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Pennsylvania bittercress flowers are 1/8" across with 4 light green, oblong sepals that cup the corolla, 4 white petals, 6 cream-colored stamens, and a single robust pistil with a flat, disc-shaped stigma. Fruits are erect, elongate (up to 1.25" long and 1 mm wide), flat-ended cylinders (siliques) containing a single row of seeds that emerge from the center of a fertilized flower while the petals persist.

Cardamine

Cardamine pensylvanica

Pennsylvania bitter-cress [Blooms: April]

New Jersey tea flowers occur in panicles ("puffballs") up to 5" long and 3" across on peduncles up to 8" long arising from the tip of stems or axils of a leaf. Flowers are 1/4-3/8" across on 1/4-3/4" stalks; each flower has five triangular white sepals folded inwards towards the flower center; five widely spreading, white spoon-shaped petals with narrow bases and broad tips (tips curled in to heighten the "spoon" impression) emerging from between the incurled sepals; five stamens with whitish-purple anthers; and a three-part style.

Ceanothus

Ceanothus americanus

New Jersey tea [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

American bittersweet side branches occasionally produce panicles of flowers (up to 6" long) at their tips. Male flowers are about 1/4" wide with five light green petals with jagged or undulate margins, five green sepals, and five stamens with yellow anthers and a narrow style rudiment.

Celastrus

Celastrus scandens

American bittersweet [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Wild chervil upper stems terminate in up to three clusters of 3-7 small, white flowers (right image). Individual flowers (upper left) are tiny (1/8" across), each with five white petals, five stamens, and a cylindrical green ovary bearing a split style; the sepals are highly reduced. After fertilization, both the cylindrical ovary and the flower stalk elongate; mature fruits (lower left) are usually hairless, about 1/4" long, and contain a single seed.

Chaerophyllum

Chaerophyllum procumbens

wild chervil [Blooms: May-?]

Upper stems of poison hemlock bear compound umbels 2-5" wide of tiny (1/8") white flowers with five spoon-shaped petals (one often larger than the others), usually with a longitudinal fold and notched; below the umbels are oval bracts with elongate tips, not divided like the leaves.

Conium

Conium maculatum

poison hemlock [Blooms: May-Jun]

Field bindweed stems produce 1-4 funnel-shaped flowers, each arising from a leaf axil, about 1" across and cupped by five small sepals and attached to a flower stalk; the flower stalk bears two small bracts about 1" below the base of the flower. Flowers range from white to pink, with a clear yellow center containing five stamens and a single style with a split stigma. Each bloom lasts only one day.

Convolvulus

Convolvulus arvensis

field bindweed [Blooms: May-Aug]

Horseweed flowering stems form a pyramidal inflorescence covered with numerous flowers and what look like dandelion seedheads. Panicles of flowers up to 1.5' long 6" across arise from the tip of the main stem and from axillary stems that arise from the upper leaves. Individual flowers are small (~1/8" in diameter and 1/4" long), cylindrical or urn-shaped, and covered with multiple layers of phyllaries; they look more like buds than flowers with only the tips of the 25-45 white or pink, pistillate ray florets peeking out the end. The 12-25 disk florets are yellow; they bear both pistils and stamens.

Conyza

Conyza canadensis

horseweed [Blooms: Jul-Aug]

Cockspur hawthorn produces flat-topped panicles of flowers 2-3" across that arise from leaf axils; the panicle branches are light green and hairless. Individual flowers are 1/2" across; they have a green calyx with five teeth, five spreading white petals, 10-20 stamens with pink or pale-yellow anthers, and a pistil with 2-3 styles. At least in Jackson Park, the upper surface of the receptacle at the base of the pistil is a shiny greenish-yellow to reddish-yellow. The flower's scent is not pleasant to humans but bees and syrphid flies are not deterred. The fruit is a small (1/2" across) crabapple-like pome, red at maturity.

Crataegus

Crataegus crus-galli

cockspur hawthorn [Blooms: May-Jun]

Downy hawthorn produces clusters of 5-17 flowers; the flower stalks are reddish-green and hairy. Individual flowers are 3/4-1" across with five green, triangular sepals with glandular hairs along the margins that are fused at their base; five round, white petals; 17-20 stamens with pale yellow or white anthers; and 4-5 styles. In Jackson Park, the top of the receptacle (at the center of the flower around the bases of the styles) is reddish-green to deep red and shiny.

Crataegus

Crataegus mollis

downy hawthorn [Blooms: Apr-May]

Common hawthorn produces broad, dense, flattened clusters (cymes) of five to fifteen flowers. Individual flowers are up to 1/2" wide with five reflexed sepals, five white petals, 15-20 stamens with red to purple anthers, and a single style. At least in Jackson Park, the upper surface of the receptacle at the base of the pistil is a shiny yellowish green.

