My title on March 30th was The Leeks are Up. At that time we saw only leaves. Over the weeks leading up to summer, the leaves of wild leeks disintigrate and the plant seems to disappear. Then, just around the Summer Solstice, up pop the flowers… Yesterday I found them in several states of bursting from their buds, but none fully open. Today the temperatures are supposed to be quite a bit higher… maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to post a leek blossom that is beyond the budding phase.

The woods behind the ball park at the top of the hill never ceases to amaze me.  I’ve walked the paths so many times you would think I had seen every plant and learned every flower.  But no.  Yesterday I found several plants that buried me in my books for hours after the walk.  I still haven’t identified all of them.

Here’s one I did manage to key out.  Shinleaf!  The individual flowers grow on a raceme above broad, ovate leaves.  This photo only shows two blossoms on the stem, but often there are many more.  I took a closeup of one flower.  You should check it out at my Flickr site: it’s pretty bizzare!

There were two flowers that baffled me.  I posted them in the ID Please Pool on Flickr to get some help with them.  If I get some answers, I’ll blog them another time.

Not all of the flowers in the woods were white.  I finally found some agrimony in bloom.  I’ve been seeing the leaves for quite some time, and saw some buds on the way into the woods.  On the return path, I found one stem with open blossoms:

And yet another Cinquefoil… I think this one is called “Rough Cinquefoil”:

I’m off to the woods again today.  I hope to have some more woodland beauties for you tomorrow!