Josef BeeryFlora Appalachee
04.24.20 Princess Bride
Prized for its unique wood, the Princess Tree, Paulownia tomentosa, was first introduced to me with the statement, “if you have these on your land, you could make a lot of money…” As a young man just learning about the trees and flowers of the Appalachians, I would see the dramatic flowers of this tree […]
04.21.20 Blue Innocence
“Innocence” suits these tiny blossoms, just a quarter-inch in diameter. This delicate beauty is unique to eastern North America. Two more names for Houstonia caerulea are Azure Bluets and Quaker Ladies. Quaker ladies seems most perfect to me because these flowers are always in motion. The blooms emerge at the end of tiny thread-like stalks […]
04.17.20 Elephant Flip Flops
Giant green footprints suspended above the spring mud is the image in my mind when I find these leaves creating their own miniature palm forest. This is Mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum, idiosyncratic stunner. It’s genus name actually does mean “foot leaf” (for some reason shortened by Linneaus from Anapodophyllum “duck foot leaf”… go figure). When you […]
04.16.20 Mustard Yellow!
Yellow blazes shoot out of the pastures this time of year. Growing faster than the grass, Field Mustard, Brassica rapa, makes a stunning display. The other family name is Cruciferae or “cross-bearing,” appropriate to this time of year and explained by close examination of the four-petalled, cross-shaped flowers. This is a huge family of flowering […]
04.15.20 Pussy Toes
Once a child sees this flower up close she will never forget it. At one stage the flower looks like the furry soft buttons of a cat’s paw. This is Plantain Leaf Pussytoes, Antennaria plantaginifolia, a spring-blooming wildflower most often found in our lawn. Folks who chemically treat their lawns will miss out on this […]
04.14.20 Pinkster Blummies
This stunning flower is Mountain Azalea known as Rhododendron canescens or Azalea nudiflora (nudiflora referring to the appearance of flowers before the leaves). It is very showy for a wildflower, seeming to have escaped from some well-managed garden. It is native to the Appalachian forest. The colonial botanist, John Bartram, was an early collector of […]
04.08.20 Nellie’s Flowers?
The folk song begins, “Where, oh, where is sweet little Nellie?” and ends with “Way down yonder in the paw paw patch!” Paw Paws, Asimina triloba, are one of the most unusual trees in the Appalachian forest. They are now blooming all through our hollow with their distinctive dark maroon blossoms. The leaves are […]
04.07.20 Bright Stars
The forest behind our home was literally carpeted with these tiny twinkling blossoms on our Sunday walk. This is Star Chickweed, Stellaria pubera. It’s a gorgeous little flower apparently related to a carnation. But it is small, less than 1/2 inch in diameter. It appears to have ten petals, but close examination reveals there are […]
04.02.20 Christmas Croziers
Look what I found while poking around in a patch of skunk cabbage looking for their blossoms (apparently I was too late, I have learned that those funny-looking skunk cabbage flowers appear quite early, well before the stunning and unmistakable lush green foliage). The beautiful tableau pictured is created by the emerging fiddle heads of […]
03.30.20 Cut-leaf Toothwort
This spring ephemeral has apparently had a name change recently. Cut-leaf Toothwort had been known as Dentaria laciniata, but has been recently redesignated Cardamine concatenatia. I am sure there is a story worth hearing there! It has grand tooth-like leaves, but apparently the name actually refers to the tooth-like shape of the root (go figure, […]
