If you have Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, I can tell you this flower is not in the 1977 edition.
Back in the late 1990’s I bought a Newcomb’s Guide and learned how to key out wildflowers in Esther Allen’s class at the Rachel Carson Institute. Pretty soon I thought I could key out almost anything.
Hah! I found this flower blooming at Raccoon Creek State Park Wildflower Reserve in early June of 1997. I couldn’t figure it out. Is it keyed as an irregular flower with opposite, divided leaves? Or a 5-petaled flower? No matter where I looked it wasn’t there.
Eventually at a Wisshickon Nature Club meeting I asked Esther about this mystery. She immediately knew what I was describing. “That isn’t in the book,” she said. “It’s Few-flowered Valerian, Valeriana pauciflora.”
I learned its common name from Esther’s translation of its scientific name — pauciflora means “few-flowered” — but on most plant databases it’s called Large-flowered Valerian.
Whatever the “flowered,” I drew it on page 286 of Newcomb’s in the section for 5-petaled flowers with opposite, divided leaves.
Look for it at Raccoon Wildflower Reserve in early June.
(photo by Dianme Machesney)
There is also a nice stand at North Park along the Latodomi Nature Trail. Esther planted the first one, but it has since spread nicely.
Blooming now
I have seen in at Boyce-Mayview along their Trillium Trail and along the Cedar Creek Gorge Trail. I, too, originally heard about it from Esther.