More flowers of spring

Onward ho with some more of our earliest flora! You of the tundra-people in the Great White North, where scarcely a dandelion is yet blooming, can take heart knowing that spring is rapidly steamrolling across the landscape. The following photos come from last Sunday’s southern Ohio botanical foray with the Wild Ones.

Lumpers and splitters. Ya either love ‘em or hate ‘em, depending upon your expertise and perspective. These are the scientists who study taxonomy, or the science of classification. Their antics are probably most widely known in the bird world, as there are so many bird watchers and such a widespread interest in listing, or seeing how many species one can find.

“Lumping” is basically sewing a “species” back together after it has been considered two or more species, such as was the case with our juncos. “Splitting” (loud cheer, bird listers!) is when a decision is made that one species is actually comprised of distinct enough entities that it warrants being cleaved into two (or more) species.

And such was the case with the above plant. Far more lumping/splitting goes on in the botanical world than is the case with ornithology, as we learn more about plants. This plant is Giant Blue Cohosh, Caulophyllum giganteum, formerly considered a variety of Blue Cohosh, Caulophyllum thalictroides. However, it blooms a few weeks earlier, and has larger flowers with consistently purple sepals.

Note how the plant is strongly purplish. The young, growing leaves and shoots are flush with anthocyanins, which help protect young sensitive tissues from potentially harmful UV rays. As growth continues, more chlorophyll will be produced and eventually the plant’s tissues will become green.

A beautiful Wild Ginger plant, Asarum canadense, one of our earliest blooming wildflowers. Look closely at the base.

A plant that puts its flower this close to the ground is likely pollinated by ground-dwelling bugs – probably beetles and perhaps ants, in this case.

We were on a quest for rare flora, and this elfin mustard fit the bill. It is Leavenworthia, or Leavenworthia uniflora in botany-speak. A southerner, it gets no farther north than Adams County and vicinity, and grows in barren limey soils, often woth other rare mustards. This specimen is already bedecked with the plump cigar-shaped fruit, or siliques. A persistent flower is visible in the upper right. Truly a hands and knees plant, the whole thing stands perhaps two inches tall. This genus commemorates a rather obscure botanist, Melines Conklin Leavenworth.

Some plants were already on their way out. We visited a massive population of Snow Trillium, Trillium nivale, but most were done and gone, and the few flowers we found were a bit on the faded side. This is a rarity in Ohio and most states in which it occurs. Note our only native Sedum growing with it – Wild Stonecrop, Sedum ternatum, with its thick, round, fleshy leaves.

An avalanche of Wild Leek, Allium tricoccum, tumbles from a ravine near Shawnee State Forest.

But it wasn’t the leek we sought, although we certainly appreciated that onionish spectacle. Our target was this rarest of lilies, the outrageously beautiful Goldenstar, Erythronium rostratum. It is know from but one small stream drainage in Ohio, and this is the only population north of the Ohio River. There are thousands of plants, and they bloom en masse over a few day period.

Come a bit too late, and this is all you’ll see of the Goldenstar, other than the oddly speckled leathery leaves. As if turned off by a light switch, nearly all of the flowers vanish overnight, quickly replaced by these curious pendant fruits with long beaks. The specific epithet rostratum means “beaked”. Like the Wild Ginger, the fruit is purposefully held low to the ground. Ants, baby, ants. They make the world go ‘round, and also transport Goldenstar seeds to new locales.

Usually, when I show photos of Goldenstar, someone lets me know that they have it in their local patch. Not bloody likely, mate – it is this species, the far more common and widespread Yellow Trout Lily, Erythronium americanum. Note how the tepals curve backwards strongly, while those of the Goldenstar are held outwards on a flat plane. This species also lacks the beaked fruit of the rarity.

I hope that you are making time to get outside and enjoy the rush of spring.

