Sanapshot, Week 16: 4/19 - 4/25 Warm Smells.(Recycle)

Thursday, April 23, Mammatus clouds ushered in our first 90 degree Spring day, the hottest on record for the date.




These daisy fleabain (?) are part of a patch, but you can often see the individual stems standing alone. From a distance, I thought these were kind of a white ragwort... they have a similar profile and belong to the same family. Of curiosity, in the late summer and fall, there are any number of plants that put out a similar flower but are much bussier in the stem. I will have to see if they are the same thing gone wild, or just cousins.

All our other maples (Silver tips, Mountain, Red etc) went to seed a good month or two ago, but Sugar Maples break the mold by going to see well after they have broken into leaf.

Crimson Clover at their apex, even as the White Oak behind is in full floral flourish (though perhaps not thought of in that way.) Some of the Crimmsons are beginning to shed the red and stretch into elongated brush heads.

I have yet to learn the name of these things, though I call them "Jetson grass" as they remind me of something one would see on the Jetson's cartoon. Their floral outcrop appears to climb upward from the base to tip even as the cone enlarges.

From a distance, the bloom of the black Locust looks like a wild cherry bloom on steroids. Up close they look rather like Wisteria -- and they must be the most fragrant flower in Arkansas, smellable from blocks away.

Purple Mailbox flowers. Something like Climaxia. They show up every year at this time, though some folks cheat and use plastic.

(2009 Recycle)

Not sure if they miniature wild roses are of the same species posted a couple or weeks back, but they are major part of our highway landscape, and will in time, give way to dense brier patch.

Other things observed:

1. lots of buttercups.
2. white clover
3. yellow clover
4. The final final trees (members of the Hemlock family) join the green revolution.
5. Skies move from chilly blue to hot blue.
6. The air is thick in pollen, dusting cars.
7. Lots of little roses, including some attached to bushes.
8. Irises in full force.
9. Movement toward the "Monogreen" but still with lots of gold green, limon, and kelly in the mix.
10. Lyre Leaf Sage, visible from road
11. Evening Primrose in fresh start flourish
12. First hint of Queen Anne's Lace
13. Spotting of a single Honey Suckle bloom
14. Crimson, red, yellow, and white clover all going strong. (I will have to take a picture of the red to distinguish it from the Crimson)

Crimson Clover (Recycle)

Crimson Clover

Trifolium incarnatum

Fabaceae

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_clover

I was surprised to find upon reading the Wikipedia article, that Crimson clover is neither native to Arkansas nor the US. Turns out this very visible highway-medium bloom and bushy head grass is a European transplant.

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Note: I started ID Arkansas just short of year ago, and will now begin to recycle posts as they match current blooming things. As the Crimson Clover are just now starting to go full force in Central AR, I am reposting my first ever post from last year near this time.

Snapshot 21: May 24-30

Wild "Carnation" roses

Daisy Fleabane


Ditto

Daisy Fleabane and Lance leaf coreopsis (lower)

Water Hemlock (close and poison relative of Poison Hemlock)

Spiderwort continued.

Larkspur (Pics to post later this week)

(?) (Pics to post later this week)

Mega Clovers (Pics to post, later this week)

Crimson Clover after the fact

Self Heal

Plains Coreopsis. (Note: If not a "Plains" Coreopsis, this is something close. What's missing is the dark red center that I associate with the Plains version.)

May 24-30, 2009

Following almost a month of steady rains, the end of May finally broke out into sun, and a wild- flower bonanza. I'm not sure if I am simply seeing things earlier (because I know what they are) or if we are "ahead," but it seems that some blooming things are blooming earlier than in the last years.

We have now entered the White Zone - in which our dominant Interstate flowers are the Daisyfleabane and Queen Anne's lace, making for corridors flanked in cloudland white.

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Overview:

Spots of hot pink wild rose

Spiderworts still going strong

More, bigger, and bushier daisy fleabane - everywhere

The big white Mega clovers, starting to brown.

Queen Anne's Lace in billowing tufts.

The first of the Mimosa blooms

Snapshot Week 18: 5/3-5/19: It's a jungle out there

Rain, Rain, Sun, Rain

RAIN

Mount Holly Cemetery Roses

Privet Hedge Sludge...

