Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Flowers of the First Day of Summer #WordlessWednesday

On the first day of summer, spouse and I walked in a neighborhood park and found these flowering plants Some I knew.  Others I used the built in plant ID application within my iPhone photo app.  Sadly, some of these wildflowers are actually invasive species, non natives that grow aggressively and crowd out native plants.  

Shall we explore?

A note first: I am far from a plant expert and depend a lot on my camera plant ID, which too many times, is not that accurate.  So if you know better, please don't hesitate to correct me.

Bedstraw.  Some plants called bedstraw are considered invasive; others are native.  I don't know which this is. 

Cinquefoil.  There is a native species and a non-native species. The latter is considered invasive.  I suspect this is the latter.  There are guides that give pointers for identification but this plant was partially hidden.
Common motherwort.  Yup, invasive.

Forget-Me-Not is not invasive.  But water-forget-me-not (which this is, according to my app) is. Sadness.

I know this one!  Crownvetch is a serious invasive.  When I first started gardening in the late 1970's, I remember these plants being sold in catalogs for erosion control on banks.  This is another example of good intentions gone way wrong.  It is also poisonous to horses and humans.

Creeping jenny is also considered invasive in our area. 

Finally, a native! Northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) trees are sometimes used in landscaping where I live.  They are native trees with showy flowers. After flowers, they develop long bean-like seed pods, which are not edible.  I had never seen one in this park before.

It's obvious that I need to sharpen my skills.  What a shame that so many of the "wildflowers" I saw are not welcome plants from other parts of the world.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

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