.
They are truly ephemeral.
(photos by Marcy Cunkelman)
This morning (Wednesday) we had snow among the flowers.
In Pittsburgh our last killing frost is, on average, April 21. Was today’s snow the last hurrah for winter? I hope so! Only 13 days to go.
(photo by Kate St. John)
The title looks redundant but this flower is one of the first to bloom so it’s named Harbinger of Spring. It’s a tiny flower. Each bunch is about the size of a pencil eraser so you have to look closely to see it.
I found it in bloom yesterday at Raccoon Creek State Park Wildflower Reserve in Beaver County. So did Bob and Dianne Machesney.
(photo by Dianne Machesney)