March Showers Bring April Flowers

Spring is here for most of us. Daffodils and crocuses (croci?) have sprouted and blossomed here in the Northwest already, and I look forward to seeing the tulips. While the summer wildflowers in the mountain meadows get all the publicity, our forests also have their own display of wildflowers, starting now.

One of the first plants to leaf out is the Indian plum. In fact, it is already flowering. Indian plum is edible, but I read that they don’t taste very good and there isn’t much to eat. However, they are an important early food source for critters that are just waking up or just arriving from migration. 

Indian plum flowers

Salmonberries are also blooming, and Oregon grape is right around the corner. 

Salmonberry flower

Oregon grape getting ready to bloom

I found some self-heal and colt’s foot flowers on my last walk in the woods. It won’t be long until wood sorrel, bleeding heart, and trillium and the non-native stinky Bob and daisies are also blooming. Over in the wetlands, the skunk cabbage is living up to its name. This aquatic plant looks like cabbage leaves with a large yellow flower that smells like skunk spray. The scent attracts the insects the pollinate it. I have no idea if those same insects are attracted to any unfortunate victims of a skunk attack. Pond lilies are close to reaching the surface. Once that happens, I lose my ability to find egg masses, but it is yet another spring flower to look at.

Colt's foot

Self heal

Wood sorrel

The spring flower show might not be as impressive as what is to come in August (or California’s superbloom- see Nature Minute of Facebook for that), but it is just enough to whet your appetite. Plus, the longer growing season at lower elevations gives you more to look at over an extended time. What flowers are growing in your forest?

Pacific bleeding heart

Skunk cabbage (AKA skunkweed, AKA stinkweed), courtesy US Forest Service 

Western trillium

US Forest Service: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/regions/Pacific_Northwest/QuinaultRainForestTrail/index.shtml