 Hi, I'm David Taylor with the U.S. Forest Service at Danyaboon National Forest, and I'm out here with Heidi Brunrider from OKNP, the Nature Preserves Commission, and we're along Indian Creek Road looking at wildflowers for the wildflower weekend, virtual wildflower week. The first one we'll look at, a nice specimen here, is Trillium erectum. Maroon petals droops down a little bit, usually below the leaves, three leaves on it, about the real common, it's called Wake Robbins, stinky Benjamin, and it has a few other names, and also in here is Apatica. There's still Apatica in the flower. And behind the Trillium, we have the yellow, fawn lily, or dog-tooth violet, or trout lily, all sorts of names for it as well. Oh, and by the way, this flower has a somewhat disagreeable odor. I got close enough to smell it, flies pollinate it. Another flower we have out here is the white Trillium, the large white Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum. Unfortunately, it's in a sea of this species. You may have seen this in your garden, this is common chickweed, and it is beginning to take over forests and parts of eastern Kentucky, and it is a bad weed and it's going to affect species like this. We also have in here a water leaf. This will be another month or so before it, actually it flowers in May-June, but this is a water leaf, a real pretty leaf on it. We have a few ferns in here, really small yet, still growing. Here's another plant. It's just beginning to go into flower. Most of them out here are still in bud. This is a cardamony. It used to be called dentaria. This is a cardamony, cardamony difilla. Two large leaves up here and sometimes a base leaf, but there's a base leaf. They look very much alike. This is scattered along the roadside out here. It's not very common, but it's not rare either. There's a couple others that are more common. Two thwart, and it gets that or crinkled root because the root, the rhizome, is actually crinkled. Another common spring wildflower. This is Jacob's ladder, purple flowers on it, and a compound leaf, very pretty plant. And here's a ledger in the background that has already gone into flower and has a small capsule forming on it. And next to it is the old leaves of Christmas fern. New ones will be coming up in another few weeks. This is another fern that has evergreen leaves on it and these will be dropping off soon and new ones will be forming, but it'll be a little bit. Young leaves that are right in here all folded up. But this is dryopterous marginalis. We'll get a close up in a little bit. You can see that. The sorai or at the edges of the leaf. And that's where the marginalis comes from, but this is called marginal wood burn. And behind it is a grass that's pretty common in eastern Kentucky, but it probably isn't native. Most sources say it's native to Europe, but it's common here. This is a bluegrass called poa compressa. Compressed bluegrass, but it is in flower. And we'll get a close up of that. You can actually see the stamens on this. This little white flower is false ruinemini. And it's scattered along this hillside. There's another one that looks similar to it. It's more common in the bluegrass, but this one is false ruinemini. Electrum pelectroides. And then over here, we've got another plant, a violet. This one is called spurred violet and we'll get a close up on the spur on the back side of the violet in a moment. But this is a fairly common woodland violet. This is Viola rostreida. And rostreida is referencing a nose. So the spur is like a nose on the violet. Here's another spring wildflower. This one is wood poppy stylofrim diphyllum. And it produces one or two flowers at a time on each stem. Down here you can see another cluster of buds. And there's several more clusters in here. This is a fairly large plant. They're scattered in here. This is flocks davaricata. Davaricate flocks are common blue flocks. And this is a real common spring wildflower. And it's often on floodplains, a creek, which is where we are. We're on the floodplain of Indian Creek. And it's scattered all through this floodplain. Plant here, plant there. Very common. Sometimes it forms large patches. I've seen it as much as a several hundred square feet of it. It's a real pretty plant. Trees and shrubs have flowers too. Sometimes they're too small to see or they're not colorful at all. We just don't notice them. But this is a fairly common one this time of year. And this is spice bush. The little tiny yellow flowers on it. The twigs have a distinct odor. It's in the laurel family. And unfortunately, the same pest that's destroying sassafras in western Kentucky has been found in this plant as well. And it is possible that in 25, 30 years we will not have spice bush around. That'll be a loss. This is a native American vetch. Fairly common in eastern Kentucky. But it seems to like limestone soils more than acid soils. But this is Visya, Carolina. And it's a pretty little plant. It's in the bean family. This is seersucker sedge. It gets that name from the crinkled leaf on it, like seersucker fabric. This sedge is already out of flower. It blooms very early. This is where the male flowers were. And where these fruits are right here is where the female flowers were. But it blooms very early. It was in flower two weeks ago. We'll see another sedge in a little bit. This is another fairly common wild flower. The flowers never completely open. That's it. But this is bellwort. And this is large flowered bellwort. Ubalaria grandiflora. But they come up in colonies. They have rhizomes. They come up in clusters. That's a real pretty plant. And adjacent to it we have another sedge which is just going into flower. The female flowers are in flower. These little white wispy things are the stigmas. But the male flowers will come out of here and they're not open yet. No stamens yet. This is stonecrop. This is a native sedum. It's not quite in flower yet. It'll maybe be a week before it flowers. It has pretty white flowers on it. But it tends to form these