Here are a couple more of the woodland spring ephemerals for you:
Maianthemum Stellatum
These are possibly the second most numerous wildflowers in our woods, (though the unobtrusive euonymus flowers are also a possibility) and they tend to spread and grow in thick patches. There seem to be quite a lot of common names for this species, but I don’t like any of them. They’re pretty much all false something, and also overly long. The one I’ve heard most frequently is starry false Solomon’s seal. Sometimes I call it starry maianthemum, though I did just make that up.
Like the other members of its genus the arrangement of the leaves on their slightly zigzag stem give them and interesting pattern to try to capture in my photography.
They also have neat looking berries as they’re ripening up. (So much so that I’ve posted about maianthemum berries specifically before!)
And the flowers are appreciated by a variety of insects. Here’s a longhorn beetle enjoying the maianthemum flowers.
Euonymus obovatus
Euonymus obovatus is a small plant that creeps across the ground, largely hidden from view by the other ephemerals. It is another that I don’t much like the common name- running strawberry bush. (I believe it’s named after another plant called strawberry bush… but still.) I don’t have a lot of good photos of this one since it tends to hide in the shadows, but it is an interesting looking little plant. it was about the last of the ephemerals I managed to identify so I don’t know a lot about this one either.
