This is a picture of the newish plant that is growing along the edge of the driveway. I first noticed it during the winter, and I’ve since found it growing in two other places. It has buds on it now, and I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for it to flower. It has not been obliging.
Though identifying plants without seeing the flowers first can be difficult, the leaves on this one are distinctive, not entirely unlike another local plant, striped wintergreen. This leads me to suspect that it is a related plant, Pyrola americana (a.k.a. round-leaved pyrola, rounded shinleaf, American shinleaf, American wintergreen).
If I’m right about the identity of this plant, I would be wise not to hold my breath while waiting for it to bloom, because the flower stalks still have some growing to do. The flowering time is listed as June-August. I will write more about this plant when it finally blooms.
This white-flowered plant is dwarf ginseng. I found it growing underneath the Japanese andromeda in the back yard. As its name suggests, it is a small plant, only a few inches tall. Growing singly, it’s easily overlooked, and it’s possible that I stepped on a few individual plants before realizing they were there. But in a larger group, it draws a little more attention to itself.
Patch of Dwarf Ginseng This patch is growing in the wild area behind the Japanese andromeda that roughly marks the transition point between yard and woods.
This plant has “ginseng” in it’s common name, but it is not the ginseng that’s used in Chinese medicine. That plant is so valuable that people harvest it illegally, and if I had any I wouldn’t say where. Dwarf ginseng is from the same family, though, and the root is said to be edible.
Though the flowers are pretty, what most intrigued me was the leaf structure. The scientific name of dwarf ginseng is Panax trifolius, and the “trifolius” part describes its three compound leaves. Each of those leaves is divided into leaflets, the exact number of which may vary.
Lovely Leaf Structure
As dwarf ginseng flowers age, they turn pink.
Dwarf Ginseng With Age-Pinkened Flowers 5/14/2021
Dwarf ginseng is not a showy plant, but it is welcome on any part of my property on which it decides to grow. In the spot it currently occupies, it is subject to mowing. Like many of the flowers that manage survive in the yard, it’s small enough not to be completely cut down by the mower. Because it blooms early, it’s possible that its seeds will be developed enough to be spread, rather than destroyed, by the mower. It may well thrive in its new home, and I hope that it will.
It’s been 24 hours since I got my second vaccine dose. My arm hurts, but as long as I don’t try to raise it past shoulder level, it’s tolerable. Last night I had a brief period of fever and chills. Very early this morning I awoke with some extreme joint pain and a headache, both of which have since subsided, but not before robbing me of a few hours of sleep. I am groggy and exhausted, so I’ll have to take it easy today. That’s not ideal, but it’s probably a heck of a lot better than I’d feel if I’d caught Covid.
I got my second vaccine dose today. Hooray! And, because my car had finally returned home yesterday, I was able to drive myself to the clinic. Hooray again!
At the clinic was a man who insisted that he needed to lie down when he got the shot or else he’d pass out and end up lying down anyway. I used to have the same problem, so I know what it’s like, and I was glad they were able to accommodate his needs. But I also gave myself a mental pat on the back for having trained myself out of that reaction. Life is easier when you don’t have to fear needles. I haven’t gotten queasy from a shot since before the kids were born. I still always look away when I get jabbed, though, just to be safe.
It’s been nearly two hours since the jabbing, and my arm is starting to hurt, just like before. I hope the side-effects will be no worse than that. I left the weekend wide-open, though, because you just never know. And I’m going to go fold all the laundry on my daybed now, so that if I feel sick later I will have a comfy place to lie down and watch TV. However it goes, I’m proud of myself for having behaved like an adult by getting vaccinated as soon as I was eligible, and I’m thrilled to be two weeks away from returning to a semi-normal life.
I recently finished Barbara Michaels’s The Master of Blacktower, a generally entertaining Gothic romance set in the Highlands of Scotland. I have read all of her novels now except four. I’m a little sad to be approaching the end of this particular reading challenge. Once I’ve finished, there will be no more new Barbara Michaels novels to read.
I am 158/387 pages into An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey. It is historical fiction, which is not a favorite genre of mine. I chose the book simply because it had “Violets” in the title. I wasn’t expecting much from it, but I’ve been enjoying it even though the story doesn’t have much to do with violets.
I keep buying books. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself. Among my recent purchases are some sequels to books that I really enjoyed. I will read those as soon as they arrive, because I’m looking forward to them. I also ordered some nonfiction books about puzzles and gardening with native plants.
Once I’d trained my eyes to recognize hairy Solomon’s seal, I saw it everywhere. We probably have more of it than we do of its false cousin, but it’s so small and unobtrusive that it’s no wonder that I never noticed before. And, while poking around the edges of the woods, gawking at my new plant friends, I found yet another wildflower, sessile bellwort, that is similar in appearance.
Sessile Bellwort
Sessile Bellwort, From Another Angle
One way to tell the two plants apart, according to what I’ve read, is that Solomon’s seal has a single stem with alternating leaves. Sessile bellwort has a main stem that branches into two. This flower appears twice in my field guide, because its color could be characterized as either white or yellow, as it falls somewhere in-between. The plants I’ve seen each had only a single flower, but the field guide says there could be two. You can read more about sessile bellwort here at virginiawildflowers.org.
