Desultor

Respect

I went up to the Middlesex Fells reservation and saw many plants I hadn’t seen before. Some interesting ones I saw were:

• Purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) (mint family)- its leaves have a purple color, especially up top, and wilt so as to make the plant look dead. I’ve seen it before, but last year I had trouble telling it from henbit.
• Corn Speedwell (Veronica arvensis) (figwort family) – a tiny little plant, often hidden in lawns. I think I must have seen this last year: it’s tiny but quite common and once your eyes are on the right scale you see it everywhere.
• Smaller forget-me-not (Myosotis Laxa) (borage family) – this is a lot like regular forget-me-not. It grows in lawns. It’s extremely hairy and kind of nasty-looking – like a mean nephew of Viper’s Bugloss.
• Wood Anemone (Anemone quinquefolia) (buttercup family) – I saw this last year at the Myles Standish state forest.
• Hairy Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum pubescens) (lily family) – monocot with pairs of as-yet unopened long-calyxed green flowers hanging from the axils.
• Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) (lily family) – a man passing by said he had seen lots of lily-of-the-valley but I didn’t realize that was the same plant as this.
• Ovate-leaved Violet (Viola Fimbriatula) (violet family) – the fourth kind of violet I’ve seen; the name pretty much says it all with this one.
• Bastard Toadflax (Comandra Umbellata) (sandalwood family) – Newcomb’s says it’s parasitic – apparently it taps into other plants’ roots. It was growing in among a patch of blueberries.
• Early Low Blueberry (Vaccinium Angustifolium) (heath family) – I saw this last year at Myles Standish too.

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