Toothwort, trillium, Virginia Bluebell

I had big plans to do a series of posts rounding up some nice spring finds, and publish them over several days, but who am I kidding. I've been on several hikes since the last of these images were taken, and each hike generates more images...

So here's a whole bunch of spring woodland posts, published separately but all on the same day, or I'll never get caught up.

Toothwort--Dentaria laciniata. A purple dragon when this young.

Trillium sessile (this is a pale form of the typical maroon ones)

Virginia bluebell--Mertensia virginica. The young leaves lose this luscious purple color as they develop.

Virgina bluebell, bird's-eye view. Emerging buds visible upper left.

A selection from the forest floor in April.

Here's some things I found.

Claytonia virginica

Spring beauty (that's its common name, not me trying to write cute). Once again, I seem to favor the buds over the flowers.

A hole.

There were a whole bunch of these right next to the trail in one area. The hole was about the diameter of a pencil. If I had to guess, like, if someone was holding a gun to my head and screaming at me to tell them what I thought made that hole, I'd say, "Worm?" But there's some bees and wasps that do pretty interesting things in the ground. I don't know what made that hole.

Based on those little pellets of soil being there, it's something making a tunnel into the ground, not something emerging from the ground after pupating or whatever.

Viola pubescens var leiocarpa, maybe.

I like violets.

Urnula craterium

A nice devil's urn, showing the scaly outer texture and fancy edges they get when they get older. Word on the street says that when these are out, conditions are right for morels, too.

I hope you like them, because I sure do, so you're going to be seeing a lot more of them.

Erythronium albidum (pretty sure it's not the yellow kind)

 An elegant White Trout Lily bud and its two leaves.

Coming soon: sprouting acorns and a mushroom movie!

Winter-spring shells

I am about 9 hikes behind on posts. Once I started to get out there, when winter let go, I couldn't stop, and the pictures kept building up, and here I am. Now I see I better get on it, as the woods are bursting with everything! There's no going back now. All the spring wildflowers were on cue, we're actually in the second wave of arrivals. So it's post now, or never get caught up.

We'll talk about morels in a few posts. Yes, they're up here, and yes, I (finally) found some. Haven't found the mother-lode or anything, but I'm finding them, and I actually do feel something like electricity when I spot them. Then I eat them.

The following several days I'll be putting up a series of posts covering the last 6 weeks or so, starting the minute I thought there might be signs of life out there.

A snail shell. I just read that there's 106 species of land snails in Missouri, so no ID from me here...named or not, it stood out nicely against the dead leaves, and when I got my face down on it, there was beauty. Looks good big.

An acorn with a perfectly-drilled hole in it. Faeries up to more nonsense. Why would they need to drill a hole in an acorn?

A sloppy little snail, one of the first forest-floor citizens I saw this spring. I was honored.

Extra-fancy striped acorn on a soft bed of spring moss and lichen.

Ever-marvelous Trametes versicolor, Turkey Tail mushroom--this one in an unusual ribbon-like growth pattern. Fresh, supple new growth. A very happy sign even though the day was cool and the sky was dark and low.