What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week? (April week 4)

This week, I’m featuring Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.

“Toothwort” refers to the tooth-like projections on its underground stem (rhizome) that are actually plant stem scars from the previous seasons’ growth; segments resemble a string of beads.

The presence of this spring ephemeral wildflower indicates that its soil has never been plowed under or subjected to heavy construction activities within the woodland where it grows.  However, when the non-native Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) invades a woodland, this is one of the spring wildflowers whose numbers rapidly decline.

A colony of Cut-leaved Toothwort plants emerging.
Photo Credit: https://anps.org/2016/02/29/know-your-natives-cut-leaf-toothwort/

Identification Tips:

Cut-leaved Toothwort develops quickly and it is one of the earlier spring wildflowers of woodlands.

This herbaceous perennial plant is about 3-10″ tall, producing from its rootstock both basal leaves and fertile shoots with upper leaves.  The basal leaves are separate from the fertile shoots; they help to store energy for next year’s fertile shoots.  A fertile shoot consists of a single flowering stalk with a whorl of 3 leaves.  Each leaf is up to 3″ long and across, but palmately cleft into 3-5 narrow lobes with dentate teeth along the margins.  The basal leaves and the upper leaves have a similar appearance; both types of leaves are greyish green to medium green and largely hairless.  The central stalk is greyish green to medium green, smooth or slightly hairy, and unbranched.

Photo Credit: G. D. Bebeau, https://www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org/pages/plants/cutleavedtoothwort.html

The flowering stalk terminates into a short cluster (raceme) of white flowers that becomes longer as it matures.  The flowers open up and become more erect in the presence of sunshine on warm spring days.  Each fragrant flower is about ½” across when fully open, consisting of 4 predominately white petals.  The petals are lanceolate-oblong and sometimes tinted with pink or light purple.  The slender stems with each raceme are at least as long as the flowers; they are light green to purplish green.  The blooming lasts about 2 weeks, but a single flower usually lasts about 4 days.

Cut-leaved Toothwort flowers

Each flower is replaced by an elongated and somewhat flattened seedpod up to an inch long with a short beak (i.e., a silique); this seedpod is held more or less erect.  The seedpods are initially green, turning to brown in late spring.  The small, brown, flattened seeds are arranged in a single row of 10-14 seeds within each seedpod.  The ripened seedpod splits open with a twist to eject its seeds, usually several weeks after forming.

Seedpod of Cut-leaved Toothwort
Photo Credit: G. D. Bebeau, https://www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org/pages/plants/cutleavedtoothwort.html

Cut-leaved Toothwort seeds
Photo Credit: https://www.prairiemoon.com/cardamine-concatenata-toothwort-prairie-moon-nursery.html

This plant typically grows in dappled sunlight before the trees leaf out.  After the plant blooms and bears fruit, its foliage turns yellow and fades away by the end of spring.

Cut-leaved Toothwort leaves turn yellow as the plant
becomes dormant at the end of its annual growing cycle.

Folklore:

Men of the Haudenosaunee would carry the whole plant on their person or the root in their mouths in the belief it would attract women.

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

The Iroquois used this plant for food; they ate the roots raw or boiled.  The root system (rhizomes) produces small fleshy tubers, which are edible with a radish-like flavor inspiring another common name of Pepper Root.  The rhizomes can be washed, chopped and ground in vinegar to be used as a horseradish substitute.

Rhizome of Cut-leaved Toothwort
Photo Credit: G. D. Bebeau, https://www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org/pages/plants/cutleavedtoothwort.html

The Haudenosaunee used this plant as a gastrointestinal aid, appetite stimulant, cold medicine, and heart medicine.  Also, a poultice of its crushed roots was applied to the head for headaches.

Wildlife Value:

The nectar of the flowers attracts both long-tongued and short-tongued bees, including honey bees, bumblebees, Mason bees (Osmia spp.), cuckoo bees (Nomada spp.), Halictid bees (Halictus spp., Lasioglossum spp.), and Andrenid bees (Andrena spp.).  Andrena arabis only collects pollen from plants in the genus Cardamine and Arabis, which is another genus in the mustard family (Brassicaceae).  Less often, the nectar of the flowers attracts early spring butterflies and Giant Bee Fly (Bombylius major).  Short-tongued bees also collect pollen from the flowers.

