Six on Saturday – White Ephemerals and a Heavy Sigh

White Trout Lily — Erythronium albidum

The spring ephemerals continue to enthrall — here one week and gone the next.  The yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) I wrote about last week has all but disappeared.  In its place, but not in nearly as great a number, is the white Trout Lily. Very pretty when you can spot them.

 

The Canada Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) has leaped out of the ground in the past week.  Like the Trout Lily, it appears to form colonies.  Unlike the Trout Lily, this is about the only time during its life cycle you can clearly see the flower bud.  In a few days the leaves will have unfurled and enlarged to cover the downward facing white bloom.  Also unlike the Trout Lily – the Mayapple foliage persists well into early summer, making a lovely ground cover at the forest edge.

 

Tw more native ephemerals:  white Trillium grandiflorum and Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis).   Bloodroot petals can be bloown away by a gently breeze so I’m happy these have lasted as long as they have, given the high winds this past week.  the root of Bloodroot has been used to make a dye and also is said to have many medicinal attributes.  You can easily research the many uses of this tiny plant.

Those are five of my six (and if you would like to see more collections of six gardening shots please head over to The Propagator’s site) – all lovely spring ephemerals I’m fortunate enough to have growing in the woodlands that border our property.  The final picture represents a disappointment.  I wrote several months ago about the expanding buds of a Chestnut tree I had started from seed about a decade ago.  I keep waiting for it to flower and thought this may be the year, given how fat the buds were.  Alas, it is not to be so.  The buds have broken, no flowers.  My sadness will be brief, however, since I know that in the coming weeks, months and years I will continue to marvel at and admire this beautiful tree, its extraordinary leaves and, in particular, its glossy, fat, sticky buds.