Showing 19–36 of 90 results

Filtered (90)
Narrow-leaf hawksbeard is a weedy-looking plant that reaches a size of 8-40". Flowers occur in a panicle (usually arising from a leaf axil) with up to 20 dandelion-like flowerheads. Individual flowerheads are about 1" across with 30-70 yellow ray florets (the "petals"); beneath the ray florets are two layers of green bracts — an inner layer of 12-15 3/8" long, sharply-pointed, keeled bracts covered in wooly or short stiff hairs and an outer layer of bracts half the length of the inner layer, sometimes ridged, with hairs like the inner layer. Narrow-leaf hawksbeard can be distinguished from similar dandelion-like flowers (Crepis pulchera, Crepis capillaris, and various sowthistles and hawksweeds) by the presence of auricles on the stem leaves and a layer of appressed hairs on the inside surface of the inner bracts, best seen with a magnifier.

Crepis

Crepis tectorum

narrow-leaf hawksbeard [Blooms: May-?]

Spring crocus (Crocus vernus) is native to alpine regions of Europe, but widely escaped from domestic gardens in the U.S. Given its early blooming and short duration, it probably qualifies as a "spring ephemeral." The plant is short (4-6") but blooms before most other plants emerge. the leaves are 3-6" long and less than 1/4" wide, dark green with a distinctive silver-white medial stripe. Flowers are up to 6" tall, bell-shaped, 1-1.5" wide with six white to purple tepals in two overlapping whorls of three; the stamens are white with long yellow or orange anthers, the styles are yellow-orange, three-lobed, with a fringe of narrow processes. You'll know it when you see it.

Crocus

Crocus vernus

spring crocus [Blooms: Mar-Apr]

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]

The flowers of Dutchman's breeches are unmistakable — white (rarely pink) triangular flowers with two necter spurs angled laterally at 45° to the vertical (the "trouser" legs). Up to a dozen (usually 3-6) 3/4" flowers hang from flower stalks (a raceme) that arch over the leaves 4-8" tall; at the underside of the flowers are two yellow, wing-like lobes with the stamens and pistil emerging from between the lobes.

Dicentra

Dicentra cucullaria

Dutchman's breeches [Blooms: Apr-May]

Whitlow-grass flowers are tiny (1/8" across) with four green or purplish, hairy sepals half as long as the petals, four white, deeply-cleft (bifid) petals, six stamens with yellow anthers, and a single green pistil. The fruit is a flattened, oblong seedpod, approximately twice as long as wide, <3/8" long, attached to the remnants of the flower pedicels; each seedpod contains ~40 seeds.

Draba

Draba verna

whitlow-grass [Blooms: Apr-May]

Mock strawberry (aka, Indian strawberry) flowers are borne on a single flower stalk. Flowers are 1/2-3/4" across with five sharply-pointed, triangular green sepals as long as the petals and covered with long hairs on their outer surfaces; five bright-yellow petals wider at the tip than the base; 15-25 stamens with bright yellow anthers; and a central yellow receptacle with numerous pistils covering its surface. Just below the sepals are five small bracts (leaves), each with three pointed lobes at its tip; these persist and are present below the sepals on the fruit. The fruit is a bright-red expanded receptacle ~1/2" in diameter, globose or ovoid, that is nestled in the sepals; bright red seeds project from the fruit's surface like pointed bumps. The fruit is edible but tasteless. The word "Indian" in the common name refers to the country "India" rather than Native Americans; "Indian" strawberry was introduced from Asia. The five small bracts (leaves) just below the sepals in mock strawberry, each with three pointed lobes at its tip, are present in both the flowers and the berries and are a diagnostic character of mock strawberry.

Duchesnea

Duchesnea indica

mock strawberry [Blooms: Apr-Sep]

Pale purple coneflower flowerheads sit alone at the top of the stem; there are 12-20 white to pinkish-purple, slender ray florets, with 2-3 notched teeth at the tips; the ray florets initially splay laterally but droop on maturity. The central disc is domed and covered with disc florets with reddish-purple tips.