First botanizing of '09

Temperatures were downright balmy in southernmost Ohio this weekend, so I stayed over in Adams County following the Amish Bird Symposium. The warming weather and lengthening days are beginning to produce many signs of spring; things that you all up in the Great White North will have to wait a while to see.

Eastern Meadowlarks, flooded with testosterone, erupted in song from from every other fencepost, and scruffy fields were alive Saturday night with the nasal peenting nd wing twitters of that oddest of shorebirds, the American Woodcock. Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles are now ubiquitous, and Killdeer were everywhere. Salamanders have unearthed themselves and returned to their breeding pools.

Best of all, to the botanically inclined, is the emergence of the first wildflowers of spring. It's still early for flora, but there are a few pockets along the Ohio River that come to life early, due to their southern exposure and rocky crags that help warm the earth.

The forest floor of Adams County's rich woodlands still look like this: somber brown leaves long fallen. This shot was made in an upland oak-dominated forest. Leaves of four oak species are visible: Red Oak, Quercus rubra; Black Oak, Q. velutina; White Oak, Q. alba; and Chestnut Oak, Q. prinus.

Here and there, sprigs of green, fresh vegetable matter thrust forth. These are the leaves of Harbinger-of-spring, Erigenia bulbosa, a tiny member of the parsley family (Apiaceae). It is one of our earliest wildflowers, but it is still a bit early for the miniscule salt and pepper-colored blooms.

Finding an orchid is always a treat, and I came across several Putty-roots, Aplectrum hyemale. These odd, zoot-suit-striped leaves formed last summer and have persisted all winter. The naked flower stalk will be issued in mid-May, by which time the leaf will have largely withered to nothingness.

I carefully excavated a bit of the rich humus so that you could glimpse the namesake putty-colored root. This is one of forty-six native orchids in Ohio, and one of the cooler ones in my estimation.

New is ushered in; old bows out. That purplish rosette on the left is that of a native mustard, the Smooth Rock Cress, Arabis laevigata. It's tall spindly culm beset with tiny greenish-white blossoms will reach good form in May. While perhaps not the showiest of plants, it is an important host for one of our showiest butterflies, the Falcate Orangetip. Males are the color of a pushup confectionary - orange and white, and so flimsy as to appear as if made from tissue. The aging, marcescent leaves of a small fern, Maidenhair Spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes, is on the right. This saxicolous (rock-loving) fern has overwintered and will soon begin producing new fresh shoots.

Well, well. Wasn't sure if they'd be up and at 'em or not, but sure enough, I stumbled into quite a few blooming Hepatica. This truly is one of our first - often the first - wildflower to jump into action. March 8, and looking good. Often treated as two species, Sharp-lobed and Round-lobed Hepaticas, they are better thought of as one variable species, Hepatica nobilis. If you are a splitter, call them Hepatica nobilis var. acutiloba, and H. nobilis var. obtusa, respectively. This species also ranges throughout much of Eurasia.

I noticed a small beetle was prolific on the blossoms, gobbling up the nectar. A number of them are visible on these flowers. They must play an important role as a pollinator, and I'd like to know what species of beetle it is.

Here's a closer view of the "Hepatica Beetle". There is very little in the way of flowering plants and nectar right now, and I wonder how intimately linked to Hepatica these insects are. All of the Hepatica that I saw had them.

Bud of our earliest lily to shine forth, the White Trout Lily, Erythronium albidum, one of three Ohio species in this genus.

Bit of poking around, and I found the motherlode. I'd say the flowers opened for the first time Sunday morning; perhaps a few the day before. This spot is at the base of sheer dolomite cliffs facing due south, and looking out on the Ohio River. It is one of the first spots one can find flowering plants in spring Ohio.

Few plants can rival trout lilies for sheer charisma and showiness. And their presence means the rush of spring is on. These diminutive lilies are but the first snowball in an avalanche of flora that will soon follow, growing day by day into a cascade that will carpet Ohio's forest floors with every color of the rainbow.