Trilliums

Trilliums. I know what these are, because I asked my neighbor when I saw them flowering in the same spot last year. She's older, and a long-time gardener, so if I happen to see her outside she's usually a pretty reliable source for answering "what's this?". Michigan's state wildflower, too, so I'm kind of surprised I didn't know what it was until last year. This picture, from my first big picture walk (4-20-08), shows it before the flower opened.

Dutchman's Breeches

Dutchman's Breeches. That's what wikipedia says, anyway. Dicentra cucullaria. It kind of looked like a bleeding heart, except looking more like a butterfly than a heart, to me, so I checked wikipedia's main bleeding heart article, which led me to the correct page. interesting tidbit according to the wiki, the seeds of this flower are spread by ants! How cool is that? There's also a nice entry here about it, which mentions that this flower is pollinated by bumblebees. I love bumblebees! (Photos taken 4-20-08)

Mayapple

I believe this is a mayapple. Quite common in the woods around here. According to wikipedia, every part of the plant is toxic, except the "apple", which can be eaten in small quantities when it is ripe (I think I'll pass). (4-20-08)

Trout lily

This one's very pretty. I like the variegated leaves, and the flower looks like a little lily. But I don't know what it is. Shouldn't be hard to figure out, though. These pictures were taken April 20th. I should go back and look to see what happened with these. The leaves are sticking up all over the place, but there were only a couple with flowers.



UPDATE: It's a "trout lily", or "adder's tongue". I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so let me mention that I found it here (via Google, of course).

Unknown 4

Yet another little daisy-like flower. Don't know what it is. [I've been writing that a lot lately, but here's the thing: I have a book at home, "native plants of michigan", or something like that, and once I have all these pictures online ("posted", as the kids say), then I can go back through the book and say, ha, there it is!, then edit the post. Really, folks, I'm not as dumb as I sound. I almost couldn't be.*]


*My girlfriend once accused me of "acting dumb", to which I responded, "Baby, you give me too much credit --I don't know how to act."

Unknown 3

Once again, here's a plant, I don't know what it is. Embarrassing. Nice, little white flowers. Kind of cute. Hope this isn't one of those that grows up to be nasty. (Picture taken 4-20-08)

Unknown 2

What are these? I do not know. There are a bunch of them in my raspberry patch. I tried pulling them last year, but it was too late in the year, so it was quite a pain, what with the bugs and thorns, so I gave up. But this spring when they came up again, I very diligently pulled them all, and dug down to get out the roots. These things spread by their roots, I believe. Hopefully I'll get more berries this year if they're not competing for water and nutrients with these things.