be able to identify wildflowers and plants

to have a more than basic grasp of the wild flora in my backyard. One day my mom had been reading a book that mentioned chickweed and asked if I knew what it was. I was able to show her some that was growing in her backyard within minutes!

I still have lots to learn, of course, but I am marking this as done because I am happy and confident with how much I know.

I’ve always had a love and an interest in nature. I’ve always been the kind of person who loved knowing weather lore, who wanted to know what that pretty flower is called, what bird that is singing in the woods, what kind of tree that is.

And since the miracle of the internet… WOW!

Looking at sketches in books that apply to all of north america was always discouraging because a) it’s only a sketch, and b) if I did find a book with full color photos, somehow they were never the kind of flowers we had around here.

But the internet makes all of that easy. Even last year in Kentucky I was learning, noticing the similar and different wildflowers, how to identify poison ivy, what kind of bird is that? and on and on.

And now… I’m GOOD at it!

Wildflowers of Ontario has been an invaluable reference for me. The fact that the flowers are grouped by name OR by color is sooo helpful. When I see a flower, I can just go look it up based on the color, and 9 times out of 10, find out the name in just a few minutes.

There ARE flowers I still don’t know about, however. There is one pink flower in particular that I just can’t find information on!

I also have learned the vast array of wildgrasses that grow in Ontario. I… I don’t know, I always knew about the flowers, but never paid much attention to the grass.

So as I progress in flowers, I’m learning about grasses. I didn’t know so many of them weren’t native, too!

In our backyard we have burdock, dandelion, white clover, nightshade, woodsorrel, black mustard, yellow mustard, milkweed (the food of the monarch butterflies), stinking mayflower chamomile, wild daisy, heal all, that darn pink weed, queen anne’s lace, crown vetch, cow vetch (two seperate flowers, though obviously related), lemonbalm, catnip, more lemonbalm, chicory, ground ivy, STILL MORE LEMONBALM!, teasel, buttercup, curly dock and sow thistle. Just in our backyard.

And down at the barn… (not including the massive amounts of burdock or the plants that grow in our backyard…)

jewelweed (aka touch-me-not)
wild grapes
jack in the pulpit
thistles
goldenrod
wild asters

I was also able to identify trout lily in the springtime, growing along the edge of the ditch in wooded areas, wild geraniums, mayapple and yarrow growing on the side of the road, bindweed growing around the front of the house, viper’s bugloss growing in the sandy soil near the traintracks… I also learned that nightshade STINKS when you tear it out. Yuck!

I could go on and on! This has become a big hobby for me and I like knowing what is growing around me.

!! I found out what the pink flower weed is! It’s called terrestrial smartweed, or just smartweed for short. HURRAY!