January is wacky weather time here. Today it was close to 70. It was higher than that two days ago when I got a response from the FSU Herbarium regarding a wildflower (it starts this entry with its intense blue) which has taken since last summer to identify. It is a skullcap, and the species is
Here in the panhandle, spring brings wildflowers in pinks and white, it seems. First comes tiny white violets with stalks scarcely over an inch tall, appear on my neighbor's creekside bank. Then I look for a common wild orchid called Ladies Tresses on the roadsides and then I know spring has sprung. It has tiny white florets that spiral down the stem. Wild onions appear down front near the mailbox in the shade. Very tasty and intense, and they smell so good.
Carnivorous plants being to appear, like the sundews and the
pitcher plants.
By summer, wet seeps and ditches are filled with white hatpins and rayless sunflowers. Colic root stands tall where the Ladies' Tresses grew, replaced with tall pink meadow beauties and the shorter white ones. Then when the roadsides explode with yellows, up sprout spires of liatris in pink among coreopsis and blackeyed susans. Purple Gerardias beckon the Gulf Fritillaries of orange to nectar and deposit eggs. The larvae will devour the leaves later.
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