ramp; wild leek
Allium tricoccum
Amaryllidaceae

Thursday morning I was able to get out for a few hours of hiking along the Billy Goat C trail. Along the trail itself, just a few things were blooming: honewort (past its prime), white avens, ramps. Lots of stinging nettle. Down in the river, water willow was just starting to open, and along the canal there was some tall meadow rue.

I braved poison ivy and a lot of flood detritus to get out to my favorite peninsula, the one with a pond in the middle, and that’s where the wildflower show was:

• nodding onion
• American germander
• common arrowhead
• buttonbush
• joe pye weed (buds)
• common milkweed
• swamp milkweed
• seedbox
• fleabane
• fringed loosestrife
• horse nettle
• wild potato vine
• water speedwell (new to me!)
• trumpet creeper
• white vervain
• blue vervain

nodding onion
Allium cernuum
Amaryllidaceae

Also, I found another stand of blue false indigo, past bloom of course but with big seedpods. This is a good find that I’ll be reporting to the Maryland DNR, since it’s a listed species (S2/Threatened).

There were invasive aliens, of course, mostly common St. Johnswort and a mustard species. A small stand of plants with pretty purple spikes is probably purple loosestrife, a particularly aggressive alien. It was growing amid buttonbush and halberd-leaved rosemallow (not yet blooming) right at the pond’s edge.

There were two other species, but as they’re particular favorites and since I think I got some good pictures, I’ll save them for more detailed posts in the next few days.

buttonbush
Cephalanthus occidentalis
Rubiaceae