Wildflower Blooms

From our walk this morning, and thanks to the newly-cleared trails, we added some new finds to our growing list of natural stuff…

Cardinal Flower

Wild Quinine (Feverfew)

Nodding Pink Onion (Lady's Leeks)

And a Yellow Garden Spider snacking on its prey 

Wildflower Walk

It's been oppressively hot for awhile; consequently we try to get our walk out of the way in the earlier morning.

From a few days ago there was this.

Cardinal Flower

Yellow coneflower, bee balm and a red Golden Retriever

Nodding pink onion

Wildflower Walk

In the past week I brushed-out some additional trails to make it easier to get around.  From our walk the other day there was this...

A big patch of Prairie Blazing Star - Liatris

Blue Vervain

Compass Plant - as high as an elephant's eye!

Cardinal Flower

Cardinal Flower

click on image to enlarge

Meet Lobelia cardinalis - the Cardinal Flower - a member of the Bellflower family.

Now that the waters have retreated from the banks of Silver Creek this striking native plant has begun to flower in the shaded reaches of the low, wet habitat.  You can't miss it as it's quite spectacular with its tall spiked flowers reaching for a bit of sunlight amidst the shade.  The bright deep-red color is associated with the red adornments warn by Roman Catholic cardinals.  Hence the name.

While you can grow this plant in a garden (we did two houses ago) the roots have to be kept wet - not an easy thing to do.  Furthermore, reproduction is difficult as it relies upon hummingbirds for pollination.