Here is some February-March-April, rounding up a few of the usual wildflower suspects, with some surprise extra growing things.
 |  |
Looks like two different species to me…Missouri has 7 species of trillium.
Need. More. Field guides.
Virginia bluebell and Dutchman's breeches, buds and leaves. Not the most compelling image, but I liked how they were right next to each other, and both at around the same bud stage. Perhaps they know each other outside of work.
Every year now I get carried away with these. I just can’t get over the shape of the buds. If you were to ask most people to describe a flower bud, they would not come up with anything close to this.
They sway in the breeze, and they are tiny, so I have a hard time convincing my point-and-shoot camera to focus on them. Still, they are lovely. They look like watercolors to me.
Their soft feathery leaves are quite nice, too. There is a hint of blue in them.
No idea what that is, above (some kind of bracket polypore), but I know I like the shapes.
That’s false rue anemone. I bet everybody who has a nature blog probably has a picture of those flowers, but I am posting it here to tell you the easy way to tell these apart from real rue anemone. False rue anemone flowers almost always have five petals, and they're mostly white, and how many letters are in the word “false” and "white"? Bam!
Of course there are many other ways to tell them apart when they’re not in bloom, but at least now you have that.
Got mucro?
All those little white dots on the false rue anemone leaf tips are called “mucro.” A mucro is a point on the end of something. Don’t use that word unless referring to something in biology or zoology (or Scrabble).
I wonder what they’re for.
Above are some sweet little bluets, Houstonia caerulea. The whole flower is only about 1/4” across.
I don’t see these every year, I wonder if they’re short-lived and I miss them by not hiking on the right day.
Cladonia! A type of lichen.
I first saw this in February, and two months later it was still there, unchanged as far as I could tell. Lichen is persistent! See text accompanying the jelly lichen for why all I have is the genus for this.
 |
| Mertensia virginica (left) and Dicentra cucullaria |
Virginia bluebell and Dutchman's breeches, buds and leaves. Not the most compelling image, but I liked how they were right next to each other, and both at around the same bud stage. Perhaps they know each other outside of work.
 |
| Dicentra cucullaria buds |
They sway in the breeze, and they are tiny, so I have a hard time convincing my point-and-shoot camera to focus on them. Still, they are lovely. They look like watercolors to me.
Their soft feathery leaves are quite nice, too. There is a hint of blue in them.
No idea what that is, above (some kind of bracket polypore), but I know I like the shapes.
 |
| Enemion biternatum |
That’s false rue anemone. I bet everybody who has a nature blog probably has a picture of those flowers, but I am posting it here to tell you the easy way to tell these apart from real rue anemone. False rue anemone flowers almost always have five petals, and they're mostly white, and how many letters are in the word “false” and "white"? Bam!
Of course there are many other ways to tell them apart when they’re not in bloom, but at least now you have that.
Got mucro?
All those little white dots on the false rue anemone leaf tips are called “mucro.” A mucro is a point on the end of something. Don’t use that word unless referring to something in biology or zoology (or Scrabble).
I wonder what they’re for.
 |  |
Above are some sweet little bluets, Houstonia caerulea. The whole flower is only about 1/4” across.
I don’t see these every year, I wonder if they’re short-lived and I miss them by not hiking on the right day.
| Found some seed pods too. |
Cladonia! A type of lichen.
I first saw this in February, and two months later it was still there, unchanged as far as I could tell. Lichen is persistent! See text accompanying the jelly lichen for why all I have is the genus for this.