Giant Bee Fly on Cut-leaved Toothwort bloom
Photo Credit: Mary Anne Borge, https://thenaturalwebdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rockhopper_20150419_0042.jpg?w=584&h=617

The larvae of a few species of butterflies will feed upon these leaves, including Checkered White (Pontia protodice), Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice), and Spring Azure butterfly (Celastrina ladon).  Caterpillars of Mustard White butterflies (Pieris napi oleraceae) and West Virginia White butterflies (Pieris virginiensis) also feed on the foliage of Toothworts.  The latter species is in decline, in part due to the spread of the highly invasive Garlic Mustard noted above.  The caterpillars of the West Virginia White butterflies are able to digest only a few species of the mustard family, those with which the butterflies evolved.  Unfortunately, the chemical composition of Garlic Mustard is similar enough to that of Cut-leaved Toothwort to lure female butterflies to lay their eggs on it.  Sadly, the resulting caterpillars cannot survive on a diet of Garlic Mustard and so they perish.

West Virginia White butterfly nectaring on Cut-leaved Toothwort
Photo Credit: Photo by Vicki DeLoach licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The White-footed Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) will sometimes eat the seeds of this plant as well as its tubers.

Where Found Locally:

• Shenantaha Creek Park
• Zim Smith Trail

What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week? (April week 3)

This week, I’m featuring Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) and Early Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum) as two of our local wildflowers that begin to bloom at this time.

According to the Cornell Botanic Gardens in Ithaca, New York, Early Blue Cohosh bloomed an average of seven days earlier over the period of 1986 to 2015 as an indication of climate change sensitivity.

Identification Tips:

Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides)

This perennial wildflower is 1-3′ tall and unbranched.  The erect central stem is light green to pale purple and smooth.  A non-flowering plant has a single compound leaf at the apex of this stem, while a flowering plant has two compound leaves.  The lower compound leaf of a flowering plant is located toward the middle of the central stem, where it is divided into a whorl of three compound leaflets.  Each compound leaflet is further divided into 9 simple sub-leaflets that are arranged in groups of three (two lateral groups and a terminal group).  Less often, a compound leaflet may be divided into 15 simple sub-leaflets that consist of two additional lateral groups.  The stalks (petiolules) of the compound leaflets are long and ascending, light green, and smooth.  The sub-leaflets are 1-3″ long and ¾-2″ across (sometimes wider); they are broadly oval-oblong to oblong in shape, toothless, and terminating in 2-5 cleft lobes with blunt tips.  The upper surface of the sub-leaflets is smooth and yellow-greenish to green, while the lower surface is pale green and smooth.  The slender stalklets of the sub-leaflets are light green and smooth.

On a flowering plant, the central stem terminates in a panicle of 5-30 flowers about 1-3″ long that is rounded or elongated.  Individual flowers are about 1/3″ across consisting of 6 petallike sepals.  The blooming period occurs after the leaves have opened, but before the leaves have fully developed.  Blue Cohosh differs from Early Blue Cohosh by having more abundant flowers that are yellow or green.

Blue Cohosh flowers

Afterwards, the flowers are replaced by berry-like seeds that are about 1/3″ across, globelike in shape, and smooth.  These seeds are initially green, but they later become bright blue at maturity during the summer.  The seed coat is fleshy and contains carbohydrates.

Blue Cohosh seeds (technically, they are NOT fruit)

Early Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum giganteum)

Early Blue Cohosh has dark purple flowers (instead of light greenish-yellow), which open before leaves unfurl or as they do so (versus flowers opening as the leaves expand).  It also differs in that the terminal leaflet is larger, about 3 inches long and 2-1/2 inches wide, as opposed to about 2 inches long and somewhat narrower.

Early Blue Cohosh flowers

Otherwise, the two species are very similar in appearance, including its seeds.  Despite these similarities in appearance, the two species have distinct ranges and phenology.  Early Blue Cohosh is an endemic of the northeastern and east-central North America where it inhabits moist deciduous forests, usually on rich, rocky soils such as floodplain forests.  While Blue Cohosh is found in the same habitats, its range is geographically more diverse, reaching westward into the Great Lakes and midwestern portions of North America.  Also, Early Blue Cohosh begins blooming around 10–15 days earlier than Blue Cohosh. 

Folklore:

Blue Cohosh can be used to protect objects and places from evil.

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

Caution should be taken when consuming any part of these plants.  The leaves and seeds contain methylcytisine, an alkaloid, as well as other glycosides that are poisonous.  The root can cause contact dermatitis.

Both species have a similar chemical makeup and, thus, have been used interchangeably and for the treatment of similar ailments.  The primary function of these plants with many North America tribes (Cherokee, Chippewa, Fox, Menomini, Ojibwe, and Potawotomi) was to induce childbirth, ease the pain of labor, rectify delayed or irregular menstruation, and to alleviate heavy bleeding and pain during menstruation.

