There’s a hickory hiding in there with the pawpaw seedlings. About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
Lots of flowers in the ginseng habitat right now. The following are just a sample.
Wild Ginger
If you don’t mind getting down on the ground, you can see the wild ginger (Asarum canadense) blooming.
Flowers are usually just below the leaf litter at the base of the stems.
Wild ginger, Asarum canadense
Mayapple
The mayapples are blooming too.
Mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum
Doll’s Eye
This plant is also called White Baneberry, and it is by that name that I’ve used it in a 100-word flash fiction story. The berries and roots are very toxic, but it is one of the best habitat indicators for ginseng.
Doll’s Eye looks very much like black cohosh until it blooms, but I think I’ve finally figured out a way to differentiate at least the mature plants before flowering.
Doll’s Eyes, Actaea pachypoda
Goldenseal
This medicinal herb is one of the most recognizable of the ginseng companion plants. It blooms in April, too.
Goldenseal, Hydrastis canadensis
Jack in the Pulpit
These are interesting plants. Although they resemble pitcher plants, the two are not related. Whereas the pitcher plant is carnivorous, the jack in the pulpit is not.
Jack in the Pulpit,
No Flowers Yet on the Ginseng
The ginseng seedlings are just barely coming up now. Some are a few days old, some are almost a week, and some were still in the process of unfurling.
American ginseng seedlings.
Flower buds on older plants are held tight and closed still and the flower stalk is barely there at the center of the prong junction.
Many blooming flowers in the ginseng habitat, but ginseng isn’t one of them, yet.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
I got a late start photographing the early spring plants this year. They started without me and I’ve already missed some of them.
These are some of the plants unfurling and blooming on April 1 in the woodland habitats here at Wild Ozark.
Early Spring Plants
Large Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora)
This late afternoon shot of fern fiddleheads is my favorite photo (so far) of this year’s plant-looking expeditions.
Christmas fern new fronds unfurling. (Polystichum acrostichoides)
Every year I try to capture Dutchman’s Breeches in a good light and in good focus. Every year the photo falls short, but this one is close. With all the ghostly little pantaloons hanging on the stem at different angles and heights, it’s hard to get them all to look crisp and sharp.
Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)
Phlox is another one that’s hard to get a good photo of. Luckily, this time, the day was overcast and the purple didn’t wash out as it usually does.
Phlox, not sure which variety or species.
I’m pretty sure the plant in the following photo is black cohosh (Actaea racemosa). Doll’s eyes are a smaller plant but the leaf and stem structure is very similar. I’ll know for sure in late summer when it starts to bloom.
Black cohosh or Doll’s eyes? When it blooms I’ll know for sure.
The purple violets bloomed earlier and are still blooming, but it’s the unusual that catches my eye with violets. I don’t see many smooth yellow violets, though I see a few more of the downy yellow ones.
Smooth Yellow Violet (Viola pubescens)
Here’s a violet that has me stumped. I can’t find a description for it so I can give it a proper name. If you know it, please let me know too!
Unidentified violet.
That’s All for Today!
Hope you enjoyed the wildflower woodland plant virtual walkabout. What’s blooming in the woods in your neck of the woods?
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
I took a little walkabout yesterday to photograph some of the flowers that are setting berries, blooming, or getting ready to bloom right now.
Yesterday’s post highlighted the orchid I’d been waiting to see bloom. The ginseng pics were also added to the “Ginseng Habitat Through the Seasons” page. The rest of the photos are below:
Not quite blooming yet.
Queen Annes Lace, also called wild carrot. The scientific name is
Not sure what a fern “flower” is technically called, but it’s the equivalent of a flower I think.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
When you can hear the roar of the wet-weather waterfall from the house, you know the water’s up. If you can see the waterfall from the front porch, it’s a fair bet the creek is way over the bridge.
When the creek is this much into the driveway…
Water in the Wild Ozark driveway.
