Wild flowers abound in the forests of May, but now as we approach the end of this colorful month, we see a change. The earlier ones are past blooming.
A walk in the woods now will still give us views of spring beauties, wood anemones, bellworts, trilliums and trout-lilies, but the bloodroots and hepatica are through for the season.
These early florals are quick to grab the available sunlight before the canopy overhead opens its new leaves. Such spring ephemerals take our attention in early May, but with the coming shade, they pass.
Small trees now have gotten into the floral display as well. Our daily commute and travels are made more interesting and delightful with the sighting of white blossoms on wild plum, juneberry, pin cherry, choke cherry and elderberries in the sunny roadsides. Soon we'll see the lilacs too.
Oaks, maples and basswoods are joining the aspens and birches with leaves and along with this rapid growth is an increasingly shady forest floor.
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The first spring wild flowers do not do well with this darkened condition, but others do. Now, in the shady woods of late May, we see plants in bloom that tolerate shade much better.
A walk during the waning days of May and beginning of June reveals the red-yellow columbines, yellow corn-lily (blue-bead lily), whites from baneberry, wild lily-of-the-valley and bunchberry, along with the unique green-purple jack-in-the-pulpit.
Sarsaparilla and maybe the first yellow ladyslipper orchids will be in bloom, too. And here, as well, is another one that differs from the norm: the starflower.
Three, four, five and six petals are common with the vernal flora, but seven is nearly always avoided, except starflower. Standing only about 6 inches tall, this white-blossomed flower could easily be passed by.
The seven-petaled flowers grow in the center of a whorl of leaves that extend out in every direction around the floret. Like other flowers, there is diversity among the starflowers, and occasionally they hold six or eight petals. Plants will sometimes have two or three flowers centered above the extending leaves.
This low-growing perennial is common in the maple woods and often is seen near other shade-tolerant flowers and the abundant maple seedlings that briefly carpet such a forest floor at this time.
Like many of the spring flora, leaves of this plant appear a week or two before the flowers. This allows for these food-making organs to get the needed sunlight to help survive the darker times.
Fortunately for the plant, bees active in these sites are able to find and pollinate the flowers.
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Mosquitoes may accompany our walks in the shady woods at this time, causing many to make other plans. But for those persisting, the late May woods wandering still gives us plenty of shade-tolerant flowers to see.
Larry Weber is author of the "Backyard Almanac" and "Butterflies of the Northwoods." He lives in Carlton County and teaches natural science at Duluth's Marshall School.
