For Dad

My father has spent a lot of time in England, and he loves the foxgloves that bloom in profusion there... fields of pink-purple and sometimes white, bell-shaped flowers, as tall as me sometimes.  So last year, I decided I'd try to grow some foxgloves in honor of my dad.  I got seeds, I planted them, nurtured them... they grew into lovely rosettes and then just stalled out.  I figured I had failed at foxgloves.  They didn't like the soil or the climate or something about my yard.  

It turns out foxgloves have a 2-year life-cycle.  This spring, my foxgloves have, with absolutely no input from me at all, grown up and flowered.  I now have a small patch of them in my yard.  Quite lovely.  I'll have to find out if they'll survive as cut flowers for my dad.  

In the world of native plants, the US native equivalent (if you will) -- foxglove beardtongue -- has started blooming:

Fresh Flowers and More

Each day or two there are so many new and noteworthy flowers showing their faces that I can't possibly hope to chronicle them all.  Here are a few that caught my eye this morning or yesterday:

Foxglove beardtongue blooming in the prairie.

One of my most evil enemies, the bindweed (shown with a tiny bee pollinating it).

This false sunflower was one of two in full bloom -- very early -- in a whole grouping of which none of the others are even close to blooming.  Odd.  Note the crab spider hanging out, well-camouflaged, just above the disc flowers in the photo.  Because tiny critters on flowers is a theme of the day!

Purple coneflowers aren't blooming yet, but they actually look so interesting at this stage of almost-ready that I decided to include this.  Plus, there are ants crawling on it. 

Found her hanging out on an arborvitae tree... who wouldn't love this face? 

Yarrow

Last week I showed a painted turtle laying eggs, this week it's a ginormous snapper.  

Plants of Devil's Lake (and a Fungi)

Obviously, I saw thousands of plants in five days. And many, many of them were doing something phenologically interesting. I limit, therefore, my reporting, to a few that are new to me, or special, or just pretty.

This pale corydalis was new to me, and not the easiest to identify, either. Its leaves are similar to Dutchman's breeches -- feathery -- and its irregular flowers have striking color changes, though, which gave it away once I figured it out. It seems to prefer growing in rocky areas.

Native honeysuckles, of which we saw a few, including this hairy honeysuckle, are always exciting. They provide a nice contrast to the evil invasive things that out-compete native trees and shrubs that we usually refer to when talking about honeysuckles.

I did get to see my hoary puccoon at the Shack after all... just a month later.

I did not know that the foxglove beardtongue, quite common and blooming all over right now, had a native sibling, the large-flowered beardtongue -- Penstemon grandiflorus. The pale purple flowers are really very lovely, and I want one badly. Next native plant purchasing season, this will be my quest. They will look lovely in our side yard, which is next year's major project...

The squawroot or cancerroot was a mystery plant last year (see entry on May 21) and I was happy to remember it and its habits this year... though I did have to look up its name again!
These fungi had such a neat purple color...

See people? I really edited myself on the plants.

Next: Vertebrates, and then we're done with the trip!

For Daddy

Foxglove beardtongue, so named for the feathery pistil that protrudes from the center, began blooming just a few days ago. Not as large and showy as the foxgloves in England, it is nonetheless a fascinating irregular flower, with faint stripes on the flower tube and stamen that curlicue up and around.

"Winter" Wildflowers I

The prairie in late fall and winter is a brown place. Many shades of brown to be sure, but largely monochromatic. What I like about that is that it gives you a chance to really focus on other things besides eye-catching color... shapes, negative space, shadows, textures... It's actually good for a person like me, who draws everything in pencil. (Yeah, that's right... not a good pencil, either. A cheap but comfortable-in-my-hand mechanical pencil, which are supposed to be terrible for shading. But is seems to work for me. I have thought that I should get some good art pencils... but I don't know if I could still draw with those fancy things!) Phenologically, it's not that exciting. I mean, this particular phenophase will be here unchanged for months (assuming snow isn't deep enough to cover it). But artistically, it's a nice time.

At any rate, today I drew this "winter wildflower," which is a native plant called foxglove beardtongue. Its seed capsules had an interesting shape to me. I'm going to try and pick one interesting-shaped plant each day and draw them for a few days... so here's the Winter Wildflower Series I:

Back at the ranch...

In three days gone, here's what I've noticed upon returning.  

The foxglove beardtongue has started to bloom -- it looks as though the first flowers may have opened just today.

 

In the weed world, nightshade flowers are open.  (It's a shame these are weeds; they're quite pretty.  I don't remove them from my yard, despite their poisonousness.)

The Canada anenome have blossomed -- they were open at Kankakee River last week, but not here. 

And pussytoes have gone to seed. 

Mayflies Turn into Junebugs (Kankakee River Part 2)

I spent three more days down south in Kankakee River State Park.  Not a lot had changed, but, as the title jokingly suggests, I saw a lot fewer mayflies (and more junebugs, although in this instance that means I saw one).  Here's some of the other things I discovered... 

As at home, the foxglove beardtongue is making its floral debut, with the first pinkish blooms opening. 
Kankakee River has a lot of butterflies.  I saw painted ladies and monarchs, blues, ones I didn't recognize without the aid of a book, and this lovely swallowtail.  It's about as large as my  hand.  I had to take about 25 pictures before I finally got this one, as it was not sitting at all still!
I first noticed these yellow irises at home on Saturday, 5/30, but this one is the first I have photographed.  While these wetland flowers are quite lovely, they are not native irises, but rather garden escapees.  
We saw many turtles on this trip.  This one, away from the river, was quite large.  
Last week's black raspberry flower becomes this week's tiny green raspberry.
A crazy stinkhorn!
Lichen and moss growing together on a rock cliff.  Perhaps not phenologically significant, but I do love these nonvascular plants (or, fungi+algae, in the case of lichens) and their ability to grow right out of a rock.  
And speaking of growing right out of rocks -- this fern has found itself a cliffside home, as well.  Pretty impressive, if you ask me.