Some plants have it all backward. Flowers are supposed to provide the show; the seeds, not so much.
But with pilewort, its the seeds that catch the eye, clustered in raggedy bunches that look like cotton.News from the preserves, parks and backyards of Princeton, NJ. The website aims to acquaint Princetonians with our shared natural heritage and the benefits of restoring native diversity and beauty to the many preserved lands in and around Princeton.
Thursday, September 07, 2023
Pilewort--A Native Weed With Hidden Flowers and Showy Seeds
Tuesday, September 05, 2023
Obedient Plant: Big Pink in a Season of Yellows
Among sun-loving native flowers of summer, the so-called obedient plant shows up all fresh and fulgent just as the party is starting to wind down. Each year it catches me by surprise with its pink when so many other flowers--sunflowers, cutleaf coneflowers, Silphiums, Heleniums--go with yellow.
Obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) is also off my radar because it is risky to plant. Its tubular flowers may obediently remain sideways if you push them, but the plant itself spreads aggressively underground. Not surprisingly, it's in the mint family, known for roots that spread hither and yon.That's why this gardener on Grover Ave was so smart to plant it between a sidewalk and the road, where its capacity to spread is limited.
A similar strategy to curb its spread was used in front of Jay's Bike Shop.Thursday, August 03, 2023
The Pleasures of American and European Elderberries
One of my favorite shrubs, the elderberry, took on new facets and dimensions this year.
When I was a kid, we'd drive out to the countryside and harvest its berries, clustered on broad disks. What they lacked in size they made up for in numbers. Brought home in big brown paper grocery bags, they were soon on their way to becoming delicious jelly and pies. We made jelly out of wild grapes, too, but elderberries had a flavor all their own. It took a little time to strip all those small berries off the stalks, but the reward lasted all year.Our friend Joanna served as mentor and activator, directing us to pick the clusters when all the flowers were open but still fresh. For best flavor, one website suggests picking the flowers in mid to late morning.
Some Caution
Some recipes are less concerned than others about including any fragments of the green stems, which are toxic. Only the flowers and the cooked ripe berries are edible. We stripped the petals off the stems by hand, which is time consuming but delivers good results.
Making the SyrupOne bit of news from the turbulent, restless world of scientific nomenclature: the elderberry has been uprooted from its long-running membership in the Caprifoliaceae family and now rubs phylogenetic branches with Viburnums and a couple other genera in the Moschatel family, also known as the Adoxaceae.
A Curious Variety of European ElderberryTuesday, July 11, 2023
Harrison Street Park: Contrasting Tales of Trees and Wildflowers
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Sedges Have Edges, and the Blessing of Wet Ground
This one has elongated seedheads in clusters. I'll call it sallow sedge (Carex lurida).
Another sedge I've been dividing and moving to new locations--in my front yard and at the Barden in Herrontown Woods--has distinctive seedheads that look like stars. Having enjoyed calling this morning star sedge, I was surprised to find Seek calling it Gray's sedge, but these are just two common names for the same plant, Carex grayi.
Friday, May 19, 2023
Some Flowering Trees and Shrubs in Mid-May
and pagoda dogwood
pawpaw hanging promisingly
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
The Evolution of the Front Lawn in Ann Arbor, MI
Back when I was writing and performing climate theater, it was a very useful exercise to view things like the earth or the economy as characters. Upon reflecting on what sort of character a front lawn might be, I realized that the expanse of mowed grass is much like a trophy wife for the House. Expected to be well manicured, passive and forever young, the front lawn serves no other purpose than to present a flattering view of the House to the public. In return for its submissiveness, the front lawn is allowed, and in fact expected, to remain perpetually idle. Any shift away from bland formality, such as a wildflower meadow or, heaven forbid, a vegetable garden, would be unbecoming and steal attention away from the House. It seemed to me the front lawn could benefit from a good turf therapist who could help her sort through how she ended up in such a one-way relationship, and from that developed a monologue called Turf Therapy.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being in June
Note: The memorable title "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" may not be as fresh in people's minds as it was in the 1980s when the novel and subsequent movie came out. There's nothing unbearable about white flowers, but there sure are a lot of them this time of year.
It was on a recent walk along the green trail at Autumn Hill Reservation that I suddenly noticed I was surrounded by white.
Mostly, it was invasive species: the white of multiflora roseand Linden Viburnum. The prompt for the walk was to check the trails. The Friends of Herrontown Woods takes care of the trails at the adjacent Autumn Hill, and this spring's intervention was a boardwalk spanning a section that for years had been chronically muddy. The town's open space manager, Cindy Taylor, got the town crew to help out by removing some fallen trees, and I was checking to see if anything else was needed.Though the nonnative shrubs were the dominant flowers, a few natives could be found, also with white flowers. A cluster of partridgeberry hugged the ground. The "repens" in its latin name, Mitchella ripens, refers to its crawling habit.
The mapleleaved Viburnums usually don't grow beyond a few feet. Their latin name is Viburnum acerifolium. The latin name for maples is Acer, so acerifolium is the latin way of saying maple foliage, or mapleleaved.
Almost missed among all the whiteness was a beautiful specimen of Styrax, probably American snowbell, S. americanus. It's on the left as one pulls into the Autumn Hill parking lot. My guess is that it was planted. I've walked by it dozens of times, but only when it flowered did I take note. That makes a grand total of two of this species seen thus far in Princeton.
More whiteness comes from the native elderberry, whose berries make delicious pies if you can beat the catbirds,
and the abundant spires of Virginia sweetspire.
The mountain laurel
and catalpas, whose flowers reward a closer look.
Japanese honeysuckle, which yield a drop of sweet liquid if pulled apart in the right way.
Some sort of hydrangia vine on our patio.
The flowers of a native swamp azalea. They look to be keeping their flowers downcast, as if to avoid eye contact. Too many zoom meetings.
A small patch of daisies in a preserved pasture near Veblen House.
A white cloud of daisy fleabanes in the foreground, with an oak-leaved hydrangia in the background.
This oak-leaved hydrangia, native though I've never seen it growing in the wild, started as one plant, but over time it produced stems that could be dug without disturbing the original plant. We now have a whole grove of them.
which segues into the bottlebrush-shaped spires of bottlebrush buckeye.