Early Summer Flowers

On June 3, I toured the woods and fields to see what was blooming. Some same, some new. The wild roses, Rosa nutkana, were flowering and the bumblebees flying busily from one flower to the next.

The faithful Hedge Nettles were blooming.

And so were the not-so-lovely stinging nettles, Urtica dioica,. Their tiny white flowers hardly qualify as flowers.

Cow Parsnip was now enormous, towering well over my head.

Wild cucumber, Old Man in the Ground, Marah oreganus, does have pretty flowers, I'll admit. But I hate the way it crawls over and buries everything with its huge leaves.

Finally, on June 22, the lily along the path to the creek bloomed. It had been holding in bud for months. Lilium columbianum, Columbia Lily or Tiger Lily, open at last.

I found another one off trail with two flowers blooming at the same time. It was bent way over so I had to hold up the flowers to show an underside. Pretty things. Too bad they have such a hard time avoiding deer and slugs in our woods.

Still blooming on June 22 were the hedge nettles, Stachys sp. (I've given up figuring out the species.)

 Lots of Sidalceas line the edges of the fields. These light pink flowers are Sidalcea campestris.