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Silky dogwood flowers occur in flat to convex clusters (cymes) 1-2.5" across. Individual flowers are about 3/8" across with four sharp sepals, four creamy-white, lance-like petals, four stamens about as long as the petals, and a single, stout, green-tipped style arising from an amber ovary. The flower stalks are silky-hairy.

Cornus

Cornus amomum

silky dogwood [Blooms: May-Jun]

Rough-leaved dogwood is a shrub/tree that can be as much as 20' tall. Cymes of white flowers 2-4" across arise from the leaf axils; the upper bounding surface of the cyme is flat or gently rounded. The fruit (a drupe) is white, about 1/4" across, and spherical; as it ripens, the branches of the cyme turn deep red. The fruit is very attractive to wildlife.

Cornus

Cornus drummondii

rough-leaved dogwood [Blooms: ?]

Cornelian cherry dogwood is a European exotic that has been planted in Jackson Park. Flowers appear in umbels before the leaves emerge. The flowers are small (1/8"), with four bright yellow, lance-shaped petals, four stamens, and a cone-shaped, hairy receptacle; the single pistil emerges from the center of the ovaries. The fruit is an oblong, dark red drupe about an inch long.

Cornus

Cornus mas

Cornelian cherry dogwood [Blooms: Apr-?]

Swamp dogwood's flat-topped panicles of flowers are 2-3.5" across. Single flowers are about 1/4" across with a light green, tubular calyx, four lance-shaped white petals, four stamens, and a single style.

Cornus

Cornus obliqua

swamp dogwood [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Gray dogwood flowers occur in dome-shaped panicles with creamy-white branches 1.5-2.5" across and tall. Individual flowers are 1/4" across with a short calyx bearing four short teeth, four lance-shaped, creamy-white petals, four stamenns with pale yellow anthers, and a central, green-tipped style. The fruit is a small (1/4"), ball-shaped drupe, white when mature; when the fruit is mature, the branches of the panicle turn from white to bright red. Rough-leaved dogwood and red-osier dogwood also produce white fruit, but their panicles are flat-topped, not domed; the panicle branches are also not red in red-osier dogwood, but they are in rough-leaved dogwood so carefully inspect the stems (hairy) to see if the specimen in hand might be the latter.

Cornus

Cornus racemosa

gray dogwood [Blooms: May-Jun]

Red-osier dogwood flowers occur in flat-topped or slightly concave panicles 2-3" across; each flower is about 1/4" across with a small green calyx with four teeth; four white, lance-shaped petals; four stamens longer than the petals; and a single style rising from a reddish ovary. The fruit is a drupe about 1/4" across, white at maturity; the panicle branches remain green (unlike gray dogwood where the panicle branches turn red).

Cornus

Cornus sericea

red-osier dogwood [Blooms: Apr-Sep]

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]

Annual wallrocket flowers occur on the tips of the stems. Each flower has four bright-yellow, oblong petals about 1/4" long with rounded tips; five light-green stamens with yellow anthers; and a green, stout pistil with an expanded, rough-textured stigma. The fruits are elongate (3/4-1"), narrow (1.5-2.5 mm), cylindrical siliques.

Diplotaxis

Diplotaxis muralis

annual wallrocket [Blooms: May-Oct]

Wild teasel produces one or more flowering stalks 2.5-6' tall, reddish- or pale green, with longitudinal ridges and scattered white prickles. The flowerhead is up to 4" tall and 1.5" across, initially egg-shaped but elongating as it matures. At the base of the flowerhead are narrow, prickly, sharply-pointed bracts up to 6" long that arch up to surround the flowerhead. Individual flowers are packed around the flowerhead like cells in a honeycomb, each flower with a 3/4" long bract that tapers to a sharp point. Individual flowers are white along most of their length, tubular, about 1/2" long, flaring out to four pale purple or lavender lobes; four stamens with white filaments and purple to lavender anthers and a single white style all protrude well beyond the end of the tube. Flowers bloom initially about halfway up the flowerhead but, later, rings of blooms develop at the base and apex of the flowerhead. Cut-leaved teasel was introduced to North America in the 18th century; the spiky flowerheads were used to comb wool and to raise the nap of (aka, "full") fabric. (Thus the species name, fullonum.) I've only seen this plant once in Jackson Park, but hope it returns (but not in excessive numbers).

Dipsacus

Dipsacus fullonum

wild teasel [Blooms: Jul-?]

Cut-leaved teasel behive-shaped flowerheads are 2-4" long and 1.5" across, spiky in every aspect. At the base of the flowerhead are 2-4" long, narrow bracts with sharp points that protrude radially. (These bracts in wild teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, arch up around the flowerhead.) Individual flowers are packed around the flowerhead like cells in a honeycomb, each flower with a 3/4" long bract that tapers to a sharp point. Individual flower are white, tubular, about 1/2" long, flaring out to four lobes; four stamens with white anthers protrude from the tube well beyond its end and there is a single style with a stigma positioned laterally at the style tip. Flowers bloom in a circle progressively from the base of the flowerhead to its tip.

