The importance of preserving native plant habitat is demonstrated by century old Big Trees, Trout Lily and Orchid colonies of plants research indicates that when growing undisturbed are often decades perhaps centuries even millennium old.
Today at ACRES Spurgeon Nature Preserve, DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES and YELLOW TROUT LILLY displays were phenomenal. SQUIRREL...
Posted by John Jay Smith on Monday, April 22, 2019
Monday, April 22, 2019 post by John Jay Smith is at ACRES Land Truston Facebook:
Today at ACRES Spurgeon Nature Preserve, DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES and YELLOW TROUT LILLY displays were phenomenal. SQUIRREL CORN, a close relative of DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES, are just coming on. TOAD TRILLIUM has been in bloom for a week or more, but just a few LARGE WHITE TRILLIUM are open; by the week-end LARGE WHITE TRILLIUM displays could be impressive. Besides those pictured, TOOTHWORT, HEPATICA, SPRING BEAUTY, BLOODROOT, and COMMON BLUE VIOLET are also in flower.
Saturday, April 23, 2022 post by Mt. Cuba Center on Facebook:
Spring ephemerals are an important food source for pollinators that emerge in early spring. The colors or patterns on many ephemeral flowers help to guide pollinators to the nectar/pollen source. For instance, Virginia springbeauty (Claytonia virginica), featured in the first photo, has bright pink lines leading to a yellow center, where all the tasty nectar and pollen is located!
Learn more about how spring ephemerals support pollinators here: Spring’s Edible Buffet Native pollinators need early spring wildflowers.
[ Mt. Cuba Center in the state of Delaware is a nonprofit botanic garden that highlights the beauty and value of native plants to inspire conservation. ]
Wednesday, April 22, 2020 post by the Indiana State Library on Facebook:
Today is Earth Day. Check out these activities inspired by Indiana picture books, courtesy of the Indiana Young Readers Center.
Celebrate Earth Day with activities inspired by Indiana picture books
Earth Day has been observed every year in April since 1970. That’s 50 years of celebrating the planet we all call home. It might feel difficult to celebrate Earth Day this year because of COVID-19, but here are two activities that everyone can do, inspired by two Indiana picture books.
Take a walk and look for native Indiana plants
“Wake Up, Woods,” published by Indiana’s Rubber Ducky Press in partnership with the Indiana Native Plant Society, is a beautiful picture book all about Indiana native plants. The book pairs lilting rhymes with informational text about 12 plants native to Indiana. The book is illustrated with delightfully accurate drawings of not only the plants, but also the creatures who live in and around the plants. On the cover a mouse, caterpillar and bee coexist among violets
Wednesday, April 17, 2024 post by Metea County Park on Facebook:
Heard a gray treefrog for the first time this year.
Also saw:
1. Dutchman's Breeches
2. Trout lilies with blooming spring beauties on catherinia moss
3. Blooming wood anemone, Anemonoides nemorosa, with non-blooming toothworts and trout lilies
4. May apples, a couple trilliums in background of taller blue cohosh
5. Blue cohosh flowers, caulophyllum thalictroides
6. Cutleaf toothwort
7. Squirrel corn
8. Dutchman's breeches
9. Wood anemone, Anemonoides nemorosa
10. Dutchman's breeches same photo shown below
Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)
- Stylophorum diphyllum at Missouri Botanical Gardens
Thursday, May 16, 2024 post by Mt. Cuba Center on Facebook:
The cheerful, showy yellow flowers of celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) turn into the fuzzy, oblong fruits featured in yesterday’s What’s That Wednesday photo. Each pod contains numerous small seeds, which are dispersed by ants. Native to woodlands, hence its other common name of wood poppy, this plant adds a pop of color in early spring to shade gardens with rich, moist soil.
Cranesbill - Woodland Geranium
Monday, May 7, 2018 post by the Indiana Native Plant Society on Facebook:
Native plant of the week: Wild Geranium or Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum) (family Geraniaceae). This is a common woodland wildflower in spring and early summer throughout Indiana. It total native range extends from southern Canada throughout the eastern US nearly to the Gulf coast, and west to Manitoba and Oklahoma. Although only a few species of Geranium occur in Indiana, there are over 400 worldwide. All exhibit the same distinctive means of dispersal: As the flower matures, the center extends into a long slender beak-like structure with five seeds arranged around the base, each of which is attached to a strip of tissue that extends the length of the beak. As it dries out, the strips are released at the base and curl upward, propelling the seeds away from the plant. The third photo shows this phenomenon in a related species with smaller flowers, Geranium carolinianum (which is also native throughout Indiana). Although it is related to the true Geranium, and is in the same family, the common household Geranium, usually sold as a potted plant, is actually a member of the genus Pelargonium, a group of about 200 species, nearly all of which are native to South Africa, though a few others occur elsewhere in the Old World.
