Flowers You May Have Noticed

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As you can see from my list at right, there are many wildflowers that are blooming right now. In clearings outside of town, and planted in borders and gardens in Athens, you can find daffodils just beginning their spring showing. They are one of my favorite flowers of any season. I love them not only for their diverse and vivid colors, but also for their unique, abundant fragrance. Daffodils, also, are excellent for arrangements because they remain vibrant for weeks. In the moist, rich forests surrounding Athens, you just might see some bittercress in bloom by now (I'll have to check for myself this weekend). They can survive almost any habitat in this region, largely because they are dormant by the time our summer droughts start. In your yard, you may see purple-dead-nettle pushing out it's teeny, tubular flowers. The name may seem to suggest a poisonous plant, but it is part of the mint family, and I have often heard that all members of Lamiaceae are edible. How about on your drive to work? Have you noticed large patches of yellow, dandelion-like flowers at the roadside? It is still too early for the spring dandelion bloom, so these are in fact coltsfoot. There sure are a lot of flowers popping up, and I'm as busy as a bee hoping from flower to flower, field guide in hand.

Can you identify flowers? A field guide is a tremendously helpful tool for learning the names of wildflowers. If you're in the market, look for Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Wildflowers or Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. Both are well respected as individual guides, and Peterson offers a plethora of field guides on all manner of natural subjects (I've recently ordered a field guide to shells of the Atlantic for a summer trip to Puerto Rico).

I've also put together a slide show to show you some common flowers at this time of year (please download from the link below). I made the show with Flash (so you'll need the Flash Player program). There is audio to the show: the sounds of spring peepers, a small frog that fills forest air with its mating song. It's a very musical song, too, filled with rhythms and motifs. Go outside soon on a balmy night and listen live. If you happen to be coming to Puerto Rico with me in July, remember the song because you will hear one that is strikingly similar made by the coqui, a tropical tree frog.

The flowers, in order of appearance, are: daffodil, snow drop, speedwell, coltsfoot, chickweed, grape hyacinth, daffodil, bittercress, purple-dead-nettle, daffodil.

Enjoy the show!

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