More Spring Things including a National Symbol in a form we don't usually see

Acer rubrum, the Red Maple, flowers high in the canopy (and for convenience about 8ft away outside one of my upper windows). Sweetly fragrant, and a spring fragrance which was a mystery to me for years until I was lucky enough to find a branch down at nose level (that branch since removed, since it was also at eye level!). The close-up is from back then, 26 April 2000. Anthers are open on most of the flowers in the first photo, but not yet open in the close-up, hence the lack of yellow. However there is some natural variation in the colour of the flower from one tree to the next. Sugar maple, Acer saccharum, blooms somewhat later, with smaller less showy yellow-green flowers-- and no scent that I've located yet.












Some other Spring things:


Chionodoxa sardensis, Glory of the Snow, the brightest blue I've seen in a flower except for a few gentians. A different species of this is more commonly grown, has larger flowers but not as blue. Every spring I am amazed that this little thing is still alive (and increasing!) since it is in an area replete with weeds.




Hepatica nobilis. Used to be a clump with dozens of flowers but the darn deer are fond of it and browse it to the ground, usually when in full flower. So it loses a lot of energy each year regrowing a few leaves to replace those that went into the deer salad.





Not finished with the Hellebores yet:


A double form of Helleborus orientalis hybrid, grown from seed obtained from I don't know where anymore, it has taken a few years to see the first flowers on some of the plants; it looks like about half will be doubles but the others aren't yet in a state useful to photograph yet.




Another hybrid, this one showing that the cold snap caused damage to the flower despite it being in a tight bud still at that point-- the anthers are all dead (the little cone of brown things in the middle)





And here, Helleborus niger, the Christmas Rose, already pollinated so the sepals are turning from white to a pinkish shade of tan (on other plants they go to green or something between or ...). There is something in the leaf litter that likes to eat the sepals of this species, but it leaves the orientalis and hybrids alone. Might be just because the flowers of niger are so low and touching the litter whereas the others have longer stems and are above all that.




And one final spring thing for today, a few colour forms from seed, of Corydalis solida, a small but showy spring ephemeral that grows from a bulb and is quite adaptable as far as sun and shade are concerned.

In bloom 21/23 April

Helleborus hybrid, the first one I managed not to kill.





Oh wow, suddenly a hint of yellow where none should have been: Helleborus orientalis/ caucasicus. From wild-collected seed obtained from British Botanist Will McLewin.


And this beauty, also so unexpected. Grown from seed obtained from a seed exchange, I knew it was from a yellow-flowered parent but wasn't really expecting a yellow flower due to the promiscuity of Hellebores. In bud, and for the first day when opened, it was more pale green than yellow; a nice surprise the second morning. Yellow intensifying for a few days now.

Grown from seed from deep red to black parents. Very very dark in bud.




Grown from seed from Apricot/ Peach flowered parents. Three are flowering now, and they are probably not up to their mom's quality. They're all quickly going towards green. Obviously one needs to grow a lot of seedlings of good parentage to get a really special plant in that colour shade.

Daphne mezereum, February Daphne, a very fragrant flowering shrub.







A small seedling of a white form. The fragrance is more lemony than the normal form.



Primula denticulata, the Drumstick Primula.




The crocuses in the sunny sand bed are about done (but some in lawns with a bit of shade are still going strong)


Chionodoxa sardensis, a species of Glory in the Snow. A superb blue (even under the shadow of my head)



Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), a very pretty and bright weed. Unfortunately the leafs, which emerge later, a large and smothering.


Hepatica nobilis, a blue strain.





Hepatica acutiloba, a native of eastern Canada. There is some colour variation in this species, into pale pink and pale violet-blue.