Shakerag Hollow continues its tumble through spring. The earliest blossoms are gone and fruits are fattening in their place. So goes the bloom of youth. The later flowers have now stepped forward and are waving for all they’re worth at the motley collection of pollinating bees, wasps, and flies. A few of my favorites:
Hepatica. Most bloomed weeks ago; a few persist.
Larkspur. So violet it makes your eyes hurt.
Wild geranium. Violet calmed.
Spotted Mandarin. Most fabulous name in the woods.
Celandine poppy. The zenith. The nonpareil.
David George Haskell 
Exquisite photography. Thanks.
Thank you!
Love that larkspur. Had to look away.
A bumblebee in a former life?
Hurt my ommatidia…
I disagree with you fair sir. Larkspur is by far my favorite name in this botanical menagerie.
You made an excellent point, my distinguished sir. We are spoiled by this glorious richness of nomenclature. Mad-dog skullcap is a fine moniker, one that tempts me to borrow it for myself.
Thanks for the tour. It’s all cactus flowers and globemallow and Brittle Bush here in the Sonoran Desert today.
Sounds like a wonderful show. The insects and bats must be loving it.
how lovely to “walk” through Shakerag again from so many miles away. Thanks, David.
Thank you! Delighted to be able to share a few snapshots from the hollow.
How lovely!
I planted wild flowers seeds on the yard
This morning! They were luxuriant
Last year!!!
Thank you for sharing beauty
Nature’s and yours.
Fountainpen
Thank you for a taste of spring! Today we just got blanketed with 10 cm of snow.
I love when all the spring woodland plants emerge!
Beautiful! Our bloodroot came-and-went two weeks ago, and last week the trillium was spectacular, here in our corner of Virginia’s Blue Ridge.
Wonderful! I send my springtime greetings.
Lovely pictures! I too currently dwell in the Sonoran desert. While my acacia tree is profuse, the brittle bush and prickly pear blooming nicely, I do miss spring in the eastern US – woodlands especially. The violet part of the color spectrum is rare here.
Thank you! The violets here are striking. They tend to come later in the season. The early flowers are almost all pure white.
Put up a deer fence! What I wouldn’t give to have spring ephemeral diversity like Shakerag Hollow’s here in the northern Piedmont. We’ve got to settle for spring beauties, dog-tooth violets, wild geranium, and wild ginger–all nice, but nowhere near as spectacular as Spotted Mandarin!
Put up a deer fence! What I wouldn’t give to have the diversity of spring ephemerals like Shakerag Hollow’s here in the northern Piedmont! We have settle for pedestrian spring beauties, wild geranium, dog-tooth violets, and wild ginger–all nice, but nothing like Spotted Mandarin!
wonderful! Spotted mandarin is a first for me :-)
snap! just got to “April 2nd – Flowers” in my rereading of The Forest Unseen (which is even more enjoyable and thought-provoking the second time around!! It is joining Virginia Woolf in my collection of go-to books) And seeing Hepatica is great, for we don’t have them here in Australia (to my limited knowledge)
Fabulous!
I’m very honored by your kinds words.
This is such a late spring here this year. Daffodils only opened within the past week or so… Magnolias and trillium are only buds still. Thanks for pictures to remind me what’s yet to arrive here…
Yes, we were later than usual here too. May springtime’s glories arrive swiftly for you!
It’s particularly frustrating this year: I am teaching a Plant-Animal Interactions course at the Morton Arboretum. It ends next week, so we’re squeezing all of the outdoor labs into this last week. And there’s barely enough happening to observe herbivory or pollination…
That is very frustrating. Semesters are annoyingly out of synch with field biology. Most of the migrant birds come through Sewanee just after classes end…not so great for ornithology class. I’m hoping that we might adopt a May semester. I send my best wishes for the last week of class — I hope the plants and animals cooperate!
Hello David, I am thinking of the 24 inches of rain in Florida in 24 hours, and what is the best approach to global warming? Is it appropriate to discuss the Citizens’ Climate Lobby in your blog? Or is it enough to just list the website
Click to access Carbon-Fee-and-Dividend-April-2014.pdf
and say we urgently need to pass some version of this fee on the coal, oil and natural gas as it comes out of the ground, or is imported into the United States, with 100% going into the bank accounts of Citizens. Right now no Congressman or Senator has proposed this Legislation.
Thank you for the beautiful pictures, Bruce
Thank you, Bruce. I agree that we need far, far more action from our government on climate change. A carbon fee that goes back to “the people” sounds like an attractive idea to me.