It is fall, and most of the local plants are behaving accordingly, but not all.
Blueberries are a summer fruit, so I don’t expect to find them in October. On Thursday I found several blueberry bushes with fruit on them. It is unusual, but not terribly rare, I guess.
Evening primrose is one of the first wildflowers I ever identified. This plant is supposed to prefer dry, sunny locations and to bloom in the summer, but here it is blooming in a damp, shady area in late October. What a rebel! Evening primrose is a night-bloomer, so that particular flower must have been just opening rather than starting to close. My field guide says that the flowers are lemon-scented. I will have to give this flower a sniff the next time I see it.
We had a large bloom of partridgeberry in the side yard this year. There were enough of those tiny flowers to perfume the air, and they smelled amazing (my husband said that someone ought to make a soap with the scent). That was back in June, so this fall-blooming specimen is well out of step with its kin.
Is there any significance to there being so many plants blooming or fruiting at an odd time? I don’t know. I have often seen common plants, such as dandelions and violets, bloom late in the year. It is my understanding that sometimes plants bloom out of season because there is something wrong with them. It is also possible that the warming environment is stretching out their blooming and fruiting seasons. It seems reasonable that if warmer spring temperatures are affecting plants, then warmer fall temperatures could, too. But it may simply be that some individual plants march to the beat of their own drum. This is a subject of interest, and I hope to learn more about it in the future.
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