This week I was driving a local highway with the windows open in the car and was overcome with the sweet scent of flowers invading the car. Scanning the sides of the road revealed tall trees draped in white panicles of full flowers of black locust trees.
Robinia pseudoacacia is the Latin name for this once a year proliferation of beauty and fragrance. Its bark is handsomely striped with interlacing furrows and rope-like ridges along its mature 50 to 70 feet tall trunk. Black locust is native to the central and southeastern United States, and not native to the northeast, but has happily made itself at home here. It spreads into colonies via underground roots and by seed, becoming naturalized in minimalized care areas. It is not a recommended tree to plant here due to its aggressive spread and its sharp spines. Black locust is considered an extremely aggressive spreader here and not recommended to plant in our area. It is listed on many states’ invasive plant lists, including Connecticut. I will slow down a little on the highway to take in the olfactory pleasure during this one week of the year it provides beauty while recognizing its negative attribute of invasiveness.
Another pleasant surprise was finding three native wildflowers while tending to grandchildren right in their own backyard. The flowers were going unnoticed next to the climbing gym and at the edge of the lawn in a wetter area of the yard. A teaching moment was offered to the children to look and love, but not pick the flowers, allowing them to completely their life cycle and find again next year.
The Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule), is a wildflower of special concern as its numbers are dwindling due loss of habitat and deer finding them a tasty treat. It is not illegal to pick them, but highly discouraged as they take many years to grow to a mature plant from a seed. Pink Lady’s Slipper needs a certain species of Rhizoctonia fungus to break the seed coat before germination can happen. This same fungus is needed it the root zone for the plant to survive, making transplanting to a new spot unsuccessful. It is a look and enjoy and leave it where you found it situation.
The second native find was a Jack-in-the Pulpit flower shooting up above the poison ivy. We did not get a close look due to the hazard of reaching it. Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) is so named as it resembles a person covered with a hood. The maroon and green stiped spathe is held up and over its dark colored spadix covered with tiny flowers, once pollinated will turn into bright red berries in the fall.
The final find of the day was a patch of Canada Mayflowers (Maianthemum canadense). They are a low-growing native wildflower with a spike of dainty white flowers. It spreads via root rhizomes into large colonies on roadsides and at the edges moist forest floors. It has a pale, red fruit in the fall eaten by a few species of birds.
Back at home in my garden I found the peonies had opened just in time for the much needed rain, which always seems to be the case every year. I chose to cut some and enjoy these beauties inside before the weather trampled them.
-Carol Quish
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