Friday, June 25, 2010

June-end Walk Around the Yard

I never fail to find some new-to-me flowers every time I take a walk around the yard.  Yesterday, my ace in the hole was the Newcomb's Wildflower Guide that my friend Linda gave me a few weeks ago, making these less of a mystery than usual.

That's how I found out that the below yellow flower is Sundrops, and the white ones are double Feverfew.  They could be carnations for a doll party.
These purple flowers are Creeping Bellflower, (I think)...[edit: now I think that they're Harebell]
Last year I thought these were some sort of Mallow, and this year it's confirmed by Newcomb's. Musk Mallow.

And these are Spreading Dogbane (I think), which upon reading looks to be kind of nasty stuff and bad for ruminants.

I'm pretty psyched that I was able to identify all these new-to-me flowers!  Notably, it took an hour or so of uninterrupted concentration to find two of the five, the bellflower and the dogbane.  I think it's because I wasn't using the system properly.  Once I settled down and went through his steps in order (and didn't just skim the section looking for a picture that matched), they kind of fell into place.

4 comments:

  1. Yea, success!!! Newcomb's is notable for being easy to use by people not familiar with botanic terminology. Glad you have found it useful.

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  2. I need to get my hands on some field guides for wildflowers and birds! I used the bird guide at my mother's house to identify the birds who eat the bread I toss in the yard as House Sparrows. Now I need to identify the Pretty Blue Flower that appeared all by its lonesome inside my garden fencing this year.

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  3. You could name it, "Pretty Blue Flower!" Seriously - the Newcomb's made a difference for me - it's really helpful!

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  4. Sundrops are about to drive me crazy. They are ALL over my gardens. I'm overdosing on yellow. I'm glad to know what they are.

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