Once again today I ventured out to photograph the local spring wildflowers. As mentioned in past posts, conditions change quickly, and from day to day different species of wild flowers appear and disappear.

As the season unfolds the forest floor becomes more lush and green than ever – wild garlic, trillium, and anemones literally blanket the ground. A few new plants have emerged – wild ginger, bell wort, squirrel corn, and Canada Violet, to name a few. Hepatica – both blue and white – is now virtually gone. I saw two or three late bloomers, and lots of their foliage storing up energy for next year’s blooms. Trout Lilly is also fading fast – with only one or blooming plants to be found (though some areas of the forest floor are still covered with their patterned leaves. Even the spring beauty, which carpeted the ground last week, has thinned noticeably.

One flower that is noticeably absent is Jack In The Pulpit. I realized this morning that I have not seen a single one of these flowers this year, so devoted some time to looking for it. These flowers are pale green and tend to blend into the ground, so I expected that I had just overlooked them. Unfortunately, I found only one Jack this afternoon, and it was withered and weak looking. Maybe its been a bad year for Jack in the Pulpit, maybe the deer got them early. At any rate, it’s one plant that has eluded me yet this spring. Lastly, the riot of trillium has definitely started to fade. So I’ll leave this post with an image of a faded trillium bloom from this afternoon.