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Science & NatureWhat is That?What Is That … Early Bloom?

What Is That … Early Bloom?

Waddells

This is our third consecutive article about early sightings at our cottage.  Given all these ‘early’ articles, it is clear we are anxious for the cottage season to begin.  We usually produce an ‘early blooms’ article in the spring. We have included such well-known species as white trillium, red columbine, and yellow colt’s foot.  In this article we focus on five plants we expect to see in bloom early in the start of our cottage season, but which we have not covered in previous articles.

The barren strawberry is an herbaceous member of the rose family.  The herbaceous members are easily mistaken for members of the buttercup family as both groups have regular five-petalled flowers. The perennial barren strawberry can grow to 20 centimeters tall.  The yellow flowers grow in clusters with individual blooms being one centimeter across.  These blossoms were photographed May 10, 2023.

Early meadow-rue is a member of the buttercup family.  This perennial plant can grow to 70 centimeters tall.  Some plants have female flowers with purple-coloured stigmas.  Some plants have male flowers with long yellow stamens.  The female flowers are pollinated by the wind so do not rely on showy petals to attract pollinators such as insects and birds.  This photograph of a male-flowered plant was taken May 15, 2023.

Jack-in-the-pulpit is a member of the arum family.  Members of this family have a dense spike of tiny flowers on a fleshy stalk, termed the spadix, enclosed by a large and often showy bract called the spathe.  In Jack-in-the-pulpit, the spadix is ‘Jack’ and the folded over leaf-like spathe is ‘the pulpit’.  These perennial plants can grow from 20 to 100 centimeters tall, flourishing in moist to wet woodlands.  This young plant was photographed May 14, 2023.

The large-flowered bellwort, also called yellow bellwort, is a member of the lily family.  Members of this family overwinter through underground bulbs or rhizomes. This perennial can grow to a height of 50 centimeters.  We see these drooping, bell-shaped yellow flowers from early May to June.  These blossoms were photographed on May 8, 2023.

Leafy spurge bears its flowers in a specialized ‘false flower’ termed a cyathium.  The cyathium is a small cup with petal-like appendages.  The petal-like appendages are yellow and turn orange or red with age.  Inside the cup are numerous male flowers surrounding a single female flower.  This perennial plant, which was introduced from Europe, is common along roadsides.  Plants can grow to a height of 70 centimeters.  This young plant was photographed in May 15, 2023.

Developing cold hands is one of the challenges associated with photographing these early blooming plants but it is well worth the discomfort.  As cottage season progresses, and the weather warms up, we can look forward to cold hands being less of an issue with a broader range of plants blooming.

We relied on the following field guides to assist us in preparing this article: Timothy Dickinson, Deborah Metsger, Jenny Bull and Richard Dickinson’s The ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario; Steven G. Newmaster, Allan G. Harris and Linda J. Kershaw’s Wetland Plants of Ontario; and, William A. Niering and Nancy J. Olmstead’s National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers – Eastern Region.

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