Largeflower Bellwort

Largeflower Bellwort

Uvularia grandiflora

Largeflower Bellwort is found in nicer woodlands in Indiana and is not uncommon.  It has a look of always not quite coming into full bloom.  It's foliage hangs down and the flower petals are somewhat twisted.  It looks like it needs a cup of coffee.



It grows in small colonies

Creeping Yellowcress

Creeping Yellowcress

Rorippa sylvestris

Creeping Yellowcress isn't too hard to identify.  After you determine that it is one of the yellow cresses, just note that the flowers are larger than the other cresses, the plants are found in wet areas, and it creeps along the ground.

It is not native to North America.  It is more associated with disturbed areas.  Since people do most of the disturbing of areas, this plant has followed people around the world for a long time and it's hard to know exactly where it's native range, some suggest the broadleaf forest belt of Europe.



Cress shaped flowers



The fruits develop on the lower parts of the flower stalk while it continues to bloom on the upper parts

Finely divided leaves

Virginia Iris

Virginia Iris

Iris virginica

Also known as Blue Flag Iris, this is a very pretty plant found in wet areas, generally edges of lakes and wetlands.



This plant grows in colonies along lake edges

White Fawnlily

White Fawnlily

Erythronium albidum

According to the USDA Plants database, there are three species of Erythronium in Indiana, the Dogtooth Violet, the Midland Fawnlily and this one.  The Midland Fawnlily is quite rare in Indiana and it's quite possible that it's not found here at all, but the Dogtooth Violet and White Fawnlily can often be found growing in colonies in the same woods.  The leaves are almost identical but the flowers of the Dogtooth Violet are yellow while the White Fawnlily flower are white.

The Erythronium can be split into two groups, the eastern U.S. and the western U.S.  It's easy to see the distributions on the BONAP website.

Erythronium's are small lilies with six recurved petals.  They are one of the earliest to sprout in the spring.  They transplant and grow easily so are often used in natural woodland gardens.



Typical mottled leaf

The pod is evident in early summer and the whole plant is mostly gone by mid-summer

Dogtooth Violet

Dogtooth Violet

Erythronium americanum

The members of the Erythronium genus go by a number of peculiar common names, seemingly used interchangeably among the species.  Fawn-lily, Trout-lily, Adder's Tongue, and Dogtooth Violet.

Now everyone knows that it got the name Trout-lily because the leaves look like a brook trout.  From that, you can presume that Fawn-lily also came from the spotted leaves.

A little research suggests that the bulb looks like a dog's tooth, hence Dogtooth Violet, even though it's not a violet and only sort of looks like a violet.  Now I need to go dig some up and take a look.

If you look closely, the central spike, which is the pistil, is sort of split in two, thus looking somewhat like a snake's tongue.  At least that's what it says on the internet, which is an infallible source of information.  Seems like a stretch to me.

All in all, I find it interesting to speculate why ancient mankind came up with the various peculiar names for plants.



The leaves have various amounts of spotting

In the spring you'll find vast groupings of the singular leaves sprouting from the forest floor, with scattered flowers among them.



The flowering part of the plant usually consists of one or two leaves and one flower on a stem.



Twinleaf

Twinleaf

Jeffersonia diphylla

Every year I try to get a picture of the flower of the Twinleaf.  I know where it grows, but it must only flower for a couple of days because I either see it just budding out, or with old spent flowers.

It's a cool little plant with very distinctive leaves ... just a pair of them that look like identical twins facing each other.  Whenever I get a shot of the flower, I'll update this blog.

Spring Blue Eyed Mary

Spring Blue Eyed Mary

Collinsia verna

Blue-eyed Mary is an uncommon plant of Indiana woodlands, but when it blooms in the early part of May, it's spectacular!  One plant in and of itself is nice to look at, with it's bicolored flowers, but the real show is when it literally blankets the ground with thousands of flowers, changing it from drab brown to bright blue.

I only know of one place where it's found, an Acres Land Trust preserve called Dygert's Woods.  I'm sure that it's found a lot of other places, just none that I'm aware of.



The blue lower petals and white upper petals make this flower easy to identify.

This plant carpets the forest floor at Dygert Woods

Virginia Bluebells

VIrginia Bluebells

Mertensia virginica

Virginia Bluebells is one of the showiest flowers of the spring woodland.  They're more common in southern Indiana, but occasionally planted and thriving in the northern part of the state.

Identification is easy.  Their large grayish-green leaves and tubular flowers are quite distinctive.



The flower colors span the whole blue-indigo-violet spectrum



A whole patch of these in the spring can be spotted a mile away

Canadian Lousewort

Canadian Lousewort

Pedicularis canadensis

Canadian Lousewort, also known as Wood Betony, is a cool little plant found in many woodlands in Indiana.  It usually grows in groups of plants and can be overlooked if you're not looking down.

