Chipmunk Cuteness

Chipmunks Like Rhododendrons Too

Chipmunk Portrait
Chipmunks are part of the squirrel family and they are smaller, with alternating light and dark stripes along their cheeks and backs. There are 25 species of chipmunk, 24 of which live in North America. Chipmunks are excellent tree climbers and swimmers who live in a variety of habitats, including plains, mountains, forests, and deserts. Chipmunks like to live alone in holes or burrows called dens. 
Chipmunks hibernate in cold weather, which means they spend most of the winter sleeping in their dens. One chipmunk can gather up to 165 acorns in a day. In just two days, a chipmunk can collect enough food to last an entire winter, although chipmunks typically hoard much more food than necessary. 
Chipmunk young are born in late spring, and stay in the nest for up to six weeks. Female chipmunks have one or two litters per year, each with four or five babies. Chipmunks are 7.2 to 8.5 inches (18.5 to 21.6 centimeters) long including their tails, which can account for nearly half of their length.

Eatting The Cherries From My Bushes

Enjoying Trilliums

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Spreading Dogbane

Spreading Dogbane

 Apocynum androsaemifolium

The root was used by many Native American tribes for a range of medicinal purposes, while fibers from the stems were processed to make fine thread or strong cordage, such as for bow strings.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

 

Fringed Polygala

 Fringed Polygala, 

Polygala paucifolia, Polygaloides paucifolia, Other common names: Bird-on-the-Wing, Flowering Wintergreen, Fringed Milkwort, Gay Wings, Gaywings. The leaves were used externally by the Iroquois as a wash or poultice to treat abscesses, boils and sores. It was once believed that leaves fed to nursing mothers or dairy cattle would increase milk production.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Fernilicious!

Fabulous patterns of ferns.

The Beauty Of Ferns In The Forest

Can You Tell That I Love Ferns!

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False Hellebore

False Hellebore flowers and buds. Veratrum viride, known as Indian poke, corn-lily, Indian hellebore, false hellebore, green false hellebore, giant false-helleborine, wild corn, cow cabbage American false hellebore, American white hellebore, bear corn, big hellebore, devils bite, duck retten, itchweed, poor Annie, blue hellebore and tickleweed. A native woodland plant that produces small green flowers and big beautiful green leaves. This plant was considered to have magical properties by many Native American tribes, who used it for talismanic and ceremonial purposes, as well as to treat conditions ranging from hair loss to madness. It is extremely toxic.

False Hellebore flowers and buds closeup.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Bunchberry

 

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is a wildflower that grows in mixed wood forests. Its dogwood-like white flowers appear in late spring, followed by bright red berries in summer.

This plant is also called Bunchberry Dogwood, Dwarf Dogwood, Canadian Bunchberry, Dogwood Bunchberry, Pudding Berry, Crackerberry, Creeping Dogwood, and Dwarf Cornel. 

Bunchberry fruit is said to edible, but not very flavorful. The fruits reportedly can be consumed raw or cooked. Native Americans used them in puddings and sauces, ate them raw, or dried them for winter use. The fruit is said to be rich in pectin.

Bunchberry was used medicinally by a number of native American groups. For instance, the Abnaki used an infusion of the leaves as a cathartic tea. The Hoh used an infusion of the bark as a tonic. The Iroquois took a decoction of the whole plant for coughs and fevers.

Bunchberry provides a food source for some species of wildlife. 

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Lupine

Lupine
Lupinus, commonly known as lupin or lupine, is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae. There are over 200 species of Lupine. The term lupine, from the Latin for “wolf,” derives from the mistaken belief that these plants depleted, or “wolfed,” minerals from the soil. The contrary is true, however; lupines aid soil fertility by fixing nitrogen from the air in a soil form useful for other plants.

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Catmint Pollination

 Catmint Pollination. 

I know it looks like lavender, but it's not. Some people harvest catmint leaves to use as a culinary herb similar to mint.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Dame's Rocket

 

Dame's Rocket attracting A Butterfly with it's delicious ­­­­­­fra­grance­. Also known as Dame’s or sweet rocket, dame’s or damask violet, rogue’s or queen’s gilliflower, vesper flower, mother-of-the-evening. It grows in purple or white. Dame’s rocket is a food source for caterpillars and a nectar source for butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. Many people enjoy eating young dame’s rocket leaves in salads for their bitter tang, similar to arugula. The sprouted seeds, are also edible. In the Victorian “language of flowers”, dame’s rocket symbolized deceit because it is fragrant in the evening but scentless, or nearly so, during the day. Dame’s rocket has been used medicinally to induce sweating, promote urination, and loosen a cough.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Jack In The Pulpit

 Jack In The Pulpit

  Jack In The Pulpit

  Jack In The Pulpit

  Jack In The Pulpit

Jack In The Pulpit

 Jack In The Pulpit

Arisaema triphyllum

(jack-in-the-pulpit, bog onion, brown dragon, Indian turnip, American wake robin, or wild turnip)

It is native to eastern North America, occurring in moist woodlands and thickets.

Also commonly called Indian turnip, it's a shade requiring species found in rich, moist, deciduous woods and floodplains and is a long lived perennial (25+ years).

Jack-in-the pulpit is pollinated by small flies and flowers from March through June depending on locale. The flower is an unusual green and maroon striped spathe surrounding a fleshy, maroon-colored spadix that bears the tiny, embedded flowers. In the fall, bright red berries appear, which have the consistency of a ripe tomato, and are an attractive food source for birds such as thrushes, rodents, etc. Each berry contains 1 to 5 seeds. 

While Jack-in-the-pulpit has both male and female plants, they can change gender from year to year, apparently in response to successful (or failed) reproduction the previous year. Males resprout from an underground corm that can last several seasons, the corm sending off shoots and producing new plants as well. Males tend to be smaller than females and have a small hole at the bottom of the spathe which allows pollinators to escape (with their pollen) more easily. Female plants lack the hole and pollinators are more likely to become trapped, better ensuring successful pollination.

Consumption of the raw plant material results in a powerful burning sensation. It can cause irritation of the mouth and digestive system, and on rare occasions the swelling of the mouth and throat may be severe enough to affect breathing. Leaves and fruits contain calcium oxalate that can irritate the skin so it is important to wear gloves when handling.

If the plant is properly dried or cooked it can be eaten as a root vegetable.

Preparations of the root were used by Native Americans as a treatment for sore eyes, to treat rheumatism, bronchitis, and snakebites, as well as to induce sterility.

Jack In The Pulpit Berries

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Daisy Fleabane

Daisy Fleabane

Erigeron annuus, also known as Eastern Daisy Fleabane (Annual Fleabane), Culpepper wrote that the name is due to the seeds of the fleabanes which are as small as fleas. They come in white or pink and most years I've only seen white. Only the leaves are edible. They are hairy, so this texture makes eating them raw unpleasant. They can be used wherever you cook with greens. Fleabane is a common medicinal wildflower. It has been used medicinally for Respiratory, cough with mucous discharge, Digestion, Lack of appetite, diarrhea, Kidneys and Bladder problems, menstrual problems, childbirth, postpartum bleeding, coughs, hemorrhages, eye sight and even as a poison ivy remedy.

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Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.