Last week, Dana Milbank had a nice essay in the Washington Post about growing old and “spring ephemerals”. Those are wildflowers that come out in the early spring, before the trees are in full leaf and blocking light from reaching the forest floor, and show their tiny blooms for a week or two – at best.

Here in Southern Westchester, there are some nice nature preserves in my area where I regularly stroll for exercise and fresh air. What if I took my cheap old smartphone with me this time, and instead of my usual birdwatching, I looked for these wildflowers?

Flowers have a much greater advantage over birds – they don’t move, so you can get quite close to them for photographs. The disadvantage is that there are so may varieties and variations that it’s even harder to get a positive ID on one than it is to figure out “What kind of warbler is that?”.

I’ve made some tentative identifications – if you happen to have some better knowledge, please let me know!

Some of my Intelligent Readers do indeed have better identifications.

Ground Ivy! This was the only one I feel certain about.

Glechoma hederacea

Highbush Blueberry – or maybe Painted Buckeye. It was a large shrub or small tree.

No berries yet, obviously

I have no clue AT ALL what this shrub is. Nothing I saw in the guides I check even closely resembled it.

It’s “Tartarian Honeysuckle” – an invasive species.

Your guess is as good as mine.

As it happened, on a short walk around my local neighborhood, I spotted a few small wildflowers that I was curious about. They didn’t look like garden escapees, so I thought I’d include them here as well. All were on the shady side of the street.

Some kind of bluebell, probably, but it’s not blue. Spotted in a rocky outcrop near the end of a dead-end street.

Very likely an “escapee” – it’s been identified as a Spanish Hyacinth aka Wood Hyacinth aka Spanish Bluebell (That’s another problem with the identification – different names)

Pinkbell?

Wild Geranium? Eastern Spring Beauty? This and the next one were spotted at the base of a small “cliff” on the side of a main street. The road was clearly cut through some bedrock, and then the side was shored up with some additional stonework.

Wood Cranesbill aka Wood Geranium (Geranium Sylvaticum) – the veins on the petals are the giveaway

Only one flower in the area.

Greater Celandine?

The only yellow flower that wasn’t a dandelion.

Foxglove??? This was actually on a “ledge” on the aforementioned cliff.

I wasn’t going to collect ANY specimens to take home for closer examination.

(By the way, as far as birdwatching at the nature preserve, I didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary this time.)