Outside My Window

Last weekend at Slippery Rock Gorge I found spikes of white flowers surrounded by compound leaves.

At first I thought it was Black Snakeroot (Actaea racemosa) but my Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide reminded me that snakeroot doesn’t bloom until the summer.

On closer inspection I realized it was White Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda), also called Dolls’ Eyes because of its unusual berries.

Here’s what they look like in the fall.

Don’t be fooled into eating the berries.  The entire plant is poisonous to humans but amazingly has no effect on birds.  Birds eat the fruit, perhaps attracted by the beautiful red stems and white berries with purple dots.

I’ll have to take the same hike this fall and look for berries.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the images to see the originals)

Violets with amazing colors are blooming now if you know where to look.

Dianne Machesney found these bird’s-foot violets (Viola pedata) at Sideling Hill just south of the Pennsylvania border in Maryland.  They prefer dry, undisturbed soil so they don’t do well in gardens where the loamy, moist soil is turned over often.

Above, a close up of the flowers.  Below, the entire bouquet shows the birds-foot shaped leaves.

Most of the flowers are one shade of blue.  The two-toned blooms are extra special.

(photos by Dianne Machesney)

This flower has a scary sounding name but is quite beautiful up close.

Native to Europe and Asia, purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) is often found in North American gardens where it escapes to the wild.

“Deadnettle” sounds daunting but is a happy name that means “similar to nettle but doesn’t sting.”

Two features make purple deadnettle easy to identify.  Its leaves are green at the base of the plant and purplish on top, and it has a uniquely shaped hood-and-lip flower that’s a favorite with bees because it blooms in early spring when other flowers aren’t available.

The lip provides a perfect landing pad.

Charlie Hickey’s close-up shows us what the bee sees.

(photo by Charlie Hickey)

Time for a beauty break.

April showers bring May flowers.  The redbud is blooming in Schenley Park.

Take a walk outdoors and savor Spring.

(photo by Kate St. John)

Here’s a flower with a bird’s name.

Blooming now in western Pennsylvania, the red trillium (Trillium erectum) is sometimes called wake-robin, perhaps a reference to the robin’s red breast though their colors aren’t the same.

The flowers smell like rotting meat because they’re pollinated by flies. This gives the plant another name: Stinking Benjamin.  Have you ever noticed that fly-pollinated flowers are often this color?

Look for wake-robin in woodlands this weekend.   Dianne Machesney found these near Monroe Road on the Butler-Freeport Trail.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

(While we wait for the peregrine eggs to hatch, let’s look at some plants.)

I used to say with confidence that mayapples bloom in May but I got worried last year when they came out in April.

This year I saw two plants blooming in Frick Park on April 17.  I started to worry again, but last weekend’s cold weather put the flowers on hold.  Just to be sure I went out and checked on them.

Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are perennial plants that grow in colonies in open woods. When they first come up the colonies look like miniature forests of green umbrellas.

Each plant has one or two leaves but only the two-leaved plants have flowers because the flower stalk grows from the Y between the leaves.

Above are two mayapples with single leaves in Schenley Park.  Nice, but they won’t have flowers.

Below, a nascent double-leaf plant shows the flower bud between the leaves.

As the plant grows the umbrellas unfurl with the flower bud between them.

Then the bud turns its head downward and the flower opens vertically or face down. The leaves are so big and shady that it’s hard to see the flower.

Schenley Park’s mayapples weren’t blooming yet (aha!) so I found a picture of a blooming plant on Wikimedia Commons.  It’s on a hill so the photographer can look up to see the flower.

If you really want to see mayapple flowers up close you have to lie on your belly to do it.

I’m sure that’s what Chuck Tague did to get this photo.   I’m leaving the dirty work to him.

A week from today will be May 1. Unless the weather heats up really fast, I think it’s safe to say these will be “May” apples this year.

(leaf and bud photos by Kate St. John. complete flowering plant from Wikimedia Commons. Flower closeup by Chuck Tague.)

This week the trees in Pittsburgh are putting on the green.

The flank of Mt. Washington is my favorite place to see it.  All winter the hillside is a flat brown color without the look of individual trees but now each leafing tree shows up as a pale green crown.  Some are white with flowers.

This appearance is ephemeral.  Soon the leaves will be large and shady and the hillside will look uniformly green.  So now while the trees are changing so fast here’s a close look at what they’ve been up to.

Above, in Schenley Park an Ohio* buckeye leafs out.  Below at a later stage the flower buds emerge. (*see comments)

The bitternut hickory is not so quick but its mustard yellow bud has begun a leaf.

The pignut hickory’s end bud is furry, shiny and enormous.

These catkins look like caterpillars.
(Dark bark, perhaps a sweet birch. Do you know what tree this is?)

And the crown jewels are the magnolias, native to Asia.  This is a star magnolia.  Wow!

(photos by Kate St. John)

Every spring I’m stumped by this small flower that blooms in lawns, fallow gardens and waste places.  With four petals and alternate “divided” leaves I could tell it’s in the Mustard family.  When I keyed it out in Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide I arrived at Pennsylvania bittercress (Cardamine pensylvanica*).

But that’s not what it is.   It grows too well in poor soil to be a plant known for preferring wet habitats, swamps and stream banks.  I began to suspect it’s an alien.

Based on that hunch I sent photos to friends.  Mark Bowers answered that this is hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), native to Europe and Asia.

Like Pennsylvania bittercress, its young leaves can be used in salads and are said to taste like radishes.

Click here for a video describing what to look for if you’d like to eat it.  Notice the dog at the end. 

(photo by Kate St. John)

* Not a typo, the person who classified Cardamine pensylvanica omitted the second ‘n’ in our state’s name.

Yesterday I wrote about coltsfoot but it’s not the first native wildflower to bloom in western Pennsylvania.  That honor goes to snow trillium (Trillium nivale).

I looked for snow trillium last weekend at Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve and found the leaves but the deer had eaten all the flowers.   

Dianne and Bob Machesney found these blooming at Cedar Creek Park in Westmoreland County.

Thankfully there are fewer deer at Cedar Creek.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

At last I’ve found coltsfoot blooming.  Spring is officially here.

Coltsfoot is an introduced plant that blooms earlier than most of our native wildflowers.  It’s not picky about habitat so you’ll find these dandelion-like flowers by the side of the road and in waste places.

When you see the flower you won’t see the leaves.  They’re hidden at the base of the plant right now but will grow into large colts’- foot-shaped leaves after the flowers are gone.

Normally I find coltsfoot blooming around March 25.  In last year’s hot weather it appeared on March 14.  You can see why I’m impatient.

At last!

(photos by Marcy Cunkelman)