However, the plants have many other medicinal qualities.  There are many claims that the root has anthelmintic (expels parasitic worms), antispasmodic (relieves muscle spasms), expectorant (clears mucus), analgesic (pain relieving) and several other medicinal properties.  A decoction of the blue cohosh root has been traditionally used to treat rheumatism, bronchitis, asthma, fevers, colic, inflammation and constipation.

Peter Smith, author of The Indian Doctor’s Dispensory, was one of the first to use Blue Cohosh in modern medicine back in 1813.  It was actually listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia until 1905.

Wildlife Value:

Self-pollination is common, but the flowers of both species are visited by an assortment of insects seeking both pollen and nectar.  These insect visitors include Braconid wasps, bumblebees, damsel bugs (Nabis roseipennis), Ichneumonid wasps, Lasioglossum sweat bees, Muscid flies, Syrphid flies, and Tachinid flies.

Both the White-footed Mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) and Woodland Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) feed on the berry-like seeds of Blue Cohosh.  Woodland birds are attracted to the vibrant color and large storage of carbohydrates in the seed and are thus the primary dispersers of its seeds.  Because the bitter-tasting foliage of this wildflower contains toxic glycosides and alkaloids, it is rarely eaten by White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) or other animals.

Where Found Locally:

Blue Cohosh:

• Anchor Diamond Park at Hawkwood
• Garnsey Park
• Shenantaha Creek Park
• Veterans Memorial Park
• Zim Smith Trail

Early Blue Cohosh:

• Shenantaha Creek Park
• Veterans Memorial Park
• Zim Smith Trail

What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week? (April week 2)

This week, I’m featuring Leatherwood (Dirca palustris) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.

The common name of Leatherwood is derived from its tough, elastic, and fibrous bark.  The alternate common name ‘wicopy’ is similarly derived from the strength and flexibility of strips of the inner bark. That word is most likely an adulteration of one of the Algonquian language words such as wi-kpǝy of the Delaware, wigǝbi of the Western Abenaki, or wi-kop of the Ojibwa.  The Cree word is wikupiy.

The twigs of this shrub are extremely flexible as they can be tied into knots without breaking.

Photo Credit: https://plantfinder.nativeplanttrust.org/plant/Dirca-palustris

Leatherwood is one of the most shade-tolerant shrubs and can thrive under a dense forest canopy.  It is native to the forest understory of eastern North America, yet it is uncommon throughout most of its range.  I have observed only a couple dozen specimens and those were found at the locations noted below.

Identification Tips:

A short, dense shrub, 3-7 ft. tall, with solitary or few short trunks (up to 3 inches in diameter at the base) and ascending, candelabra-like branching that creates a crown about as wide as the overall plant is tall. Leatherwood is a slow growing plant.  The trunk and large lower branches are covered with wrinkled gray bark while middle to upper branches have smoother grayish brown bark, and twigs have smooth yellowish brown to brown to reddish brown bark.  In addition, the twigs have distinctive enlarged nodes that form a flat ring around the bud and give the twig a conspicuous jointed appearance.  As already noted, the twigs are extremely flexible.

Photo Credit: 2014 (c) Peter M. Dziuk, https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/leatherwood#lboxg-3

Photo Credit: 2009 (c) Katy Chayka, https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/leatherwood#lboxg-8

Alternate deciduous leaves occur along the twigs and young shoots.  Leatherwood are usually the first native shrub leaves to unfold in the spring.  Leaves are 1½ to 3 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, toothless, egg-shaped to oval to nearly diamond-shaped in outline, often widest above the middle, usually blunt at the tip, rounded or wedge-shaped (cuneate) at their bases, and very short-stalked (nearly sessile to ¼” in length).  Leaf surfaces are usually hairless, though the undersides may be woolly-hairy when young and a few hairs may persist especially along the veins.

Photo Credit: 2016 (c) Peter M. Dziuk, https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/leatherwood#lboxg-2

Clusters of 2 to 6 fragrant flowers (usually 3) arise from hairy buds on 1-year-old twigs, emerging before the leaves in early spring; these flowers dangle downward.  The hairy bud scales persist until the flowers fade.

Photo Credit: (c) G. D. Bebeau, https://www.friendsofthewildflowergarden.org/pages/plants/leatherwood.html

Pale yellow bell-shaped flowers hang in pendulous clusters and last 1-2 weeks.  Each narrowly tubular flower has 4 shallow lobes, is about 1/3″ in length.  In the absence of insect pollination, the flowers are self-fertile or apomictic.  Thus, like other spring-flowering species faced with pollinator unpredictability, Leatherwood is believed to rely on a mixed mating system to ensure reproductive success during colder than normal springs.

