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Creeping bellflower stems produce a terminal raceme of blue to purple flowers up to a foot long with all the flowers nodding towards the ground and all on the same side of the stem. Individual flowers are 1-1.5" long, borne on a short pedicel with a narrow, lance-shaped bract at its base. Each flower is bell-shaped with five pointed, recurved lobes with hairy margins and five green sepals at its base. There are 5 short curly, yellow stamens and a long style that emerges from the bell; the style has a three-part stigma at its end.

Campanula

Campanula rapunculoides

creeping bellflower [Blooms: Aug-Sep]

Shepard's purse flowers bloom only at the stem's tip, which is continually elongating. Individual flowers are tiny (1/8") and have 4 greenish sepals, 4 rounded white petals, 6 greenish-yellow stamens, and a pistil with a single style. Flowers are followed by seedpods ("purses") that are 1/4" long, triangular, or heart-shaped, borne on ascending pedicels (lower part of image.)

Capsella

Capsella bursa-pastoris

shepard's purse [Blooms: Apr-May]

Cutleaf toothwort's flowers are ~1/2" across when fully open; the flowers arise from a slender pedicel as long as the flower, 4 green or purple bluntly-pointed sepals <1/3 the length of the petals, four lavender-white petals, six stamens with yellow anthers, and a single pistil with a flat, discoid stigma.

Cardamine

Cardamine concatenata

cutleaf toothwort [Blooms: Apr-May]

Hairy bittercress flower stalks with stem leaves. Here the three flowers bear seedpods (siliques - narrow cylinders) that elongate directly out of fertilized flowers (which continue bear petals).

Cardamine

Cardamine hirsuta

hairy bitter-cress [Blooms: April]

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]

At the apex of the blue cohosh stem is a floral panicle 1-3" long bearing 5-30 flowers. Individual flowers (insert) are about 1/3" (8 mm) across with six petal-like yellow-green sepals, and six stamens with yellow anthers in a ring around a central green ovary and style. The petals have been reduced to six green lobes at the base of the stamens, between the sepals.

Caulophyllum

Caulophyllum thalictroides

blue cohosh [Blooms: Apr-May]

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]

Common hackberry flowers may be staminate (male), pistillate (female), or perfect (both), all on the same tree. Flowers are about 1/4" across and bloom before the leaves open, often high in the tree (thus, I have no pictures yet). All flowers are wind-pollinated, yellowish-green with 4-6 spreading sepals joined at their bases; there are no petals. Male flowers have 4-5 stamens with green or yellow-brown anthers; female flowers have a green ovary with a large two-part, densely fuzzy style like an umbrella beneath the ovary. Perfect flowers have both.

Celtis

Celtis occidentalis

common hackberry [Blooms: Apr-May]

Buttonbush is a shrub with golfball-sized white inflorescences studded with long, protruding styles — distinctive and unmistakable. Flowering stalks produce 1-3 spherical flowerheads 3/4-1.5" across completely covered with 100-200 small white flowers. Individual flowers are small (1/3" long), white, with four (sometimes five) lobes at the apex; stamens are short while the styles are very long (~3/8"), yellow-tipped, and projecting well beyond the corolla. Maturing seedheads are bright red, but turn brown when fully ripe.

Cephalanthus

Cephalanthus occidentalis

buttonbush [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Mouse-ear chickweed has stems up to 1.5' long with long, spreading hairs; the flower stalks and sepals are also covered with fine hairs. The flowers are tiny (<1/4") with five white petals that have deeply notched tips, five sepals as long as the petals, five styles emerging from a green central ovary and ten stamens with yellow anthers. (Other chickweeds have three styles.)

Cerastium

Cerastium fontanum

mouse-ear chickweed [Blooms: Apr-May]

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-?]

Lamb's quarters produces inconspicuous star-shaped, yellow-green flowers, <1/8" across, sessile on flower stalks in round, tight clusters; the flowers have no petals, five stamens with yellow anthers, and a single divided style at the tip of a round, green ovary, all cupped in a five-lobed, mealy-white, calyx. The flowers are wind-pollinated and can aggravate hay fever symptoms.

Chenopodium

Chenopodium album

lamb's quarters [Blooms: Jul-Sep]

Glory-of-the-snow produces a flower stalk 6-12" tall, topped by a one-sided raceme of 4-10 upward-facing flowers. Individual flowers are 1/2-3/4" wide and have six pastel violet-blue tepals with white bases; the bases of the stamens are flattened and form a palisade around the middle of the flower. ITIS shows Chionodoxa forbesii as the accepted name; World Flora Online accepts Scilla forbesii.

Chionodoxa

Chionodoxa forbesii

glory-of-the-snow [Blooms: Mar-Apr]

Chicory flowerheads are an unmistakable clear blue, 1-1.5" across, sessile or on very short stalks, with 10-20 (typically 17) blue ray florets with five tiny teeth at their tips; there are no disc florets. Two series of small bracts covered with glandular hairs cup the base of the flowerhead. In the center of the flowerhead are spike-like, deep-blue stamens (one for each ray floret) fused around a style, each style with a light blue, bifurcated stigma. The flowerheads open in the morning but usually close later in the day.

Cichorium

Cichorium intybus

chicory [Blooms: Jun-Sep]

Spring beauty flowers occur in a cluster of 2-10 at the tip of the stem. The flowers are small (1/3-1/2") with long flower stalks; they contain (only) two green sepals, five petals with pinkish-purple stripes on a white background, five stamens with deeply purplish-pink anthers, and a single style that splits into three above its midpoint. The flowers close at night and on cloudy days and nod down; they perk up on reopening. The fruit is an three-part, egg-shaped capsule nestled between the two sepals.

Claytonia

Claytonia virginica

spring beauty [Blooms: Apr-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]