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Purple Coneflower
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). Native to central to southeastern United States. Pollinators love the flowers. Leave the seedheads over the winter for Goldfinches who will gather for a snack of seeds. And then for the math/nature nut there is the Fibonacci spiral of the disk florets that become those seeds.
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Blackberry Lily Revisited
Wow! She’s about to go into second grade. But even as a toddler, she’s always wanted to help me scatter the Blackberry Lily (Iris domestica) seeds. Those seeds reveal why this plant has its name. But the name is a bit misleading since Blackberry Lily is not actually a lily at all but a species…
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Brown Thrasher
Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum). Quite the handsome bird. It makes me think of a Roadrunner with its very long tail and long curved bill. They’re here during their breeding season but are year round in the deeper Southeast. The feeders here at my cabin don’t tempt them, not even the suet, but they love my…
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Rose-breasted Grosbeak
What a special treat just three years ago when I saw my first Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus). They were migrating through but they took their sweet time giving me great opportunities to observe and admire them. They were wonderful models for me too. Late April until early May is when they’ve arrived. Three years in…
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Mock Strawberry
Originally from India. Mock Strawberry (Potentilla indica). It appears very much like Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana). If you’re looking for the marvelous experience of eating Wild Strawberries more than likely you will be disappointed. The Mock Strawberry has very little flavor and is quite dry. But if you’re feeling adventuresome, it is edible. You’ll find…
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Wild Peach
Now blooming in the woods, a native to China. It’s believed that Hernando de Soto brought the first Peach Trees (Prunus persica) to North America in 1539. Now innumerable cultivars of those trees populate orchards. Thank goodness for those orchards. Peaches make summer so wonderful. And a tossed seed will eventually result in a random…
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Fox Sparrow
Another winter has come and gone and no Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca). During only two winters I’ve had one come to visit, over the course of perhaps fourteen years. Each of those two winters, just one individual that I saw and captured in pixels. A large and chunky sparrow. The Fox Sparrow hangs out with…
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Corydalis flavula Revisited
If you’ll bear with me, I’m going to start calling this plant by its scientific name largely because I had misidentified it and want to make it clear to me what it is. That’s why I’m reposting about this precious little plant. Getting things straight in my mind. A couple weeks ago as the earliest…
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Cutleaf Toothwort
A spring ephemeral, a perennial native to eastern North America. Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata). The “toothwort” of its name is thanks to the appearance of its rhizome. The Cutleaf Toothwort likes woods with mesic soils covered with lots of leaf litter. This certainly must be the description of the woods where I live. Many of…
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Wood Poppy Revisited
I’ve written about Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) before but I enjoy the native flower with its happy yellow so much I’d like to tell you more about it. The deeply lobed green-blue leaves of Wood Poppy are poking up from the surface of the soil here in the Blue Ridge now, as the month of…