July 1

Always a special day in the middle of the calendar year, very early summer, delicious, paradise, dreamed about all year, and not yet so hot or droughty that it makes us lax or gives us headaches or the cicadas keep us up all night. So with appreciation, here's the creek and its creekbed wildflowers, Queen Anne's Lace and phlox and junk lily, and also an Allium head that's past peak but still beautiful, like so many people we know.

Yes, There Are Brown Flowers

"There are no 'brown' flowers. Who ever heard of brown flowers? They're probably just dark purple or dark red. Maybe you're colorblind."

"But the book Ozark Wildflowers, which is divided by flower color, has a section called Brown Flowers."

"I've never seen a brown flower."

Well, now you have. "Occasional" rather than "common" in the area, the Climbing Milkweed (Matelea decipiens) is new to me. The blossom typically has five petals and the plant's leaves are huge, floppy and heart-shaped. It likes rocky areas. Other brown flowers include early spring's Trillium and Wake Robin. Maybe other places don't have brown flowers, but Missouri is special.

Don't Eat These Beans

The trumpet vine (campsis radicans), also called trumpet creeper or hummingbird vine, is native to Missouri, and its red and orange horn-shaped flowers are lovely, but it's a pest and twines around anywhere it feels like twining, and climbs like ivy, so it's classed as invasive too. The hotter the weather gets, the more they bloom. Hummingbirds like the blossoms so I like them, but today I saw beans like six-inch green beans hanging from them. Some "beans" hung in clusters of three; others were single like this one. I didn't know trumpet vines had seed pods that are a dead ringer for green beans.

Can you cook and eat them like green beans, meaning with mushroom soup and canned french-fried onions? No, they are poisonous.

Ironweed

This is the only Prairie Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata) in the meadow. Vernonia  is the aster/daisy family, and Vernonias can be found all over the world. There's a kind that grows 7 feet tall but this isn't it; it's only about 2.5 feet high. Wikipedia says all Vernonias "have the same effective properties as a blood purifier and uterus toner, containing sesquiterpene lactone,which helps also to prevent atherosclerosis." I am therefore honored to have this native perennial in the meadow. Those dark little bud nubs are what caught my eye; they look like blackberries.

Wildflower Week, May 7

One of the first wildflowers I remember -- I thought it was a daisy -- and it took me hours to pull out the tiny threadlike petals saying "He loves me, he loves me not...." It's a Daisy Fleabane plus a bud. Botanical name Erigeron strinosis, which sounds like something my mother said you should excuse yourself from the table for.