Yep. Looks like I’ll be staying home another day or two.
I’ve lost a dog over the bridge once years ago. It was a horrific thing to watch and have no way to help. She did turn up downstream some time later, alive and well if bedraggled. But the experience sure drove home the danger of high water in the creeks.
Turbo! Come back!
He stood there and looked at me for a few seconds, all the while the water pushed him closer to the edge. Finally he kicked it into gear and got off the bridge. Whew.
I could take the truck and go out the back way if I need to. But I think I’ll just stay home and write.
The back way out. About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
I took a few pictures today for those of you wondering how the ginseng looks during mid- to late May. I’ll post a link to them over on the Ginseng Habitat Through the Seasons page, too. For those of you who enjoy nature sketching, I have a sketch of ginseng in May over at the nature sketching site.
Right now some of the flower buds are starting to open. Here’s a 4-prong with a few doing that.
A 4-prong ginseng with flowers beginning to open on May 18.
Here’s the a closer zoom on the flowers. According to the article Ginseng Reproduction at Wild Ginseng Conservation’s website, ginseng is pollinated only by two insects: syrphid flies and halictid bees.
Flowers on a 4-prong American ginseng at Wild Ozark on May 18.
Other ginseng plants in the area still have tightly closed flower buds.
A 3-prong ginseng with flower bud.
More information
If you haven’t found your way around the blog yet, here’s a few links to other pages to do with Ginseng:
At the Wild Ozark store you can find books, articles and a photo-book on DVD.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
There’s a particular woodland habitat at the far corner of our property that I love.
The variety of plants that grow there is amazing.
It’s the perfect place for American ginseng, but those plants have nearly been extirpated by diggers foraging the hillsides of our area. It’s too far from the house for me to be able to keep a close eye on it, so I likely won’t plant any more in that spot.
Instead, I visit and enjoy the company of the plants who do have a stronghold there.
Here’s the path. The phone company ran through here a few years ago but before that it was a logging trail. Now it isn’t used for anything except as a path for my visits.
A carpet of nettles green dragons and cohosh and dolls eyes.
It’s so lush and green I almost want to lie down, but nettles aren’t very forgiving. I wear long sleeves and socks with my shoes when I tread this path. Then I still have to be careful about my face when getting down close to the ground for photos.
Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium)
From a distance all you can see is green, and most of that green is tall wood nettles – and they sting. But there’s a Green Dragon lurking.
Green dragon from above.
When you look closer, you’ll notice there’s more than nettles (left of the dragon) to be found. There’s also a mayapple (just left of center, top) and either a Doll’s Eye or Black Cohosh (top, right), and some wild legume species (lower right) to be found in just this one photo frame.
There was very nearly a whole herd of dragons in the stretch of path in the first photo. One displayed the plant’s namesake.
dragon tongue
Last year I collected seeds from a Green Dragon. Below is a pic of the dragon from last year. This year, I can’t find that particular dragon. Instead, there’s a giant Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing where the dragon was. Before I found this photo in my files, I couldn’t remember whether the cluster still had identifying leaves on it or not.
Mature green dragon with fruit.
I was uncertain. Did the berries I gathered come from a dragon or a pulpit? So the photo shows it clearly was a dragon.
Sometimes there’s no plant left once the berries become red. Sometimes the leaves die back and only the stem and berries are standing in fall. The berry cluster of both plants, without leaves to identify, looks very similar to each other.
It’ll be two years before I have indisputable proof, once the additional leaves come on if it is indeed a Dragon and not the Pulpit.
I have a page where I’m keeping track of the seedlings. For the moment I’m calling them dragons. Here’s a link to the Dragon page.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Here’s a pic of the giant Pulpit that’s there now where the dragon used to be. I know that JIP’s can sometimes change sex when conditions are right for successfully producing offspring (proper nutrition, proper moisture levels, etc.), but I don’t believe they can swap species. Both are of the genus Arisaema and they do have a lot of similarities to each other.
