Spring Wildflowers: Texas vs Maryland

Two weeds ago we made a trip to Texas to visit family.  The end of March is the beginning of Texas wildflower season.  We flew into Austin then drove up to the Ft. Worth area.  You could see that Austin was really coming into bloom.  As we drove northward along I-35 the number of Bluebonnents along the highway dropped off considerably.

Even at 75 mph you can appreciate Texas Bluebonnets

One thing about seeing wildflowers in Texas is that they come in big patches.  Much of this is due to the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson with the Texas Highway Department to create and preserve wildflower habitats along the highways.

View of Courtyard at the Wildflower Center in Austin, TX

When we got back down to Austin we paid a visit to the Wildflower Center.  Here we saw many of the wildflowers we saw along the highways, but this time with handy name tags.

Texas Bluebonnets at low speed.

There are about 50 species and subspecies of
Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja).  I don't know
them well enough to tell them apart.

I've been looking for seeds for Groundsel.  This looks like it would be a nice addition
to a low-growing meadow/lawn alternative.  It has bright yellow flowers in spring
emanating from a basal rosette of leaves.

This Blackfoot Daisy is found on dry well drained soils.
I was interested in growing this plant, but the Northeast
does not provide the best conditions.

This little Prairie Verbena was all by itself, but it is known to
grow in large swaths, turning the ground purple. 

The narrow bronzy-green leaves of this Spring Beauty
blend into the leaf litter.

On our return to Maryland, the landscape was just beginning to turn from brown to spring green.  However, there were no massive swaths of color as we had witnessed the day before.  Inspired by all those Texas flowers I took a walk through the woods and found a few subtle surprises.  There were little pinkish white flowers along the edge of the woods.  These turned out to be Spring Beauties, Claytonia virginica.  This ephemeral perennial blooms in early spring, then essentially disappears after setting seed.



Further into the woods I found the masses of Toothwort continuing to expand.  The buds still have not opened, but they are nearly ready.

It's early April and these Toothwort are nearly ready to bloom.

The latest find was masses of finely cut foliage indicative of the genus Dicentra.  I searched around for a while and found one clump with developing flowers.  I'm pretty sure that these are D. cucullaria, Dutchman's Breeches.  I will keep a watch out for other family members, like Squirrel Corn (D. canadensis) and Wild Bleeding Heart (D. eximia).  These are most easily distinguished by the shapes and colors of their flowers.

When the flowers of Dutchman's Breeches are fully developed
they look somewhat like upside down pantaloons.

  

 I'm not keeping score, but the spring wildflowers in Texas are a grand sight to behold, but when the early summer temperatures creep into the 100's they will disappear.  In the Northeast the ephemerals will also slowly fade from view, but this will be due to the developing shade of the woodland canopy rather than the heat and dryness.  No matter where you live you've got to get out and appreciate that winter is coming to an end.

More Winter Trees

Since it is still a little early to start creating the beds for the vegetable garden I've had time to take a closer look at some of the trees out back.  With the leaf buds beginning to swell there is enough information on the twigs to do some identification.  Our new property is blessed with a number of hickory trees.  In my last post I showed a photo of the terminal bud of a Mockernut Hickory (Carya alba).  This past week I found that there were at least two other species of hickories.

The Pignut has smaller leaf scars than the Mockernut.

The first one I noticed had a much more ovate terminal bud than the Mockernut Hickory, and the leaf scars were more like a rounded off equilateral triangle.  Again, I turned to Trees of New York State for help in narrowing down the choices.  Based on the detailed descriptions in the text I feel pretty confident that this one is a Pignut Hickory, Carya glabra.

Not far from the Pignut was another type of hickory.  The leaf scars on this one were triangular with raised edges.  What stands out is the bright yellow buds and the orangy color of the year old twigs.  This one was easy to find in the key since only Bitternut Hickory, Carya cordiformis, has the yellow leaf buds.

Yellow leaf buds and the raised leaf scars indicate that this is a Bitternut Hickory

As I was taking these photos I noticed some branches where the leaf buds were opposite on another on the twig, rather than on alternate sides moving along the twig.  There are only 6 genera of native trees with this opposite branching:  Maples, Ash, Catalpa, Buckeye, Dogwood and Viburnum.  When I see this opposite branching pattern I usually think of maples, but the terminal leaf buds on this branch were not as pronounced as on maples.  To help with this ID challenge I turned to The Tree Identification Book, by George Symonds.  A quick review of the twig photos brought me to this being some type of Ash tree.  I'm pretty sure that this is a White Ash, Fraxinus americana.  I settled on that because the twigs were smooth and not fuzzy (F. pensylvanica); and the leaf scars are concave at the top rather than straight across (F. nigra).

White Ash has smooth, hairless twigs, a blunt terminal bud and the leaf scars are concave at the top (arrow).

 An easy tree to identify in the field is the American Beech, Fagus grandifolia.  In this photo you can see the elongated leaf buds.  Other indicators over the winter are the persistent dried leaves and the smooth gray bark.

Leaf buds of the American Beech 'stick out'.

Looking down at the ground level I had been perplexed by a small leafy plant that was just sprouting up last fall.  I was unfamiliar with it and just assumed that it was badly confused by the warm weather.  As I was deciding on plants to order for this spring I came across a description of a spring ephemeral that matched up with this little plant.  This appears to be Toothwort, Dentaria diphylla.  I will need to keep an eye out for the little 4-petaled white flowers this spring.  I only found one patch, but I hope I have some others.

Toothwort, a spring ephemeral is a member of the Mustard (Brassicacae) Family.

While walking back to the house I noticed a lot of little white flowers blooming in the lawn.  Many aspects of this plant were familiar, but I could not put a name to it.  I ended up digging one up for closer examination with a hand lens.  The flowers had 4 petals so I immediately thought of the mustard family.  I ended up using Gleason and Conquist to key it out as Cardamine hirsuta, Hairy Bittercress.  This is an Old World plant that is now found in 2/3 of the US.  It is a winter annual that germinates in the fall and overwinters as a rosette.  It blooms from early spring and through the summer.  While edible, the leaves on mine are very small, so it would take a lot if picking to make a salad.

Hairy Bittercress has tiny hairs on the leaves and petioles visible with a hand lens.