Many common plant names end with the suffix -wort.  According to people that know, that suffix is a very old Old English term that was used for plants that had medicinal uses.  The first part of the word denoted the complaint for which the plant was used.

Louse is one lice, so presumably Lousewort was used to get rid of lice.  I wonder if that works.

According to other people that know, the Menominee Native Americans from the Wisconsin area thought the plant was a charm that would help when seducing the opposite sex.  I guess woman have always been charmed by flowers.



Canadian Lousewort (Wood Betony) comes in various colors from yellow to maroon

Top down view

The foliage is quite distinctive if you're looking for it

Canadian Wildginger

Canadian Wildginger

Asarum canadense

Canadian Wildginger, or Ginger as we call it, is a fairly common plant in our neck of the woods. It is generally found in patches covering the floor of the woodland and is very easy to recognize. You'll never see the flower unless you bend over and move the leaves out of the way. They're cool looking flowers, so it's worth the trouble.
Asarum canadense is not the same as Ginger (Zingiber officinale), which is used in gingerbread or ginger ale.  It is said the Canadian Wildginger root is edible and can be used as a flavoring.  Be careful though.  Studies with rats show that if you eat about five pounds a day for nine months, you'll get sick.

Why, do you ask, did anyone ever feed Wildginger to rats?  Well it turns out that Wildginger contains Aristolochic Acid (AA).  AA is also found in a Chinese herb that was being used to make dietary supplement pills that were eventually found to be causing kidney failure in dieters in Belgium and the U.S.  Medical investigators went to a lot of trouble to find the cause of this outbreak of kidney failure and when it was discovered that AA from these pills was the cause, the FDA issued a warning to discontinue the use of any of these types of pills.

They also noted that Canadian Wildginger also contains AA, thus implying that it shouldn't be eaten.  They do mention that the cases of kidney failure were people that had been taking pills of concentrated "Aristolochia" daily for several months.

They never did go to the trouble of feeding the actual roots to rats.  So, if you have the urge, I suppose you can try it at your own risk.  I suspect that it's like so many other things that would be toxic if taken in large quantities.  Heck, even water will kill you if you go in deep enough.



The ginger leaf has a very distinctive shape

Ginger plants grow in colonies low to the ground

It's not uncommon to see groups of plants along the woodland trails in Indiana

Purple Deadnettle

Purple Deadnettle

Lamium purpureum

Decussate!  That's what Purple Deadnettle is ... Decussate.  As long as I'm putting plant pics up, I might as well throw in some botanical terms.  So, the first one is "Decussate".

Decussate simply means that the opposite pairs of leaves are 90 degrees offset from the pairs above and below them.  That's how botanists talk when they talk to each other.  Another opposite leaf term is "Distichous".  This means that the sets of opposite leaves are in the same plane, giving the appearance of two rows of leaves.  Far fewer plants have distichous leaves than have decussate leaves, although most compound leaves have distichous leaflets.

So, there's your botany lesson for today.



Purple deadnettle almost always grows in bunches. This is probably one plant.



Purple deadnettle can completely cover a farm field in early spring. It will be plowed under and pop up again next spring.

Purple deadnettle obviously is an early season plant!

Leaf



Common Periwinkle

Common Periwinkle

Vinca minor

Common Periwinkle, Vinca, Myrtle, whatever you want to call it is a garden ground cover that occasionally escapes and can cover a forest floor.  We don't see it so much in the northern part of the state, but it has been a real problem in southern Indiana.  The virtues that make it a great ground cover are those same things that make it a problem.  So, if you're going to use it, keep an eye on it and if you see it spreading beyond your garden, destroy it!



It can really cover the ground!

Closeup of leaf

Virginia Strawberry

Virginia Strawberry

Fragaria virginiana

Yum yum!  Nothing like Wild Strawberries in the summer.  They're smaller than the garden variety, but make up for it in flavor.

This plant is not uncommon in a variety of habitats.  I guess I see it mostly along trails in the grass which isn't mowed too often.  It's a low growing plant, so it can get lost and out-competed in taller vegetation.

Virginia Springbeauty

Virginia Springbeauty

Claytonia virginica

Spring Beauty's are found in the early spring in almost every woodland in Indiana.  They're quite a nice little flower to see because it is so much associated with the end of winter and the start of the glorious spring.  Whoever named it just couldn't resist calling it Spring Beauty!



Cute little white flowers with pink stripes

Bunches of long thin leaves come out of the ground near the flowering stalks

The stems also have a pair of long thin leaves