Plants Archives - Page 3 of 3

Last season's bean field is coming alive with a solid mat of purple. Volunteer henbit, sprouted from seeds dropped in yeras past. Soon this carpet of color will be obliterated by a herbicide to make way for a cornfield.

Noxious Weeds or Pretty Flowers: Henbit and Dead-nettle

Updated May 1, 2023

Last spring around Easter time, we were on the way to church when, just down the road from Owl Acres, Bryan stopped the car. A whole bean field was blooming in purple flowers. It was beautiful. But what were they? Certainly not beans. He collected some plants so we could ID them later that day. […]

Plants

Poison ivy vine climbing out of sight up the side of a red cedar

Pretty Poison

Updated October 31, 2022

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) As we walked through the woods on a cold January day, we came upon a cedar tree with a huge vine taking over one side of the tree. The gray, four-inch thick woody vine climbed up the tree, supporting itself on hairy, dark-brown holdfast growths that anchored it to the cedar. […]

Plants

dozens of green and brown, ball-shape burrs, ranged along underside of horizontal stems atop a lanky, slender plant. Virginia stickseed, AKA beggar lice, ripening in the late summer sun.

Aggravation

Updated October 10, 2022

Beggar lice. It sticks to everything! Dave’s coat; my hair; my socks, jeans, jacket and sweatshirt, even the strap on my hiking stick. We’ve gone for a walk in the woods on a beautiful autumn day looking for hickory nuts. What we got was 13 hickory nuts and bazillions of beggar lice. The term “beggar […]

Plants

KK and Dave exploring leaves and flowers of amur honeysuckle at dawn

Not My Mother’s Honeysuckle

Updated September 13, 2022

When I was growing up, my mother maintained a little garden in a sheltered spot on the north side of the house. She said the former resident used to dump their ashes there, which made it very fertile now. At any rate, she planted some flowers there, including two varieties I thought were magical. One […]

Plants