Monday, June 9, 2014

More Views from the Ditch

 Here are some of the other flowering plants I saw in the ditch in front of Safeway.  Above is St. John's Wort.  It was very hot Sunday afternoon, and most species of wildflowers looked pretty wilted.  A notable example was the Hooker's Evening Primrose (below) which around here seems to bloom in the morning.  They look so wilted in the afternoon that you'd never guess they'd look "fresh as daisies" again in the morning.
 The Tansy (a non-native, below) are starting to bloom along the roadsides and in Boyle Ravine.  Soon they will be attracting certain interesting insects such as my favorites, the Ambush Bugs.
 The Wild Sweet Pea is so ubiquitous on roadsides that it is treated as a weed and generally beaten back, but not defeated, by road department weed eaters.  Up close, the blossoms are quite beautiful.
 The Orchard Morning Glory (below) really does bloom in the morning.  In the afternoon, as shown here, it usually shrivels up and looks like it won't come back.  But it does, and in most areas it keeps blooming all summer long.  Its other name is Bindweed.
 In a shady spot, presumably with more surface water, I found a couple that didn't shrivel.
 On the way home, at the corner of Harbison and Jackson, I couldn't resist this puff ball of seeds of the Yellow Salsify with a background of Bachelor's Buttons.

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