I first identified this plant a few years ago. It was growing in the woods behind the house, so I’m not surprised that it’s made its way over here, along my path into woods. It’s amazing the way wild plants get around. My list of local flora is getting longer by the day, and I’ve hardly even scratched the surface.
My husband read my previous post and insisted that I show him those three-leaved plants right away. That saved me the effort of having to remember to mention them to him, and I happily went outside with him and pointed them out. Here are some pictures of the plants in question:
Three-Leaved Plant It would be easy to assume that this was poison ivy. The “three leaves, let it be” reflex runs deep. What helps to convince me that it’s not poison ivy is that the three leaves are all connected to the stem at the same point. On poison ivy, the two lower leaves are directly across from one another and the top leaf sticks out a bit more.
Another Three-Leaved Plant This one is less shiny, more obviously not poison ivy.
My husband was not impressed by the plants. He said, “Those are Nothing Plants. I’ve killed them before.” I can hardly blame him for treating them that way. They’re not very interesting to look at right now. But I’ve asked him to leave them alone, because I am reasonably certain that they’re Jack-in-the-pulpit, which you can read about at Wikipedia, the U.S. Forest Service, and Minnesota Wildflowers.
How did I come to that conclusion? Each plant has three leaves (actually, a single leaf with three leaflets) that are arranged at roughly 12:00, 3:00, and 9:00, as distinguished from trillium, which is said to be more like 12:00, 4:00, and 8:00. Looking closer at a leaflet, there’s another clue.
Note the vein that runs around the edge of the leaflet.
The vein running around the edge of leaflet is a characteristic of Jack-in-the pulpit. Of course, what would easily prove the case would be Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers, because they are unmistakable. But, as you can see from the pictures, these plants are not blooming. That means that they won’t bloom this year, because Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers come out before the leaves do. It’s not strange that there aren’t any flowers, though, because Jack-in-the-pulpit plants that grow from seed can take several years to bloom. We’ll just have to be patient and watch for them again over the next few springs.
As Marshall and I were walking outside the other evening, he asked me if people would think our yard was ugly. I had to tell him that the answer is yes. Our yard would be considered by most people to be both ugly and unkempt. Our neighbor, who is trying to sell his house, probably hates us. Most homebuyers want neat plots with green, grassy lawns, and they’d prefer prospective neighbors to have the the same. But that’s just too bad for them. I prefer wildflowers.
I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked, but I did more than the minimum. I even responded to a bridal shower invitation and sent a gift two weeks before the deadline, if you can believe it. Perhaps I am finally learning not to procrastinate on such things.
While playing a game of Stinker this week, one of the questions was, “What do you say to guests to let them know it’s time to leave?” Livia was the last in line to show her answer, and she seemed unhappy with it. But, when the rest of us read it, we burst into laughter (the good kind), because it was hysterical. It said, “Go die in toilet!” The whole point of Stinker is to work within the limitations of the letters you’re given and come up with unusual answers. Needless to say, she won the round.
Life was easier when I didn’t know the password for giving the kids more computer time. Now they’re always asking me for extra time. According to Livia I’m more likely to give in than her dad is. She said I’m a softie. I don’t like being a softie.
I’ve been putting on a good front, I think, but I’m so very tired of the way things are. I want to go back into the world and have a normal life again. And at the same time, I’m irritated by everyone who wants me to go back to normal before I’ve even finished my vaccines. I’ll be done in three weeks. Three. That’s all. I refuse to jump the gun. The world’s just going to have to wait.
The yard is once again full of green things. Thank you, Spring.
If you can only recognize a plant by its flowers, then you can only identify it for a short period of time each year. I want to do better than that. I want to be able to recognize my favorite plants whenever I see them. So, this spring I’ve been paying extra close attention to what’s growing in my yard and taking pictures of the plants as they develop so that I can get to know them better.
False Solomon’s seal has long been a favorite plant of mine. I knew several places where it was likely to sprout this year, and sure enough, it showed up exactly where I thought it would. Primed for noticing the plant, I found it sprouting in several other places, too. But then, looking closer at some of the individual plants, I realized that not all of it was false Solomon’s seal. Some of it was Solomon’s seal!
Hairy Solomon’s Seal
Close-Up of Hairy Solomon’s Seal Here you can see why I identified it as hairy Solomon’s seal rather than smooth Solomon’s seal. The undersides of the leaves are decidedly hairy.
Solomon’s seal and false Solomon’s seal are related and, as their names imply, they look a lot alike. I don’t know if I’ll be able to learn how to tell them apart all year round, but their flowers and fruit are dead giveaways. Solomon’s seal flowers hang below the plant and the berries are blue-black. False Solomon’s seal has a showy plume of flowers (it is sometimes called “Solomon’s plume”), and its berries are speckled red.
It’s likely that hairy Solomon’s seal has been growing here all along and I simply never noticed it because it was smaller and less showy than its cousin. But I’ve noticed it now, and I will keep an eye on it over the course of the year, too. More pictures to come soon, I hope!
I will say this for screen-free days: they make me read more. Over the last few weeks, I’ve gone from being five books behind schedule to being only three books behind. At this pace, I’ll be back on schedule soon, and I may even be able to pull ahead.