Leatherwood flowers

Afterwards, they are replaced by one-seeded fleshy drupes that are about 1/3” to ½” long, elongated (ovoid-ellipsoid) in shape, and hairless.  The drupes ripen during late spring; they vary in color from pale green at first, then become yellowish green, and finally purplish-red at maturity.  In addition to gravity, the drupes sometimes spread to new areas by water as they are capable of floating on the surface of water for several days.  The shiny seed of each drupe is dark brown to black.

Photo Credit: 2016 (c) Peter M. Dziuk, https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/leatherwood#lboxg-4

Should you desire to propagate this native shrub from seed, I urge you to first read this account for its wise counsel.

The deciduous leaves become greenish yellow to yellow during autumn.

Photo Credit: https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/trees/plants/leatherwood.html

Folklore:

The Iroquois used a decoction of the stems as an aphrodisiac.

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

All parts of this plant are toxic to humans.  The resin of this plant can cause skin irritation with blisters (contact dermatitis), so avoid touching it.  The fruits are considered mildly narcotic.

Nevertheless, Leatherwood was employed medicinally by a number of North American Indian tribes who used it to treat a wide variety of ailments.  For example, the Iroquois used various preparations of this plant for:

• analgesic
• blood medicine (i.e., purify the blood)
• cathartic
• dermatological aid (e.g., treating dark circles and puffiness around the eyes, swellings on the leg or limbs)
• emetic
• gynecological aid (i.e., to induce pregnancy)
• internal inflammation and kidney troubles
• laxative
• orthopedic aid (i.e., strained back or back pains)
• remedy for Tuberculosis and typhoid fever
• venereal aid (i.e., treating gonorrhea and syphilis)

It is little used in modern herbalism and any internal use should be carried out with caution since even minute doses can cause burning of the tongue.

Wildlife Value:

Primarily small to medium-sized bees visit Leatherwood flowers for nectar and perhaps pollen.  These floral visitors include mason bees (such as Blue Orchard Bee, Osmia lignaria), Cuneate Cuckoo Nomad Bees (Nomada cuneata), Pure Golden Green Sweat Bee (Augochlora pura), Small Carpenter Bees (Ceratina spp.), Unequal Cellophane Bee (Colletes inaequalis), and Wrinkled Miner Bee (Andrena rugosa).  The Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) also sucks nectar from these flowers.

It is believed that the fruits of Leatherwood are dispersed by frugivorous birds and small mammals, such as Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) and Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus).  Frugivorous birds, such as American Robin (Turdus migratorius), Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula), Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), often eat fruit in their diet and sometimes have specialized bills (especially tropical species) to help them eat fruit most efficiently by cutting through or removing the skin, husk, or hull of preferred fruits.

The foliage and especially the bark are toxic to mammalian herbivores, such as White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and Eastern Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus), and they normally avoid this shrub as a source of food.

Where Found Locally:

• 100 Acre Wood
• Ashford Glen Preserve
• Ballston Creek Preserve
• Bauer Environmental Park
• North Woods Nature Preserve
• Peter Desrochers Memorial Country Knolls Trails
• Shenantaha Creek Park

Full Pink Moon

SOURCE: https://www.fullmoonology.com/full-moon-april-2023/

The full Pink Moon rises on Thursday, April 6, with peak illumination at 12:34am EST.  Look for the moon to rise from the northeastern horizon around sunset that evening. It is the first full moon of spring.

The name “Pink Moon” was given to the April full moon by northern Native American Indian tribes. While the moon will not actually appear pink, the moon phase is named after a wildflower that blooms each year in April.

The Pink Moon coincides with when Moss Pink (Phlox subulata) is in bloom, which is a native wildflower found in the United States and Canada.

FYI: Venus will be visible during the three nights that the Pink Moon will appear to be full: Wednesday through Friday. On Wednesday night, April 5, at approximately 7:38pm, you’ll find Venus as shown here:

SOURCE: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/night/usa/albany-ny

Best time to view Venus on Wednesday evening is 7:38pm as shown above.

Happy viewing!

Spring…is emerging!

Sunny and 72 degrees today! How could I not go outside for a stroll to see what species might be emerging or otherwise revealing themselves?

I chose Dwaas Kill Nature Preserve and walked along the yet unmarked new trail.

I found this one in bloom:

Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana)

I also found the following species emerging:

False Hellebore (Veratrum viride)

Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea)

Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)

What did you see today?

Happy trails!

