Orris root

Orris root (Iris pallida 'Variegata'), showing some early spring growth. Picture taken March 1, 2010.

Link to Iris pallida:

Link to Iris pallida:

Link to orris root:

Conium maculatum

This is poison hemlock (Conium maculatum). This also is at Purdue Horticulture Gardens, but it's an unintended plant that showed up here on its own. Conium maculatum is a cool-season plant that is green and growing even in the late winter when snow is on the ground. It's not native to Indiana but it's very common here wherever the land has been disturbed and unattended. Picture taken March 1, 2010.

Link to Conium maculatum:

Link to Conium maculatum:

Link to Conium maculatum:

Winter aconite

Winter aconite (Eranthis) just started showing the yellow flower buds yesterday, March 3, 2010. This is at Purdue Horticulture gardens. You can also find winter aconite at Clegg Gardens, east of Lafayette.

None of the early-blooming plants in the last three posts (aconite, snowdrops, daffodils) are native to Indiana. All of them are poisonous. This time of year there is not much for rodents to eat, the poison could be a strategy these early plants have to keep their whole populations from being consumed by hungry mice.

Link to Eranthis:

Link to Eranthis:

Link to Eranthis:

Link to Clegg Gardens:

Galanthus

Snowdrops (Galanthus) are emerging and will flower very soon. These snowdrops are a few steps from the entrance to the greenhouse at Purdue Horticulture Gardens. Picture taken March 2, 2010.

Link to Galanthus:

Daffodils are emerging

These daffodils (Narcissus sp.) are emerging from their underground bulbs, at Purdue Horticulture Gardens on the Purdue campus. Flowers coming soon. Pictures taken March 1, 2010.

Link to daffodil:

Indiana State Bird and Indiana State Tree

Here a cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) finds its Friday morning breakfast at the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) at Purdue Horticulture Gardens. The seed cones of the tulip tree provide food for seed-eating birds like the cardinal even this late in the winter. Pictures taken February 19. 2010.

Link to Cardinalis cardinalis:

Link to Indiana State Tree/Indiana State Bird:

Link to previous post on this same tulip tree in December:

Crimson Spire Oaks

This row of oak trees just west of the Horticulture greenhouses are Crimson Spire oaks (Quercus x bimundorum ‘Crimschmidt’), which are a hybrid between the native white oak (Quercus alba) and the English oak (Quercus robur). Pictures taken February 1, 2010.

The Crimson Spire oak pictured is number 14 on the Purdue tree trail (Green Trail).

Link to Quercus robur:

Link to Quercus robur: