All the Small Things

I’m back from crawling around in the underbrush and possibly getting poison ivy, Lyme disease, and/or malaria to bring you another round of pictures of plants. You may have noticed recently that besides my end-of-month coronacation reports, I’m not posting about activities that happen on any particular day. The reason is twofold. 1) I’m not taking any trips/travelling, and basically all events have been cancelled – band/orchestra concerts, in-person library programming, seminar speakers, even the Arboretum people asked people not to go see the peonies in person this year. And 2) There are only so many ways you can say you went wandering in the woods, startled a lot of squirrels and chipmunks, and waded through weeds and mud (plus new for June – got eaten alive by bugs). Not every walk warrants its own post, so be glad you’re just getting the highlights.

I will say that a good thing to come out of the coronavirus quarantine is that I’ve finally explored parts of Ann Arbor well within walking distance of where I’ve been living for the past four years. Also it turns out work gets done when you sit down and work instead of distracting your coworkers. But back to the plants. I practiced my plant identification skills to give you my best guesses as to what the wildflowers I’ve encountered are. I actually managed to find the ones I had little to no idea about by scrolling through this page, which is pleasantly very 2000s in terms of web design.

First up, trillium, likely Trillium grandiflorum, or great white trillium or large-flowered trillium. I spent my very last BRBs (Big Red Bucks) at Cornell at Trillium, a cash/BRB dining option by the ag quad. After our blisteringly warm and humid convocation, my family and I went for a special graduation-weekend lunch at Trillium before hiking at Watkins Glen.

Trillium grandiflorum (Great White Trillium)

Next we have another dandelion picture, because I’m pretty happy with the focus on this one.

Our friend Taraxacum officinale (Common Dandelion)

That’s followed by one that took a lot of scrolling, but I’m pretty sure it’s dame’s rocket (Hesperis matronalis). It’s described as prolific and as having plentiful flowers, which definitely fits what I’ve seen of it. It was everywhere along some of the trails I walked this spring. Its name comes from the ancient Greek for evening, possibly because its scent becomes more prominent in the evening.

Hesperis matronalis (Dame's Rocket)

While I was looking for the dame’s rocket, I found wild geranium (Geranium maculatum). This is another flower that I’ve seen in quite a few places around Ann Arbor but never bothered to identify until now. Confusingly enough, geraniums that you might buy to plant in your garden are in a separate genus – Pelargonium. They were originally classified in the same genus by Linneaus, but split up in 1789.

Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium)

And finally we have a flower that I had narrowed down to some sort of daisy, probably Erigeron annus, or eastern daisy fleabane. That’s it for this time. Back next time with different types of grasses.¹

Erigeron annus (Eastern Daisy Fleabane)

¹Probably not really.