Spring Ephemerals

The earliest spring blooms are collectively called "spring ephemerals". Locally, the flowers hit their peak in April.

With COVID-19 keeping everyone at home, we've had more opportunity to walk the woods this year than we have in several years, and consequently, we've noticed more flowers this year.

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) is the earliest bloom. It blooms in early March and the flowers are gone before anything else appears.

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) usually comes next. The flowers are gone by mid-April, but the leaves continue to grow through the summer and can become very large.

Hepatica is another early flower. This is most likely sharp-lobed hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) - while I didn't see any leaves associated with this flower, all the leaves I did see in the area were sharp-lobed.

Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Rue-anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides)

Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)

Vernal Iris (Iris vernal, also called Dwarf Iris) likes poor, acidic soils, so it grows well on our shale hillsides.

Large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum, also called White Trillium) marks the end of the spring ephemerals, blooming in April and very early May.

T. grandiflorum starts out white, but as it ages, the flower turns pink.

Spring Forests

It's early spring in the Alleghenies. I love the delicate colors as the trees flower and leaves emerge.

Serviceberries (white) and red maples (red) are the first trees to bloom. Actually, these are not the flowers of the red maples, but rather the beginnings of the "helicopter" seeds (samaras).

Redbuds line the forest edge and most roads.

As the redbuds begin to fade, dogwoods come into bloom, and other trees begin to leaf out.

Red maple samaras (winged seeds) start out a brilliant red, ...

... then slowly turn brown as they mature. These have been knocked off the trees by recent high winds.

We had a surprise dusting of snow on Friday, April 10. It's difficult to see, but this snow is caught in a cup-like spider web. There were quite a few of these "snow cups" in the forest.

Butterflies have also emerged from overwintering as either a larvae of a pupa. Here duskywings and a zebra swallowtail "puddle" on dung on the road.

A closer look at the zebra swallowtail. The caterpillars of these butterflies eat pawpaw leaves exclusively, so we must have some pawpaws nearby.

Step Art

I've been meaning to write this post for almost a year now.

Two sets of steps near the Rose St parking lot in Clifton Forge became a middle school art project last spring.

This set of steps going up to Keswick St from the Rose St parking lot is hard to miss as you come down Rose St.

The complementary set of steps across Keswick St goes down to the parking lot behind Jack Mason's Tavern and has a more unified theme.

They may not be as elegant as these professionally painted steps on the South Side Slopes in Pittsburgh,  ...

... or these on Mount Mary Road, Bandra, Mumbai, India, but I'm very proud of our young artists in Clifton Forge and Alleghany County. (Virginia, that is. Pittsburgh is in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It can be confusing at times!)