Echinacea

Echinacea pallida

pale purple coneflower [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

In Robin's plantain the basal leaves, stem leaves, stems, and flower stalks are all very hairy. Flowerheads arise from the tips of the stems as a group of 1-6. Individual flowerheads are 1-1.5" across; the numerous (50-100) ray florets bear long white (sometimes light pink or violet) petals surrounding a flat, yellow-orange disc of disc florets ~1/2" across. The base of the flower is surrounded with 2-3 layers of light green phyllaries (often with brown or purple tips) which taper smoothy into the stalk.

Erigeron

Erigeron pulchellus

Robin's plantain [Blooms: Apr-May]

Storksbill flowers occur in clusters of 4-8. Each flower is 1/2" across with five hairy, green, widely-spreading sepals; five purplish or pink petals; five fertile stamens with reddish-orange anthers; and five fused pistils, separate at the tips of the styles where five purple stigmas in a star-shape are prominant. The fruit is a long, narrow awl-shaped "storksbill" up to 1.5" long whose base is the mature seeds (usually five) and whose long "bill" consists of the laterally joined awns (long bristle-like structures) of the seeds. The seeds are explosively dispersed when the "storksbill" splits longitudinally into five separate awns; the attached seeds are flung away from each other (at 4 meters/sec). The attached awns also allow each seed to self-bury. Storksbill is native to the Mediterranean; it was introduced to North America in the 18th century and is now naturalized.

Erodium

Erodium cicutarium

storksbill [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Rattlesnake master inflorescences consist of whitish-green spiky balls 1/2-1" across made up of small florets enclosed by prickly bracts; the florets have five short, rounded petals, five stamens, and a long, divided white pistil that protrudes well beyond the edge of the floret. Note that, if you're bitten by a rattlesnake, this plant will be of no use to you whatsoever.

Eryngium

Eryngium yuccifolium

rattlesnake master [Jun-Sep]

Troutlily's reddish-brown flower stalk arises from the junction of the paired leaves; its tip (and consequently the single flower) is bent down at a 30-45° angle. Each flower is about 1.5" long but may be only 1/2" wide at night or early in the morning or over 1" wide later in the day as the petals spread. Each flower has six white tepals (three petals and three petal-like sepals), six stamens with large yellow anthers, and a single white style with a three-lobed stigma. The fruit is a three-chambered seed capsule about 3/4" long attached to the flower stalk which may nod when immature but the stalk straightens so the capsule is erect when mature.

Erythronium

Erythronium albidum

troutlily [Blooms: Apr-May]

Wild strawberry always show a terminal marginal tooth of each leaflet that is shorter (and often narrower) than the teeth on either side, a diagnostic character. Clusters of white flowers are borne on 5" long, hairy peduncles. Individual flowers are on 3/4" long (again hairy) pedicels. The flowers are 1/2-3/4" across; there are five green, narrow, pointed, hairy sepal-like bracts; five hairy, lance-shaped sepals; five oval white petals longer than either the bracts or the sepals; and variable reproductive organs depending on whether the flower is male (least common, with ~20 yellow stamens and anthers), female (with a central yellow dome of pistils), or "perfect" (both male and female, with the appropriate organs). Fruits are familiar, if small (1/2") strawberries, bright red when ripe, with the seeds sequestered in sunken pits so the surface is mostly smooth; the fruit hangs beneath - and is tightly embraced by - the sepals and sepal-like bracts, is edible, and is tasty, if a bit tart. Wild strawberry superficially resembles mock (Indian) strawberry in its foliage and (superficially) fruit, but wild strawberry has white flowers, not yellow; the fruit of wid strawberry hangs below the sepals rather than resting above the sepals as in mock strawberry; and the seeds of wild strawberry lie embedded in the surface of the fruit rather than protruding as in mock strawberry.

Fragaria

Fragaria virginiana

wild strawberry [Blooms: Apr-May]

The white, waxy, drooping flowers of greater snowdrop are born on leafless scapes (flower stems). The flowers consist of three white outer tepals and three white inner tepals; the outer tepals have distinctly narrowed bases while the inner tepals are more rectangular, usually with a green blotch at their base and tip or a bold green stripe running from base to tip. (Common snowdrop flowers have a single, restricted blotch of green on their inner tepals.) There are six stamens with yellow anthers recessed inside the edge of the inner tepals; the stamens form a ring around the style. The style is slender, cylindrical, and slightly longer than the stamens. The fruit is a spherical to ellipsoid green capsule that splits into thirds when ripe, releasing the seeds.

