What to See This Week

Pieris is an early blooming evergreen shrub that can be seen blooming now at The Arboretum. They have clusters of small, hanging flowers that come in white or pink.
 

While walking through the Beard-Green Cemetery I noticed many blooming crocuses, a familiar and early blooming garden plant.

Forsythias stand out this time of year, covered in many yellow flowers. When I got close to this shrub, I noticed it was absolutely covered in insects. There were many different insects interested in this early nectar source but I especially saw a lot of these sawflies. Sawflies aren’t actually flies but belong to the same insect group as bees, wasps, and ants although they do not sting.

When Virginia bluebell leaves first start popping up they have a distinctively purple hue but will shift into a bright green as they grow. This plant goes through a few color shifts; when they begin blooming you will notice buds that start pink and shift to blue as they open up.

In the Woodland Garden, as well as any other forested area, you are likely to see large-leaf waterleaf starting to come up. These new leaves have a beautiful pattern with lighter patches. As the plant grows and gets close to flowering (usually in May), the light spots will disappear.

I was excited to see my first blooming spring beauty of the year. Spring beauties are small spring ephemeral wildflowers that you can see in forested areas but this wildflower is also known to find its way into lawns as well! It has white or light pink petals with pink stripes and you may notice that even the pollen is pink.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for scarlet cup over the last few weeks. Scarlet cup is a fungus seen every year in early spring. This one looks like it is growing from the ground, but scarlet cup always grows from wood although that wood is typically buried in the soil.
 

Last week we welcomed back eastern phoebes, a species of flycatcher that migrates back to our area early in the season. As the weeks go on more species of flycatcher will return but phoebes can be picked out based on their behavior. Phoebes have a habit of tail-wagging, essentially bobbing their tail up and down, while perched. This helps distinguish them from the similar eastern wood-pewee.