What are these little yellow flowers? They popped up in a scrap of woods near our house last week. From the car I thought they were crocuses, but when my daughter and I walked over there after Kindergarten, I saw that the leaves are all wrong for a crocus. They don't look like any of the yellow flowers in my wildflower book, so maybe they're a garden escape.
This was right next to the yellow flowers - a lovely skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). My daughter and I both took a sniff but didn't smell anything yet.
7 comments:
I have very fond memories of playing in a swampy woods near skunk cabbage! I have never seen it here. Doesn't it get a pretty yellow flower?
Your western species get a yellow flower; this is as pretty as the eastern/midwestern one gets. It is supposedly pollinated by "flesh flies and carrion beetles".
Here's the western one, Jen: http://www.hylebos.org/statepark/Skunk_Cabbage.htm
Great pics! I can see you're into the kind of photography I like to do!
I think they're called "swamp marigolds"? Because you found 'em near skunk cabbage suggests it's a boggy/marshy area, where swamp marigolds flourish! Spring! Color!
http://www.prairiemoon.com/store/template/product_detail.php?IID=1652&SID=f75cc956148a2259f92ee219ee45e163
The little yellow flowers are Eranthis also known as "winter aconite"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eranthis_hyemalis
YES! That's it exactly, winter aconite. I thought it looked butercuppish but the leaves were all wrong.
Hm, says it's native to Eurasia. I've never noticed it in the woods before, I wonder if it's common or this is a garden remnant?
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