Crataegus

Crataegus monogyna

common hawthorn [Blooms: May-?]

Honewort's inflorescence is a compound umbel 1.5-3" across of tiny (1/8") flowers. Each flower has five stamens with creamy-yellow anthers, and one or two light green, conical pistils; the five petals are usually curled in. In Jackson Park, flowers of honewort have two conical styles, whitish to greenish, that are shorter than the petals.

Cryptotaenia

Cryptotaenia canadensis

honewort [Blooms: May-Jun]

White prairie-clover produces 1-3" long spikes of flowers and flower buds which open progressively from the base of the spike to the tip. Individual flowers are tiny (about 1/4" across), pea-like, white, with five petals (one much larger than the other four); five white stamens with pale yellow anthers protrude beyond the edge of the flowers.

Dalea

Dalea candida

white prairie-clover [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Queen Anne's lace is probably the most widely known exotic, a plant introduced from Europe. The inflorescences are the familiar flat compound umbels 2-5" across made up of hundreds of tiny flowers; beneath the umbel are bracts up to 2.5" long, very narrow, and superficially pinnate with three or more lobes. Individual flowers are <1/8" across, with five white petals, a reddish ovary topped by two white styles, and five white stamens. Flowers near the edge of umbels are often asymmetrical, with the petals towards the free edge larger. Not uncommonly, a single flower in the center of the compound umbel has reddish-purple to nearly black petals. The fruit is a ribbed seed with long stiff hairs along the ribs; the entire umbel closes over the immature fruits like a fist to protect them as they mature.

Daucus

Daucus carota

Queen Anne's lace [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Illinois bundleflower flowerheads are about 1/2" across; they contain about 50 florets with five minute (1 mm long) petals, a single style, and five stamens with yellow anthers. The overall appearance is of a greenish-white fuzzy pincushion.

Desmanthus

Desmanthus illinoensis

Illinois bundleflower [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Flat-topped aster produces stems that are 2-5' tall and unbranched except at the inflorescence, a flat-topped cluster of small (1/2"-3/4") white flowers with few (2-15) broad but sparse ray florets ("petals"). The disc florets are initially yellow but become cream-colored with age. The branching of each stem produces a flat-topped panicle of flowerheads that is 3-12" across. Individual flowerheads are small (1/2-3/4" across) with 5-12 white ray florets around 12-25 yellow disc florets (but these may fade to a yellowish-tan color as the disc florets age). The base of each flowerhead is surrounded by appressed, oblong bracts ("phyllaries") in 2-4 layers ("series").

Doellingeria

Doellingeria umbellata

flat-topped aster [Blooms: Jul – Sep]

Prairie cinquefoil (aka, tall cinquefoil) flowers are about 3/4" across and have white to cream-colored petals, narrowest at the base; the sepals are light green and as long or longer than petals, tapering to a sharp tip; about 20 bright golden-yellow stamens and anthers; and the pistils in the center of the flower also bright golden-yellow. Prairie cinquefoil and sulfur cinquefoil are easy to confuse, but flowers of prairie cinquefoil are cream colored, not yellow and the leaves are pinnately compound, not and palmate.

Drymocallis

Drymocallis arguta

prairie cinquefoil [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Yerba de tajo's flowerheads arise in groups of 1-3 from the leaf axils on short pedicels; individual flowerheads are 1/4-1/3" across with 8-16 triangular, green, basal bracts, numerous (20+) off-white, thin ray florets with a protruding style, and numerous (15+) light grey to cream disc florets with four tiny spreading lobes, and four protruding light brown anthers and a branching style. Ray flowers are pistillate; disc flowers have both stamens and pistils.

Eclipta

Eclipta prostrata

yerba de tajo [Blooms: Aug-Sep]

Aunt Lucy (Ellisia nyctelea) flowers arise from the leaf axils. The flowers are small and tubular (1/4" wide x 1/2" long); the five petallike lobes are white with purple lines or specks; the five stamens are hidden within the corolla, alternating with the corollar lobes and the style is divided for about half ts length; the sepals are hairy and as large as the petals. The fruit is a 1/4" long hairy, white body that looks like two spheres squashed together, resting on the sepals; it usually contains 4 seeds. This species is very common in late spring in open but shaded areas on Wooded Island. How it acquired the moniker "Aunt Lucy" is obscure.

Ellisia

Ellisia nyctelea

Aunt Lucy [Blooms: Apr-Jun]