Giant jack in the pulpit.
This is the hugest Jack-in-the-Pulpit I’ve ever seen. Have you ever seen one this big?
Blue Cohosh
The blue cohosh was a little difficult to find. When it first comes up, not much else is bushy or fully leafed out. Blue green stems with fronds of similarly hued leaves unfurling on the rise of a small hill were easy to see. Now the Black Cohosh and Doll’s Eyes in the immediate area have grown up around it and nearly hidden it completely. But I remembered it was growing next to a certain pair of trees. When I pushed the greenery aside, there it was, just hanging out in the shade beneath the much taller Black Cohosh. Berries are formed and still green but it won’t be long before the fruits are ripe. Then the plant will probably die on back.
Blue Cohosh Berries
Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)
The goldenseal have green fruits on them now.
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
On the hill I spotted the purple flowers of a wild geranium. Look closely inside the flower and you’ll spot the little squatter.
Adam and Eve Orchid (Aplectrum hyemale)
I’ve always wondered what the flowers of this plant looks like. This was the first one I’ve ever seen, in all the years of traipsing through the woods. I see the leaves all around but apparently never timed my excursions just right to see the flowers. Either that or I’d always overlooked them.
Just as the leaf is a single leaf and nothing else, the flower stalk is a single stalk and nothing else. No leaves to identify the plant, so it stumped me for a little while until I made a guess and verified it by looking it up on the internet.
Heading Back to the House
Well, that’s the end of the photographic journey into the habitat. I hope you enjoyed your virtual woodland walk. The sun was going down by this time and I’d run out of good light in the deep woods. We’ve had a lot of rain lately and the springs are still flowing hard, as you can see from the puddles in the photo below. Badger is our lead guardian dog and he usually goes out with me on all of my walks. The other two dogs are there, too, somewhere in the bushes chasing rabbits.
Wild Ozark’s lead guardian dog, Badger.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
The day was dreary for the most part, but just before sunset the sky brightened. And so I went out with the camera and managed to get a few photos of some of the flowering woodland herbs in the ginseng habitat before it got too dark.
Diversions While Checking the Mail
I’d gone to check the mail, but I became distracted (as I so often do) and stopped at the little ginseng habitat along the way. The blue cohosh and goldenseal are already blooming. Young ginseng plants still have tightly fisted flower stalks and the giant Solomon’s seal is getting taller every day while holding onto dangling flower buds until later.
Goldenseal flower
Solomon’s Seal buds
Blue Cohosh flowers
Jack-in-the-Pulpit windmill
I’ll add the plant pics to the “Ginseng Through the Seasons” page when I get a chance, since these are all companion plants.
Sun Splashed Mountainsides
When I was almost back to the house, rays of sun came out from beneath the clouds at the western horizon and washed over the eastern mountainsides.
Sun splashed mountainside.
And then the sun dropped almost below the ridgeline and gave me a nice silhouette of the trees in front of the house.
Tree silhouette About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
There’s a nice patch of Solomon Seal at the front of the driveway that was so choked out last summer that I don’t think any of them got a chance to bloom. I was afraid they might not come back after that. And I wasn’t sure exactly which spot it was where they lived, so earlier while it was still winter I picked my best guess and cleared the briars.
On my way home from checking the mail the other day, I was very pleased to see that I was almost perfect in my guess – just a little bit off. Still, good enough to give them a fighting chance until I get another day to do more clearing and cutting of briars. The plan was to do a little transplanting of them today.
The heady scent of plum blossoms greeted me this morning. It was overcast and misty, and just a wee bit chilly but that kind of lighting is great for taking photos. Before I could get on to the Solomon’s Seal, there was something else I needed to do first. Yesterday I had dug up some Dutchman’s Breeches but didn’t get a chance to pot them up before the rain started, so that was the top thing on my list of things to do today.
