Dutchman's Breeches

Cindy took Joseph down to Shirley Miller Trail at The Pocket again today.  Joseph was wanting to take a camera down there to try his hand at wildflower photography, and I must say, he did well.  I’m glad they went back today, because apparently things are continuing to develop rapidly.

Partly due to going in mid-afternoon rather than later in the evening, but also simply because these plants are maturing so quickly, the Trout Lilies and Spring Beauties were much more open today.  Speaking of the Trout Lilies, Cindy photographed a couple that have yellowish-orange anthers rather than the dark red of most of them, so there may be a colony of another species of Erythronium, although E. americanum may have a yellow-anthered variation. 

There were a number of Wood Poppy (aka Celandine Poppy) completely opened today.  The Dutchman’s Breeches plant we’ve been watching bud over the past several days (Cindy’s photo above) seems to now have several fully developed “breeches” – losing their greenish tint in favor of white, and showing the yellow belt.  Waning – notably over the entire weekend – is Harbinger of Spring (Pepper and Salt.)  While the Bloodroot is still widely blooming, some of the earlier-blooming plants are showing the beginning of their seed pod.  The Chickweed anthers are darkening, or the ones I’ve seen before are a species without dark anthers, and the Star Chickweed showed up on Cindy’s walk.  Either way, I had been looking unsuccessfully for dark anthers on the Chickweed on my prior trips.