These Are a Few of my Favorite Plants



Welcome to the latest entry in my "Year in the Woods" series, where I document all the native plants I can find in our woods in one year.

 

I've been puzzling a bit over what to include in this year-long native plant "bioblitz". For the most part I'm leaving out trees and grasses, at least for the time being, which leaves me with herbaceous flowers, shrubs and vines. But I've also been a bit arbitrary and subjective in leaving out plants that are exceptionally common or uninteresting. Does that seem fair?

 

Oh well; my blog, my rules. Let's get on with it.

This week some of my favorite plants are blooming. Of course, to be perfectly honest I could make the same statement each week, and the more I study and observe them, the more "favorite plants" I add to my list. 

 

This first one is definitely one of my favorites because it's so very unique. The entire plant is white, lacking chlorophyll. Instead of making it's own food, it steals sugars from tree roots with the help of certain fungi. It is appropriately known as Ghost Plant, Monotropa uniflora.

 

 

Next we have Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera pubescens), most definitely another favorite. The blossom isn't all that striking, but the white netting on the foliage is, in my eyes, stunning. I typically don't include a plant until the blossom has fully opened, but with this one I could wait no longer.

Butterfly pea, on the other hand, does have a rather handsome bloom (Clitoria mariana).

 

This next plant is another new find for me. It's known as Hoarypea, Tephrosia spicata. Not all that interesting, except that the blossom changes overnight from light pink to deep maroon.

 

 

The flowers on this next plant are maybe 1/8th of an inch wide. I believe it is Hairy bedstraw, Galium pilosum.

 

 

Also in the "tiny flowered" category we have Pineweed, Hypericum gentianoides.

 

And lastly, another case of "I assumed it was a weed." This morning glory has been blooming for at least a couple of weeks, and I just figured it was in the same class as the common pink and lavender morning glories found in fields and gardens, an exotic and widely-loathed weed. I now believe this is Ipomoea pandurata, a native morning glory which, according to Wildflowers of North Carolina  (Justice, Bell and Lindsey) was quite useful to Native Americans.

 

Our weekly bonus sightings are heavy in the butterfly category, and who could object to that?

 

Red spotted purple.

 

 

Red Admiral.

 

 

Pearl Crescent.

 

Unknown. [UPDATE: This is a Carolina Satyr]

 

A couple of bees, apparently doing what bees and birds do.

 

 

Tiny mushrooms growing on a tree.

 

To see additional posts in this series, click the "yearinthewoods" label in the left column.

Here's a description of my wildflower "hunting" techniques and the references I use to identify them:

http://timberwalkers.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-find-native-wildflowers-and.html

Here's a description of how I take photos:

http://timberwalkers.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-to-take-half-decent-photos-of.html