On a recent early morning walk in the Skunknett Conservation Area in Osterville we found these lovely spring wildflowers. Lady’s Slippers are fairly abundant here but these are some of the early bloomers. Most were still in bud.
Most of the Canada mayflower has gone by but these fuzzy blossoms were still pretty fresh looking.
Star flowers are everywhere….
These are hard to see but area woodlands are full of blooming sarsparilla plants. Can you see the puffy little ball shaped blossoms hiding under the leaves?
Fern flowers are different….and I’m not sure they technically count as flowers but here are their spokes anyway….
And here is Jack and his friends all hanging out in their pulpits….another wildflower that is hard to see and find unless you know where to look….hint….check out damp and soggy areas and look for a triplicate of large green leaves that are NOT poison ivy!
Category Archives: canada mayflower
Looking for Stars in the Woods
A lovely walk at Pilgrim Heights in Truro the other day revealed all sorts of spring flower activity. All these Canada mayflowers (also known as false lily of the valley) are getting ready to bloom.
If you enlarge this photo you will see hundreds of little plants with a rosette pattern to the leaves which means only one thing….
Soon all the star flowers will be in bloom!
Here is one little early bird. Most weren’t even in bud yet. These little woodland flowers bloom before the canopy leafs in and this year it is a bit of a race. If you’re out this week look for both the Canada mayflower and the star flowers. Many other woodland plants are also in bloom and we’ll look at some of them later in the week.
New Life
Everywhere you look there is new life growing. Leaves are popping out all over. Some are on the branches of trees and some are on the forest floor.
Early in the spring is the best time to find a concentration of flowering plants on the forest floor. They need the sun and once all the trees have their leaves the forest floor will be shaded. There will still be flowers later in the season but for me there is a certain sweetness in the early spring flowers.
Mayflower or trailing arbutus is still flowering in most Cape locations. I also found this little wild violet on the side of the trail and thousands of leaves of the Canada mayflower or false lily of the valley, that will be in bloom over the next few weeks. These pictures were taken at Hathaway’s Pond in Hyannis.