Cat's Ear


Lance Leaf Coreopsis

Spiderwort

Catalpa Blooms after downing rain

Crimson Clover, having gone to brushy seed head.

The week of May 3 through May 9 was one wet steamy mess. With some two weeks marked by rain, many parts of the state are juggling flood and mud. And we even had one 90 degree day in the mix.

QuObservation: I watched as a diesel bus left a trail or rose petals in its wake.

Quick notes:

1. The school bus yellow lance leaf coreopsis reved with the rain.


2. The purple vetch all but disappeared, leaving behind growing little pea beanies.


3. Spider Wort, Catalpa, Privet Hedge in full stride.


4. Red Clover, White Clover, Yellow clover, Mega White Clover....going wild. Crimson gone to seed.


5. Grass, Grass, Grass. I have yet to give the kind of kind of time to it will take to learn my grasses and tell them apart, but there are more and bigger grasses in the wake of rain than I have seen in some years.

Sanapshot, Week 15 4/12-4/18

Calico green

Final tree mix, heavy in white oak, goes green.

False Dandelion (Cat's ear) - grows like it was planted in a vase.


Ragwort "Stick Weeds"

Supise "Albino" white bloom among the Crimson tide.

Crimson Clover/ White Oak. The Crimson clover are off the charts the year, and are the number one search item that are bringing folks to this blog. Tag: Red flower along highways.



This week was a lot like last week only more so. A little warmer, though not much. Cold nights, gorgeous days, with Thomas Kincaid landscapes replete Dogwoods amidst azaleas. (The dogs are greening but still go strong, and I believe the Pink Dogs follow slightly on the heals of the more prodigious white.) The woods are fully calico, with White Oak, Pin Oak, Walnut (or Pecan), and Sycamore serving as caboose on the green machine.



My big find this week is the White Oak. May sound strange in that I have been taking pictures of growing things for years; however this is my first year to be deeply aware of the White Oak as distinct from all other Oaks. And now that I have realised that distinction, I wonder how I ever lacked clarity before. (I plan a larger post this week given to the White Oaks). So stay tuned.

Quick notes/things observed:

1. The "Dogs" go green
2. Multihued Azalea patches, some going sour, and some going bold.
3. White mini-daisies on a stick., appear to follow ragwort by about a week.
4. White "snow" bushes. (I took some pics then erased them for the file space.)
5. Lots of mini-rose things.
6. A suggestion of Primrose.
7. A deep thickening of buttercup fields.
8. Several varieties of smell good trees and shrubs.
9. The Seeding (finally) of the Sugar maples.

Snapshot Week 14: April 5-11

Water Oak in living green



Dogwoods barking loudly, some going to leaf.

"Rorange" berries. I have yet to learn the name of this plant, but berries are not new, they have been in place since deep winter.

Crimson clover boldly bound along Arkansas highways.

As of April 11, I now think of Spring in Central Arkansas as about half way done. The marker?--that triad of limon-green trees, and dogwood casting shadows on hot-pink azaleas.

Truth is, this was a schizophrenic week. The very best and worst of Spring, with chilly bright skies, tornadoes, freezing nights and open-door days. The week opened under vicious wind and closed with weeping skies. With heaven in between.

Heavy winds toss this emerging Willow Oak.
Willow Oak Catkin clump.

I hadn't really taken it in before this year, but the White Oak and Pin Oak appear later in the line of Oaks going into floral catkin flourish. And flourish they have, it great bulky mass. (I've noticed too, that I can now tell White Oaks from a distance, apart from a leaf. They are marked by a certain waviness to the branches.

White Oak covered in catkin.

The last of the new green is giving way to that wonderful "calico" green.... a splotchy blend of various green hues, from sage, to limon, to army, to the dark green of the pine, which will -- as the weeks unfold, darkened into a uni-mass. (Yellow patch = buttercups)

General observations:

Dog wood in full floral flourish, some going to leaf.
Redbud pretty much mopped up, with a few stragglers.
Limp dusty wisteria vines.
The Jesamine vines, with yellow flower seem thinner.
The byways are heavy under Crimson clover.
The hard branched Pin Oak softening with green.
Yellow "ragwort" on sticks, sticking out of pasture land
Purple "Blue Phlox" sprouting on roadsides.

Butter cups continue to thicken in pastures and in wet spots.
A lot more of the carnation bush for which I do not have a name -- in snowy bloom.