yellow and purple things

God sure loves the little yellow flowers! Today’s inventory, which will be followed by some purple stuff:
Primrose. Note the cross-shaped stigma.


Another new-to-me species: fall dandelion (Leontodon autumnalis).  



Common St. Johnswort, with bonus buggie.

Note: many stamens, and they’re tall. Plus, the petals have wee black dots on their margins.

Celandine – a new species to me. (Chelidonium majus).

It produces these great little seed pod thingies, like so:

Crap, that’s blurry. Grrr! You get the point, though.
Onwards to cinquefoil.


And, yet another new-to-me species: tansy (Tanacetum vulgare)



As promised, God is also fond of purple.
This is globe thistle (Echinops ritro)


And, one last new-to-me species: Comfrey! (Symphytum officinale)

Admit it: you’ve always longed for a double-chocolate, bacon-studded whoopie pie.

Right? This was the “Chef’s Choice” invention of my dear friend Jenn of Howling Hog Barbecue in this weekend’s Championships of New England Barbecue competition, held at the Harpoon Brewery. Somewhere in that tasty filling is beer, the mandatory ingredient for all Chef’s Choice entries. “Kept it moist,” claimed Jenn.
What’s even more interesting than a double-chocolate, bacon-studded, beer-infused whoopie pie?

A deep-fried double-chocolate, bacon-studded, beer-infused whoopie pie. This is what happens when you are stationed next to another BBQ outfit – Feeding Friendz – which spent today selling deep-fried oreos for $4 a pop.

“HOT!!!” declaimed Chef Jenn.
The resulting mega-calorie payload of doom was deemed tasty, but it was noted that the inner layer of chocolate filling was destroyed in the process.
So that’s how I spent my afternoon, hanging out with the good folks of Howling Hog.
On my way back to my car, I crossed over police “do not cross” tape to get a look at some milkweed.

This pod’s maybe an inch long, at most. You can still see the dried-up flower petals on its tip. At home, later on in the day, I visited with some milkweed close to the house to see if any flowers had been fertilized. It didn’t appear so.

I had fun looking at the leaves, though. Back to Harpoon Brewery:

I admired a thistle.

And found some outrageously huge poison ivy.
Back on the home front, the honeysuckle berries look pretty ripe. Of interest to me today: instances where the paired berries did not conform to the guide book.

Normally they’re the same size as one another.

These two got fused together.

I visited some yarrow.


As well as a brand new black-eyed susan.

So yes, I’m going with the idea that in compound flowers, it’s not unusual for the rays to start off tightly rolled. Makes for efficient use of space inside the bud.

Here’s one a little farther along. I love the blurriness of this one, caused by my camera’s grumpiness about late afternoon shade.

And here is one that is almost done: see how the petals are fading?

Check out what the flower parts look like at this stage. Not for the first time, I am reminded of persian lamb’s wool.


Some digitalis (foxglove) is still going strong.


And a cinquefoil is looking mighty interesting. Definitely going to keep an eye on this one. That assumes we continue in our regimen of Not Mowing Our Lawn, of course, as this little guy is right in the middle of the lawn.

orange velvety goodness, miterwort seeds, and stealth hostas

New today: the first of the day lilies next to the house.

Oh my heavens. I think I need to cool off.
OK, I lied, that wasn’t a crocus the other day. It was – I believe – a stealth hosta (Hosta sneakiensis). Let’s compare and contrast, shall we?

CROCUS - rounded petals - curvy fluted stamens - no leaves to speak of	STEALTH HOSTA
	- pointy petals - straight anthers (flat yellow things on top of the stamens) - this flower is nestled in a rosette of basal leaves.

The crocus picture is from months ago. The stealth hosta is from three days ago.

Today, our little mystery friend is already shriveled up. And here we enter the land of WTF?!? which enabled me to ID this as a hosta, because…


…it has a companion stalk that I swear is the same plant (I rustled around in there to check) – with a whole set of buds about to open up. You can just make out the shriveled petals with the dangly stamens, nestled in the bed of leaves, in the background, to the right of the unopened buds. You can also see that this plant has had a run-in with the lawnmower in the past, as some of its leaves have been chopped off. I used my logic tools and powers of deduction, and concluded: It’s a stealth hosta, intent on taking over a nice patch of hosta-free lawn. See, not far away, the no-doubt-about-it hostas are flowering.

…and they’ve been known to send little volunteers off into the lawn, which first appear as solitary leaves. Our crocus wannabe flower is probably a hosta volunteer that’s two steps ahead of those solitary leaves. Although the stamens don’t look right (compared to The Google), hosta flowers are six pointy-petaled bells, not unlike our mystery…Hm…I’ll have to wait til all the various flowers – both of the mystery stalk, and the regular hosta, are open, and then compare.
You’ll wait with bated breath, right? I knew you would.
In other news, not all cinquefoil leaves look like well, what I already said they look like.

Here’s another kind, whiling away a summer’s day out by the pole barn. This is rough cinquefoil (Potentilla norvegica). There comes a time when you heave a great sigh and say “lo and behold, could it be? Another five-petaled yellow flower?”
Sometimes I get lucky, and I find a four-petaled yellow flower instead. O Happy Day! To wit: yesterday I claimed I saw some sundrops but I wasn’t sure – today I checked it out some more and instead have concluded it was really evening primrose. They show up on the same page in the flower guide, so it shouldn’t be offended by my mistake.

This is a plant that at eye-height, isn’t done growing up.

The flowers are modest by day, and open up at twilight. I’d go out and prove it to you, but a) it’s raining and b) I’m lazy. Actually, I had an amusing moment today. Check out a picture of one of these specimens, that I took yesterday:

Yeah it’s overexposed and blurry, but it was intended to help me key it out. This plant appears less than a foot tall, right? That’s what I  thought. Guess again.

Here we are today....

It’s easily three or three and a half feet long. It’s just fallen over, but the tip where the flowers are (over on the left) has gamely righted itself. Yes, Your Observant Amateur Naturalist failed to notice this yesterday. DUH.
To assuage my guilt pangs, Mother Nature threw a different four-petaled yellow flower at me today:

Common St. Johnswort. Boatloads of stamens, and little dots at the edges of the petals.
Moving on.

The tall anemone, aka thimbleweed, flowers have abandoned all pretense of having had petals, and now they just look like buzz-cut pineapples on sticks.

Remember agrimony? Brand new to me as of the other day? Check out its seeds.

These might be the things Charlie comes in to the house coated in. I’m not sure.
But speaking of seeds. BOY DO I HAVE A COOL THING TO SHOW YOU. We need to go back in the time travel machine to the beginning of May. Remember miterwort?

One of the earliest spring flowers around here.	It has these incredibly tiny, snowflake-shaped flowers.

Well, I decided to visit the woodland mystery today, and whaddaya know, miterwort is still going strong, and is ready with its seeds.
Are you not in love? I am.
Speaking of love…

Here we have a bumblebee locked in a passionate embrace with a purple-flowered raspberry flower. For which I am grateful, as the result…

… is pretty tasty.
And last, but not least, I missed the flowering of this, but I’m pretty sure this is fairy bells (Disporum laguninosum)

Sweet, eh? Should generate a red berry. Stay tuned.