April 11, 2024 post by the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves on Facebook.
Ohio Native Plant – Wild Geranium
Thanks for joining our month-long celebration of April’s Ohio Native Plant Month! Today, we’re spotlighting wild geranium (Geranium maculatum). It may be a common spring wildflower, but there’s no other spring bloomer like it in Ohio! Wild geranium offers attention-grabbing pink five-petaled flowers and deeply lobed, hand-like leaves. It’s especially stunning to see a large group of wild geraniums growing along wooded roadsides.
Ohio is home to four different native geraniums, although the rest are less common and don’t match the beauty of this one as they have smaller flowers. Look for this geranium in rich deciduous woodlands among a bevy of other spring bloomers. It will also occur in floodplains, meadows, woodland margins, and roadsides.
Wild geranium is an outstanding addition to a shade garden! It’s easy to grow and attracts all sorts of pollinators. Because it’s not quick to flower, it will last longer than many other spring species, not to mention older, “happier” plants can get bushy, which makes them extra attractive!
Additional information: May 16, 2023 post by Mt. Cuba Center and
Sanguinaria canadensis - Bloodroot
Monday, April 14, 2014 post by Peterson Field Guides on Facebook:
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) gets its name from the orange-red sap produced when its stem or roots are broken. The sap will stain, and was used by Native Americans as a reddish dye. It also contains toxins that block biological processes of animal cells; it was once promoted as a natural treatment for cancer (while this was never proven to work, it has since been shown to *cause* cancer in some instances). Bloodroot is found in woodlands of the east, blooming early in the spring before the leaf canopy has fully formed. Plants expand by an underground branching rhizome, but also reproduce by seed. The seeds are wrapped in a fleshy fruit-like elaiosome, which is attractive to ants. The ants will collect the seed and take it home to their nest, where the elaiosome is consumed. The seed is deposited in the nest's trash midden, where other discarded material provides a rich substrate for the seed's germination. Patches of bloodroot may be evidence of old (or, sometimes, current) anthills.
[Photo by BlueRidgeKitties on Flickr; CC-licensed]
Spring Beauty - Claytonia virginica
- SPRING BEAUTY: THE FAIRY SPUD 5-page papaer at Indiana Native Plant Society.
- Spring Beauty Claytonia virginica Purslane family (Portulacaceae) at Illinois Wild Flowers.
This woodland native is often seen in cemeteries where it tolerates mowing and may even thrive as long as herbicides are not used on the lawn. One example is seen in several photos with spring beauties throughout the Bethlehem Cemetery, Sullivan County, Indiana posted May 18, 2024 on Indiana Cemeteries Facebook.
Thursday, April 8, 2021 post by ACRES Land Trust on Facebook:
Spring: Now showing at a preserve near you! Plan a visit at https://acreslandtrust.org/preserves/
Photo by Thomas Sprunger
Sunday, March 27, 2022 post by Mt. Cuba Center on Facebook:
Looking for early signs of spring? Virginia spring-beauty (Claytonia virginica) emerges before many other wildflowers. This petite ephemeral with delicate pale pink to white flowers can carpet the ground for up to three weeks. The flowers are arranged in clusters 4-6″ above linear strap-like foliage. In June, the leaves go dormant until the following year.
Trillium
Trillium. The very name is synonymous with spring wherever they grow. Even the non-botanically minded amongst us could probably pick one out of a lineup. This wonderful genus holds such a special place in my heart and I anxiously await their return every year. The journey from seed to flowering plant is an arduous one for a trillium and some may take for granted just how much time has elapsed from the moment the first root pushed through the seed coat to the glorious flowers we admire each spring. The story of a Trillium, like any other plant, starts with a seed.
As with many other spring ephemerals, Trilliums belong to that group of plants that utilize ants as seed dispersers. Once underground in an ant midden, a Trillium seed plays the waiting game. Known as double dormancy, their seeds germinate in two phases. After a year underground, a root will appear followed by an immature rhizome and cotyledon. Here the plant remains, living off of the massive store of sunlight saved up in the endosperm for yet another year. Following this second year underground, the plant will throw up its first leaf.
In its fourth year of growth, the Trillium seedling will finally produce the characteristic whorl of 3 leaves we are familiar with. Now the real waiting game begins. Growing for such a short period of time each year and often in shady conditions, Trilliums must bide their time before enough energy is saved up to produce a flower. In an optimal setting, it can take a single Trillium 7 to 8 years to produce a flower. If conditions aren't the best, then it may take upwards of 10 years! Slow and steady wins the race in the genus Trillium. A large population of flowering Trillium could easily be 40 or 50 years old!