After potting up the Breeches I went up to the front end of the driveway dug up some of the Solomon’s Seal. I moved some of the plants to the nursery spot to be sure they don’t all get choked out this year. And while I was at it, I potted up several to bring to market later on this month, too.
Unfurling Solomon Seal
Here’s how the rhizomes look:
Growing It
Solomon’s Seal enjoys the same habitat as American Ginseng, but it can tolerate a little more sun. It will do well in full or dappled shade but not in deep shade. The soil should be well-drained and loamy. The spot where these have been for many years is on the dry side during the heat of summer, so it can tolerate more dryness than ginseng can as well. The rhizomes should be planted 1 to 3 inches deep.
Uses
This native woodland herb has a surprising (to me, anyway) history of medicinal use. The young shoots are supposed to be edible, but I haven’t tried them yet to give a first-hand report on how tasty they might be. Most of the information I’ve found online regarding its use as medicine is taken from sources talking about the European variety, however ours is similar and is supposed to have similar constituents. The berries will cause vomiting. Some sources say they’re poisonous, some say to use them for causing vomiting. I’d say more research is needed on that use.
Here’s a quick list of ways it has been used by native Americans and herbalists from the Old World. Please do your own research before experimenting with herbs as food or medicine (see disclaimer at bottom of page):
to heal external bruises, make a poultice of leaves and root
to heal internal bruises, make a decoction and mix with wine to drink (eeww – I think whiskey or bourbon might be better, or just honey maybe)
to encourage broken bones to knit, take the root decoction
roots can be baked like a starchy vegetable and eaten (after boiling in 3 changes of water!)
young shoots can be eaten like asparagus
roots decoction good for stomach inflammation, piles, dysentery
to stop excessive menstruation (doesn’t specify which parts)
may decrease blood sugar levels (keep in mind if using insulin or if you are hypoglycemic)
And one of the most interesting uses I saw mentioned was as incense. Apparently if the root is dried and burned as incense it will ensure a sound night’s sleep. I’m planning to try this one. Sleep is an issue for me lately. I’ll let you know how it worked!
I am not a medical professional. The information on the web site is not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat or prescribe any condition. The FDA does not approve of anything on this web site.
About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
Arnold is a spring chicken. He hatched from an egg, along with his three nestlings way back in October (I think). The clutch of eggs that had hatched shortly before his fell prey to a large black rat snake. You might remember my FB post about that. It takes about six months from hatch to first egg or crow.
We weren’t sure whether Arnold was a he or a she, but had our suspicions. Yesterday he crowed for the first time and confirmed his identity. Oddly, this was a joyful occasion here at Wild Ozark. It was pretty exciting to witness the coming of age of a rooster.
Arnold, the new rooster kid on the block.
The day before, one of his nestlings laid her first egg and that was a sweet find too. A hen’s first egg is about half the size of a full-sized egg. The first egg a mature hen lays in spring, if she pauses for a winter break, is also smaller than usual, but not as small as the very first egg she lays in her life.
A new hen’s first egg as compared to a mature hen’s egg.
I don’t normally name the chickens. “Arnold” is Rob’s doing. I don’t even name our cats and had to come up with something for one of them at the last minute last year when I brought her to the clinic to be spayed. I guess the dogs and horses should feel lucky to have names. I’m not sure why I don’t name the other animals in my life.
Hopefully this new roo won’t have the same problem with danger discrimination the old roo used to have. I have literally knocked the old one out three times. He kept jumping on me and the grandkids, hurt me pretty badly on the wrist with his spurs once. So I swung my trusty walking stick and took care of him. I thought I’d killed him the first time I knocked him out, but he woke up several hours later, much contrite. Nowadays he gives wide berth when I walk through the flock and I’m glad I didn’t have to really kill him because he’s a good roo otherwise.
Some of the other hens and the old rooster in our flock. About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods
I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.
Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark
Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark
Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods
