Thursday, May 08, 2014

Thursday Thirteen 331: National Wildflower Week

Hello everyone! It's National Wildflower Week, first celebrated in 1988 by the American Wildflower Society. I thought that would make for a good topic today. This past Sunday, I went on a guided spring wildflower walk at the Arboretum, Grady Tract. Unfortunately, the long, hard winter followed by a cold, wet spring has everything a couple weeks behind — which means there wasn't much growing yet, let alone blooming. So, the first four photos will be from this week, while the rest will be from my archives. Perhaps I'll have better luck during this Sunday's walk, which is scheduled for a different section of the Arboretum.


Pussy-Toes


The Lupines are just coming up, at least a couple weeks yet from blooming.


There were a few Bloodroot near the southeast entrance of Grady Tract.


The violets were not yet blooming along the wooded trails where I usually see
them this time of year, but I did find some along the nearby bike path.


Eastern Shooting-Star


Jacob's Ladder


Wood-Betony


Yellow Star-grass


Puccoons


Lady's-Slipper (endangered orchid)


Bluebells


Wild Geranium


Trillium



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14 comments:

CountryDew said...

Those are lovely. I hope you get to take lots more pictures as the weather warms.

Heather said...

Thanks, Anita -- I hope I do, too. I'd love to get over to Longenecker Gardens and Curtis Prairie (parts of the Arboretum) this month.

Colleen@Looseleafnotes said...

We saw lots of trillium on hour hike a week or two ago. The violets are are blooming and booming right now.

Heather said...

Colleen: Lucky you! I'll have to look for trillium during this weekend's guided walk -- provided they take the rain out of the forecast. :-|

Alice Audrey said...

And here we still have snow on the mountains and I live in a sweatshirt.

Mia Celeste said...

Wow! These are beautiful. You take good pictures. I like the trillium the best. I'm trying to grow s trillium in my garden but it hasn't worked out yet.

Heather said...

Alice: I saw on this evening's news that parts of Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska had snow during the last 24 hours. Crazy spring weather!

And -- up until this week -- I was still wearing layers and, aside from today, long-sleeve tops. Although we finally left the forties and chances of snow behind, the weather has been pretty sucky.

Heather said...

Thanks, Mia! As you've probably guessed over the past few years, I love nature photography. People are just too uncooperative. ;)

Shelley Munro said...

Pretty. I love spring flowers. We don't have the wild flowers that you do. I'm envious.

Heather said...

Thanks, Shelley -- Glad to introduce you to some flowers you don't get to see your side of the world. ☺

Paige Tyler said...

Beautiful pics!

*hugs*
Paige

My TT is at http://paigetylertheauthor.blogspot.com

Heather said...

Thanks, Paige! = )

Alice Audrey said...

Yep, I watched some big, fat flakes come down on my yard yesterday, but none of it stuck.

Heather said...

Alice: Dare I mention we had decent weather here for a change? Saturday was absolutely gorgeous - I walked over to the main part of the Arboretum and actually found some wildflowers blooming. Trees are starting to flower at Longenecker Gardens, too.

Yesterday started out nice, but then we had a fast-moving t-storm blow through around 4pm. Made me glad I had gone to the Arb the day before, as that's about the time I would have been walking home -- I would have been drenched!

Today...Another t-storm about 10:30am that turned the sky black. Partly cloudy the rest of the day and quite humid. Now the temps are to drop back into the 50s again for rest of the week. :-\