Sadly, when you couple this slow lifestyle with their undeniable beauty, you begin to spell disaster for wild trillium populations. A plant that takes that long to germinate and flower isn't the most marketable species for most nurseries and, as a result, Trillium are some of the most frequently poached plants in the wild. Because of their slow growth rate, poached populations rarely recover and small plots of land can quickly be cleared of Trilliums by a few greedy people. Leave wild Trilliums in the wild!
It is becoming rare to see masses of trilliums like this in Allen County. In the past a hill in Lindenwood Nature Preserve looked similar to this and a small patch of really large tall trilliums were seen at Shoaff Park.
Sunday, May 1, 2022 post by the Indiana Land Protection Alliance - ILPA on Facebook:
Indiana boasts some of the wildest, most special and magical places, many of which spring to life this time of year. These next couple of weeks we will highlight a few of those places that exist only because they have been protected-- untouched, undisturbed remnants of the past.
A preview of things to come... Stay tuned!
Saturday, April 30, 2022 post by the Fox Island Alliance on Facebook:
The Trillium grandiflorum are blooming! Commonly called large-flowered trillium and white wake-robin, among other names, this native woodland flower can grow up to 3 feet tall under ideal conditions. The plant has a sturdy stem with a whorl of 3 (tri) broad leaves. Above the leaves is a single large bloom of 3 petals, starting out white and turning pink as the flower ages. At Fox Island, trillium usually bloom from late April thru mid May, depending on the weather.
#trillium #trilliumgrandiflorum #nativeflowers #nativeplants #wildflowers #woodlandflowers #nature #spring #springflowers #foxislandalliance #foxislandcountypark
Thursday, April 20, 2023 post by Fox Island County Park on Facebook:
Triple White trillium plus a friend! White trillium’s are taking over the hardest hit area of Fox Island Park! Can you find the stack of three?
March 25, 2024 post by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources on Facebook:
WILDFLOWERS: Most common in Indiana’s northern third, but scattered in select locations as far south as Brown County is the large-flowered trillium. Six species of trillium are native to Indiana. All parts of the plant are divisible by three. The white petals turn pink with age. This popular wildflower may form large colonies with dozens of simultaneous blooming plants. Trillium prefers forested slopes with little grazing or disturbance, especially in our nature preserves and state parks. Unfortunately, it has declined due to high deer populations. Plan a visit to see spring ephemerals such as trillium at an Indiana nature preserve: dnr.IN.gov/nature-preserves.
Friday, April 26, 2024 post by Metea County Park on Facebook:
New growth at Metea - trilliums are approaching peak
Trout Lily - Erythronium
Dogtooth Violet (Erythronium americanum) has yellow flowers while White Fawnlily (Erythronium albidum) has white flowers.
Research has suggested the average age of a trout lily colony can be up to 150 years old, and potentially over 1,000 years old in undisturbed forests.
Field Notes Trout Lily April 26, 2019 at Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy Traverse City, Michigan.Many trout lily colonies are at least 200 to 300 years old.
Trout lily is native to the eastern half of North America. Trout lily is a native spring wildflower that benefit insects in Indiana Ricky Kemery, The Plant Medic, retired extension educator for horticulture at the Allen County Purdue Extension Service, April 20, 2024 The Journal Gazette newspaper.- Trout-lily (Erythronium spp.) Notes: These two species are commonly known as White Trout-lily and Yellow Trout-lily. Has comparison photos of flowers, leaves, and colonies growing in the wild. 2017 Paul McAfee. on PlantsofIndiana.com.
- August 11, 2024 an interesting discussion on Fort Wayne Pollinator and Native Plant Enthusiasts on Facebook to a question about collecting native plant seeds inspired some of the Trout Lily information in this section after seeing the photo of so many white flowering trout lilies on the Redbud Orchard blog. It is likely the remnant of an ancient colony revived when invasive plants were removed giving the trout lilies a chance to thrive once again.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022 post by the Mt. Cuba Center on Facebook:
Yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum) is among the earliest flowers to bloom and is spectacular when flowering in large masses. The name “trout lily” refers to the similarity between the speckled leaf markings and those of the brown or brook trout. This spring ephemeral thrives in moist, rich soil and spreads quickly to form sizable colonies where the attractive leaves greatly outnumber the flowers. A must-have for the early spring garden, especially in moist well-drained situations. Some colonies of trout lily are thought to be centuries old. But while they are long-lived, trout lilies and many ephemerals are also slow-growing. That means that whenever outside influences (browsing deer or disease) decrease their populations in an area, it can take decades for ephemerals to recover.