Galanthus

Galanthus elwesii

greater snowdrop [Blooms: Mar-Apr]

Snowdrop is the earliest blooming flower in Jackson Park (late February); individual blooms can persist for about a month. The bell-shaped flowers hang down on a thin peduncle from a smooth, hairless flower stalk up to 10" long. The flowers have six oval, half-spread tepals; the three outer tepals are white with rounded tips, the three inner tepals are white with green, notched tips and green stripes on the interior surface. There are six stamens with yellow-orange anthers and a single greenish-white style. The fruit is a green, egg-shaped enlarged ovary with a flattened distal tip that dangles form the peduncle. Snowdrops usually exist in a given spot because of a prior deliberate cultivation (in some recorded cases, up to 60 years earlier) and rarely pose an invasion threat; they typically propagate from bulbs. The source of the snowdrops in Jackson Park is unknown.

Galanthus

Galanthus nivalis

snowdrop [Blooms: Feb-Mar]

Wild geranium flowers are about 1.5 " across; they have five spindle-shaped, green sepals with a short red-tipped awn at their tips and five purplish-pink petals, twice the length of the sepals, that are egg-shaped with broady rounded tips and have darker fine radiating lines that function as necter guides. The ten stamens have pale yellow anthers; the single pistel has five carpels that splay at the tip of the pistil into a starfish shape. The anthers produce pollen while the five styles' stigmas remain pressed together; after the anthers are spent, the stigmas separate. The fruit is a candle-shaped, cylindrical structure with a sharp tip. The carpels build up tension as they dry until they spontaneously snap near their base (above the sepals); as the carpel violently curls upward, it flings a single seed considerable distances like a tiny catapult.

Geranium

Geranium maculatum

wild geranium [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Prairie smoke leaves, stems, and the exterior of the flowers are densely hairy. Reddish-green or -purple flowering stalks arise from the center of the leaf rosette; they produce three buds at their apex which develop into three nodding flowers (as implied by the species name) with a pair of bracts at the base of the triplet that are divided into narrow strips as if cut with scissors. Each flower is 3/4-1" in both dimensions; five triangular red to reddish-purple sepals hide almost all the remainder of the flower, covering all of the five white or reddish petals except their tips, a ring of stamens, and a central cluster of pistils. The opening to the interior of the flower is highly constricted. A spreading, narrow floral bract identical in color to the sepals lies between each pair of sepals (for a total of five). After fertilization (by bumblebees), the flower peduncle straightens so the flower points straight up. A dense cluster of seeds attached to 2" long, feathery plumes (the "smoke") transform the appearance of the flower; the seeds are later dispersed by the wind. Frustrated bumblebees unable to force their way into flowers (and some wasps and beetles) may occasionally chew their way through the sepals and petals near the base of the flower to access the nectar. No other avens (Geum sp.) in Illinois produces seeds with feathery plumes; prairie smoke's closest relatives in Jackson Park, whte avens and rough avens, look nothing like it.

Geum

Geum triflorum

prairie smoke [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Day lily stems/flower stalks are 3-6' tall and hairless; 5-9 flowers arise on a small panicle. The flowers are erect, orange with a yellowish center but without spots, large (3-4" wide), with six tepals (petals and similar sepals) with a white medial line and tips that curl backwards. The margins of the tepals are rolled inwards. The flowers have a single straight style and six stamens that curve markedly upwards. The flowers last only a single day. (Thus, the common name.) The seedpods are six-lobed, egg-shaped, and internally divided into three compartments, but the black seeds are inviable; day lilies are a sterile triploid hybrid that has escaped cultivation and reproduces only vegetatively. Day lily is considered invasive and spreads easily. The flowers can be cooked and eaten like squash blossoms and the leaves and tubers are edible when young, but day lilies are extremely toxic to cats and, to a lesser degree, dogs. Day lily is easily distinguished from the other common lily in Jackson Park, Michigan lilies, by the lack of spots on flowers and leaves that are basal and sword-like rather than in whorls around the stem and a horizontal orientation rather than pointing down. According to Flora of North America, day lilies were imported from Asia to Europe in the seventeenth century and to North America in the nineteenth century.

Hemerocallis

Hemerocallis fulva

day lily [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Heuchera richardsonii

Heuchera

Heuchera richardsonii

common alumroot [Blooms: May – Jun]