What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week? (April week 1)

This week, I’m featuring Whitlow Grass (Draba verna) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.  In early April of each year, I keep a watchful eye open for this non-native diminutive plant.  I have a particular appreciation for it because it is closely related to another species (Draba reptans) that was highlighted in one of the essays by Aldo Leopold that comprised his entry for the month of April in his renowned book, A Sand County Almanac.

The common name “Whitlow Grass” is a misnomer because these species are members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), rather than the grass family (Poaceae).

As noted in the table above, this species is most often found where poor soil is scarcely covered by other plants, such as gravel driveways and parking lots or sandy footpaths.

Photo Credit: https://bwwellsassociation.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/img_0947a-draba-verna.jpg

He who hopes for spring with upturned eye never sees so small a thing as Draba. He who despairs of spring with downcast eyes steps on it, unknowing. He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance.

Draba asks, and gets but scant allowance of warmth and comfort; it subsists on the leavings of unwanted time and space. Botany books give it two or three lines, but never a plate or portrait. Sand too poor and sun too weak for bigger better blooms are good enough for Draba. After all, it is no spring flower, but only a postscript to a hope.

Draba plucks no heartstrings. Its perfume, if there is any, is lost in the gusty winds. Its color is plain white. Its leaves wear a sensible wooly coat. Nothing eats it; it is too small. No poets sing of it. Some botanist once gave it a Latin name, and then forgot it. Altogether it is of no importance — just a small creature that does a small job quickly and well.

— “Draba,” one of four essays for the month of April from A Sand County Almanac, by naturalist Aldo Leopold

Identification Tips:

Whitlow Grass is an annual plant, consisting of a small rosette of basal leaves and one or more flowering stems that are typically only a few inches tall.  Its basal leaves are up to 1″ long and ¼” across, oblong or somewhat lancelike, and toothless or with 1 or 2 teeth per side, blunt to pointed at the tip, short-stalked to stalkless.  Leaf surfaces are dimpled with branching hairs.  Stems are wiry, green to purplish, typically unbranched, but sometimes branched, with the lower stem sparsely covered in a mix of branched and unbranched hairs becoming hairless above.  In dry sterile areas, blooming plants may be only 1-2″ tall (including the flowering stems).

Whitlow Grass is one of the earliest annual plants to bloom each spring.

The flowering stems terminate in a small raceme of flowers.  Each flower is about 1/8″ across, consisting of 4 white petals that are yellow at the base, deeply cleft (half or more their length) making them appear as 8 petals.  The blooming period occurs intermittently from early to mid-spring and lasts about 3-4 weeks.  The flowers open when the weather is sunny, otherwise they remain closed.  The flowers are rather showy, considering the small size of the plant.

The seedpods are held ascending to spreading on a straight to slightly curved stalk; each is oblong, flattened, more than twice as long as wide, and hairless, tapering to curved blunt tips.

Photo Credit: 2018 (c) Peter M. Dziuk,
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/spring-whitlow-grass#lboxg-4

Photo Credit: https://awkwardbotany.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/11054_orig.jpg

Inside each seedpod are up to 40 seeds.  Seeds are about 0.5 mm long, oval, slightly flattened, golden brown with a finely textured surface.

Photo Credit: (c) 2016 https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/spring-whitlow-grass#lboxg-5

This plant completes its entire life cycle in the spring and, by summer, is difficult to find.

Folklore:

Its common name is derived from a folk remedy using the leaves of this plant for treating skin infections, particularly boil-like “whitlows,” that often form at the tips of fingers or toes.

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

No doubt due to its diminutive size, there are no known culinary uses for this plant.

Likely due again to its tiny size as well as its brief annual life cycle, this plant has not been used much for medicinal purposes either.  However, Whitlow Grass has astringent qualities and, as such, has been used in the treatment of wounds.  As noted above, the plant has most often been administered in the form of a poultice made from fresh leaves, which is applied externally to the skin and the nails.

Wildlife Value:

Again, due to its diminutive size and brief annual life cycle, Whitlow Grass offers little overall wildlife value.  Flowers attract Halictid bees or Andrenid bees, which suck nectar.  Where large colonies of this plant occur, the flowers may attract honeybees, which collect pollen.  Visitors to the flowers are uncommon, however, because of the colder early spring temperatures associated with their blooming period.  Rabbits may nibble on the leaves during the spring, otherwise this plant has little value to animals.

Where Found Locally:

• Ann Lee Pond Nature and Historic Preserve
• Historic Champlain Canalway Trail
• Peter Desrochers Memorial Country Knolls Trails
• Stillwater Multi-Use Trail
• Summer Hill Natural Area
• Veterans Bike Path
• Veterans Memorial Park
• Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve
• West Sky Natural Area
• Zim Smith Trail