Dipsacus

Dipsacus laciniatus

cut-leaved teasel [Blooms: Jul-Aug]

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]

Cinnamon willowherb flowers are 1/4-1/3" across and arise from the axils of the upper leaves on 1/2" flower stalks, but the ovary of the flower is a hairy, elongate cylinder slightly wider than the flower stalk; the base of the sepals and petals (less than 1/4" long) may thus be elevated 1.5" above the leaf axil — a tiny flower on the tip of a long cylinder. Above the elongated ovary are four green sepals (with pink or purple tints), four deeply-notched white or light pink petals, a stout pistil with a knobby end, and eight stamens, four long, four short. After fertilization, the ovary elongates to as much as 3" long, dries to a brown color, then splits into two or four segments to release tiny seeds suspended under a tuft of long light brown hairs.

Epilobium

Epilobium coloratum

cinnamon willowherb [Blooms: Jul-Sep]

Wormseed mustard stems are medium green, angular or grooved, covered relatively sparsely with tiny appressed hairs. At the tip of the stem is a raceme of yellow flowers, each 1/4-1" long and 1/4" across; more peripheral flowers in the raceme bloom first. Each flower has four pale green sepals 2-3 mm long, four yellow petals 3-5.5mm long, six stamens with yellow anthers (two stamens shorter than the other four), and a single style. The basal rosette withers about the time the seeds begin to form, while flowers are still present. Seedpods are four-angled siliques that grow directly from the center of the flowers. Wormseed mustard prefers open, disturbed habitats.

Erysimum

Erysimum cheiranthoides

wormseed mustard [Blooms: Apr-?]

Winged euonymous' younger stems and branches have geen bark and 2-4 cork-like "wings" (thin plates whose plane lies in a radius of the branch). Clusters of 1-3 flowers arise from leaf axils; individual flowers are about 1/3" (8 mm) across with four green sepals, four yellowish-green petals, four stamens, and a green central dome which bears the single pistil with a reddish, multilobed stigma. Four-lobed seed capsules become dark red or purple at maturity; they split to expose 1-4 reddish-orange arils.

Euonymus

Euonymus alatus

winged Euonymus [Blooms: May-Jun]

European spindletree flowers (usually less than 7) occur in clusters (cymes) with long peduncles; they have four sepals, four petals, four stamens with white anthers, and a single stout style. The greenish-white or yellow petals on the flowers appear to be very narrow, half the width of the petals of Hamilton's spindletree. (In reality, the petals are curled into a U-shape towards the stem so they only appear narrow.) The sepals are pale green, about half the length of the petals, and bent back beneath the flower. The fruit is pink, not red; the arils covering the seeds are orange, not red or scarlet. European spindletree blooms later in the spring in Jackson Park than Hamilton's spindletree.

Euonymus

Euonymus europaeus

European spindletree [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Hamilton's spindletree produces clusters of about seven flowers on ~1.5" peduncles that grow out of the leaf axils. Individual flowers are <1/2" across with four white, elongate-oval petals with rounded tips, four stamens with dark purple (approaching black) anthers, and a large green ovary with a single, stout green style. The fruit is a four chambered, deeply-grooved, rose-colored capsule ~1/2" across containing four scarlet, fleshy arils, each surrounding an ellipsoidal, dark brown seed.

Euonymus

Euonymus hamiltonianus

Hamilton's spindletree [Blooms: Maay-Jun]

Black bindweed flowers develop in singletons or pairs from the leaf axils or directly from the stem. Flowers are 1/8-1/4" long; they have 3-5 greenish-white, white, or light purple petal-like tepals, the outer three tepals with a ridge or keel down the midline on the outer surface. Six to eight stamens with purple anthers surround fused green styles with a dome-shaped stigma in the middle of the flower; the flower usually opens only partially (like a tulip). The fruit is three-sided, with a tubercle-covered surface, about 1/4" long, black when fully mature. Black bindweed is very similar to climbing false buckwheat (Fallopia scandens).

Fallopia

Fallopia convolvulus

black bindweed [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Gallant-soldier (aka, small-flowered galinsoga) flowerheads are about 1/4" across; they have 4-8 (usually 5) ray florets with a single minute (about 2x2 mm) white petal notched to produce two or three lobes; the ray florets are distributed around the circumstance of the disc. There are 15-50 golden yellow, tubular disc florets with five short triangular lobes at their apex. Both ray and disc florets are fertile; the ray florets are pistillate while the disc florets are perfect (both pistils and stamens). The fruit (a cypsela) consists of a black, conical seed suspended beneath about five off-white, papery, fringed scales that act as a parachute. Gallant-soldier is very similar to galinsoga (Galinsoga quadriradiata); the latter has larger flowerheads and ray floret petals.

Galinsoga

Galinsoga parviflora

gallant-soldier [Blooms: Aug-Sep]