clumps. It can grow on rocks. It can grow on soil. I've even seen it growing on the basis of trees. Trees as much as a few feet up off the ground. Here is another toothwort. This one is the cut leaf toothwort. And its leaves are much different than the last one we saw. They're narrow. Still paired but real narrow. And if you look for basil leaves you may not even find any. Most of these don't have basil leaves on them. This is a fairly common woodland plant. This is cranesbill geranium. Geranium maculatum. It's not in flower yet. The buds are right here. They're just beginning. One's just beginning to break. Another week, week and a half and that'll be in full flower. The small carrots we saw before that didn't have the male flowers and flowers and flower here. And you can see all these stamens. There's a fair amount of pollen coming off them. Here's another spring wildflower. The flowers aren't very big. But this is common spring rockcress. It used to be in the genus Arabus but now it's in Bocura. And this is labigata. It's real smooth, a little bit purple colored. Often grows on rocks. This is where it gets the name rockcress. This is eastern wood betony or louswort. And it's pedicularis canadensis. It has a real neat little flower on it. These could be yellow. It could be yellow and reddish or it could be all red. That means it gets part of its life support from another plant. This is Virginia bluebells, martensia virginica. And this is a fairly common floodplain species although we have not seen a whole lot but on this particular floodplain. It's elsewhere in Kentucky and you can find large patches of it. And you saw the butterfly on it. The swallowtail is short a minute ago and it's a good pollen nectar plant. Here are young leaves. This is another one that a lot of people walk over because the flowers are dark. And it's sort of hard to see. It's a beautiful flower though. This is calla philhamphillic troides. It's known as blue cohosh. It usually grows in rich sites. This is another woodland violet. This is smooth stemmed yellow violet. And this is viola aerial carpa. This little yellow flowered plant is another buttercup. This one is a renunculus abortivus. And it's called small flowered crow foot. The flower is really tiny. It's kind of a weedy plant. You can find it in lawns. You can find it in the edge of roads. You can find it in the woods. It grows in a lot of places but it is native. This is starry chickweed. This is a native chickweed. It's stelleria pubera. And it has a little bit of hair on the stems which you get up close. You can see. But it's a larger flower than the invasive one. And again, it is native. It's a male apple. You can see the bud that comes out between a pair of leaves. It's not open yet. Maybe another week, week and a half. Maybe a couple weeks actually. But this is a potofilham peltatum. It spreads by rhizomes. And you can see a little cluster of them in here. This wild flower is mitrewort. It has a pair of leaves right below the inforescence. And it has a beautiful little white flowers on it. And until you look at them through a hand lens, you just can't understand how wonderful those flowers are. This is foam flower. The flowers are just beginning to open up. Tiarella portifolia. It's a nice spring wild flower. This is another cardamony, another spring flowering crest. And this one's cardamony, the glassy eye. The leaves are a little bit different than the other cardamonies we looked at. And the flowers are pinker. And it grows in wet, squishy ground. These are the classic spring wild flower, Detran's Bridges. Bicentria cookie log. It's related to puppies. This plant, all through here, is walking fern. It's a splenium risofilm. You can see the sore eye, the spore clusters on the underside of the leaf. What's really cool about this is that the leaf has a long, pointed tip to where it lands on the soil in the right place or moist spot. It will actually root and form a new plant, which is why it gets the name walking fern. And this is another common fern on boulders at any rate. And this is called polypote fern, or rock cap fern. And this particular one is probably polypoteum virginianum. You can see the sore eye on the underside of that. It tends to grow on boulders when you have the name rock cap. This little tiny flowered plant is a ringium. And this is called herbinger of spring. It's one of the earliest flowering wildflowers out there. And in fact, it's odd that we're seeing this because it was in flower two weeks ago. Here's the fruits on the other part of the plant. And we have changed habitats since the last time we were talking. And we're now up on a ridge in the gorge. This little plant is one that most people smell long before they find. It's the same color as the leaves for the most part. It tends to stay low. It can be buried under the leaves. It has a strong, spicy sort of cinnamony clovey odor. This is called a sweet pine sap. This is monotropus odorata. And it's a good name because that odor can travel some distance. You can walk along and smell it in the springtime and go, wow, this thing can flower in late February or it might flower in early April and anywhere in between. This plant we're looking at is trailing our beauties. It's related to blueberries and mountain laurel and rhododendron. It's a little woody plant, vine on the ground. It blooms early in the spring. And in some parts of the country, it's grown as ornamental. This little plant is bluet. It's related to coffee, believe it or not. And it's common on these dry exposed areas. It could be on rock, it can be on soil like this, but it's scattered all over the state. It's fairly common. You can even find it in lawns. It's called bluet. We're still up on the ridge top, kind of high and dry. And this is against the base of a tip mound. And this is a Viola palmata. It's pretty violent. Well, thank you for joining us on this virtual field trip. Hope you've enjoyed it. And we did find a patch of Virginia's bluebells, a big one on the flood plains. Have a great day.