Monthly Archives: April 2020

Two-Leaf Miterwort; Ethical Considerations

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On April 11 I went hunting for two-leaf miterwort in the woods near my house. I found just a few plants, perfectly in bloom. But they were up a pretty steep slope. That steep slope used to have a lot more miterwort on it, just off the trail, but for some reason it doesn’t anymore.

A lot of families were out that day; social distancing was impossible without stepping off the trail. So, it seemed best to move up the slope and set up the equipment there. On the other hand, exactly that sort of disturbance is probably why there’s less miterwort this year.

I compromised by moving just off the trail, and using my longest lens (70-200mm) with a 1.7x teleconverter. I really wanted to get right up to the plants, and use the 105mm macro lens, but I just couldn’t let myself do it.

Mitella diphylla, also known as bishop’s cap, is in the saxifrage family. A forb of moist woodlands, it can found through much of New England west to Minnesota, and south to Tennessee and North Carolina. It’s rarely found in the northernmost portions of the deep South.

These are the best pictures I could get, given the circumstances. I really wanted clear pictures of the two stem leaves and the basal leaves. Maybe next year.

actually, not bad for 340mm!—>

Do you remember the so-called Poppy Apocalypse of 2019? That was the super bloom in southern California that attracted thousands and thousands of visitors. I was one of them. I was not one of the people leaving the trail to take a selfie. At the time I probably could have written many paragraphs about observed bad behavior, and the irony of trampling over something beautiful in order to get a closer look. It’s great that so many people wanted to experience this rare miracle of nature, but they ought to show some respect.

<—there are at least 16 people in this photo, most of them off-trail

Why is this hard? Respect other people and give them at least six feet of distance during this pandemic; respect nature, don’t destroy it.

Sweet Cicely and Aniseroot

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Once on a nature hike, when I was just getting into native plants, someone pointed out a medium height forb with airy, ferny foliage and clusters of little white flowers, and called it sweet cicely. For years I didn’t question that identification, until one day I came across a discussion about it on-line. Seems there’s another species that’s almost identical to sweet cicely, called aniseroot. The two are closely related and at first glance almost identical in appearance. Osmorhiza claytonii and Osmorhiza longistylis (Apiaceae): what had I been seeing all those years?

The only way to answer that question was to go back through my pictures and look for identifying details. Fortunately, there are three characteristics that are easy to see.

O. claytonii

sweet cicely

O. longistylis

aniseroot
stem hairy smooth
flowers per umbellet 4-10 9-18
length of styles shorter than petals longer than petals
scent faint or none anise

I’d love to illustrate this post with current photos, but I’m still avoiding the trails, so I had to go through old photos and re-process them to show these features.
below left: smooth stem                                below right: hairy stem

Always examine the whole plant in order to identify it. Sometimes sweet cicely will have more flowers, but overall it should have fewer than 10 per umbellet. Sometimes aniseroot will have fewer flowers, but overall it should have more than 10 per umbellet. Sometimes stems will be slightly hairy, and sometimes the styles will be just as long as the petals. Individual plants vary. But if you consider all these characteristics, it should be easy to tell which species you have.

What had I been seeing all these years? Ends up, I’d been seeing both. They grow in similar habitats.

Just Couldn’t Help Myself

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Monday dawned sunny and cool, beautiful weather for wildflower hunting. Despite my resolution to stay put during this health crisis, I decided it might be worth trying Rachel Carson Conservation Park. It was a good call – for most of the time I was there, I had the place to myself.

That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that it’s too early in the season for some of the flowers I wanted to see. But there were other things blooming, like round-lobed hepatica (Anemone americana; Ranunculaceae).The flower colors can vary from white through pale blue to a deep, almost purple blue, and sometimes even pink.

The white-flowering hepatica [right] looks a lot like another member of the same family, Thalictrum thalictroides, or rue anemone [below]. The leaves are entirely different, though. Rue anemone flowers are almost always pure white, but sometimes they can be a little pink, with reddish leaves.

The Spring Ephemerals, part 5

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The season goes faster than I can publish blog posts. These three species in the poppy family (Papaveraceae) are likely done blooming in the southeastern part of the Maryland Piedmont, but might still be blooming in the more northern and western parts of the state.

Dutchman’s breeches and squirrel corn are both in the genus Dicentra. They have almost identical foliage, but the flowers are a little different: the former look like pantaloons, while the latter are more heart-shaped.

The morning of March 19 this year was overcast; nonetheless I headed to the trail early, to avoid all the people who weren’t doing social distancing. I found what I was looking for: bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis; Papaveraceae), but the blossoms weren’t yet open. When the sun started breaking through (just after lunch) I went back and spent the next hour shooting as they opened.

The Spring Ephemerals, part 4: Trout Lilies and Toadshade

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I love all the spring ephemerals; can’t say which are my favorites. But trout lilies are way up there.

Of the twenty some species of Erythronium, two are found in Maryland (maybe three depending on which authority you consult): E. americanum (yellow trout lily) and E. albidum (white trout lily). The latter is listed S2/threatened by the Maryland DNR. I figured I’d miss seeing both this year, but a little luck and persistence led me to a single white one blooming, and in the process I found a hillside covered in yellow ones (I stopped counting at 35). Here are a few pictures.

I know of two spots where white trout lilies grow. I spent more than an hour searching one of those areas after someone posted a picture of a white trout lily blooming. Couldn’t find it. Hiked to another area, shot the yellow trout lilies, then decided to go back for one more look. Pulled out my phone and searched for the picture, and sure enough, there were enough clues in it that I was able to narrow my search to a small area. Et voila! The one shown here in bud was from the other location, the day before.

Toadshade is a species of trillium, T. sessile (Melanthiaceae). The three maroon petals stay closed; the plants shown here are in full bloom.