[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XLVIII

Hey, you know what we haven't done in a really long time? Transmitted-light pictures! (There are reasons for this, but they're really boring and not worth explaining, so let's get directly to the pictures.)

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Ipomoea purpurea? I really like the way this one turned out. Plain though it is, it might be my favorite from this set.

Fragaria x 'Fort Laramie,' autumn. Will next year be the year we get to eat some of the strawberries our plants produce? 2009 didn't work because we'd just moved and everything was crazy-crazy. In 2010 and 2011, there were a few strawberries, but various animals got to them before we did, and there weren't that many in the first place. In 2012, they didn't produce any, because we moved them to a new spot and they needed time to recover. So 2013 might be the year that buying the plant finally pays off. Or, you know. Not.

Verbascum thapsus, with mildew. Unsurprisingly, the mildew does not improve the photo.

Philodendron 'Imperial Red.' I no longer have this plant; it never did very well for me, even though 'Imperial Green' did. I suppose they're not necessarily related, despite the names. This parallels my experiences with Philodendron 'Moonlight' and 'Autumn:' the red one limped along, the green one thrived. Coincidence?

Pilea pumila. Not sure why I thought this would be interesting. Possibly just the novelty of seeing a Pilea that lives in Iowa.

Episcia NOID. A nice range of colors, at least. Gesneriads rarely make for good transmitted light subjects.

Solenostemon scutellarioides NOID. Not sure what happened to this picture. It definitely doesn't look right.

Musa 'Zebrina Rojo.' (possibly Ensete 'Zebrina Rojo;' I don't know what specific botanical characteristics distinguish Musa from Ensete) Banana leaves are always nice.

Synadenium grantii var. rubrum. Probably the best houseplant on the list, though it's not like there's a lot of competition. And the picture doesn't do justice to the plant.

Alocasia amazonica 'Polly.' The venation here is a little ridiculous, and whoever thought chocolate brown and fluorescent lime green go together should be pointedly questioned, if not actually punished. But it's okay.

Pretty pictures: July roadside flowers, yellow/blue

Here's the second round of roadside flower pictures from our trip last Thursday. As with the previous group, pictures will be clearer and more detailed if opened in separate windows, and I encourage people who know any of the unidentified plants in the post to speak up.

It's black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) season again here. I think I would have to be lowered over a field on a crane or something in order to get the kind of photograph that would properly illustrate just how many there are: the flowers all but disappear when you try to take a long, low-angle shot of them. This, however, is maybe somewhat illustrative of the quantity we've got in the area right now. Just picture it multiplied several million times.

This, of course, is the more traditional PATSP view of a Rudbeckia. Only a few of the flowers had the dark spots at the base of the petals like this one does: I have no idea whether this is significant or not, but it's something I noticed.

Good old mullein. (Verbascum thapsus) I've loved these since first becoming aware of them. If I ever get a real garden going outside, I'll have to remember to try to include some of these. This photo doesn't really show you what the flower spike looks like: for that, you can look at last year's set of photos.

I don't know what this is, but I feel like I probably ought to: they had all but taken over the state a couple weeks ago. Simultaneously weedy (as individuals), pretty (en masse, or close-up as seen here), hideous (as the flowers die) and nondescript (all year except for June-August).

UPDATE: I think there's a good chance that this is Pastinaca sativa, wild parsnip.

Close-up picture of another NOID; any given plant will have hundreds of these little spikes of tiny white flowers.

The same NOID, but the whole plant. These, too, are everywhere around here, though they seem to favor the edges of fields, and recently-cultivated fields, instead of ditches and roadsides.

UPDATE: Almost certainly Melilotus alba, white sweet clover. Thanks to Hugh.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus), another sentimental favorite that I also took pictures of last year. Last year's picture was better, actually, because it wasn't quite as ridiculously windy on whatever day I took it. Still, this color is self-evidently awesome.

I don't know what this one is, precisely, though the arrangement of the flowers suggests an Allium or something like it. The flower color (which is more or less accurate), though, is something I've never seen in an Allium before. Maybe I just don't know my Alliums. Anybody know? I've only ever seen it growing wild in this one spot (a ditch along a highway).

UPDATE: Probably Tradescantia ohiensis, not an Allium. Which is kind of a relief. Hat tip to Claude.

I also don't remember ever seeing this before, but there was a lot of it in a spot just outside of Iowa City, and it's pretty enough that I want to suspect that it was deliberately cultivated.

This is the foliage that goes along with the flowers in the previous picture.

UPDATE: I think this last one is probably Verbena stricta, or hoary vervain. Partly this is because the flower spikes seem to be longer than in Verbena hastata, which is the next closest species, but also because the davesgarden.com photo I linked to includes the detail that it's a roadside weed in Missouri. Thanks to RJ Flamingo for pointing me in a verbenerly (verbeasterly?) direction.

Pretty pictures: Iowan roadside flowers, and a large wad of metal

The husband and I went southwest down to Sigourney, IA, a week ago,¹ and I was kind of shocked at how many things seemed to be blooming along the side of the road. I guess it hadn't occurred to me that summer was necessarily a bigger time for that than spring, but it pretty definitely seems to be.

Anyway.

So I know some of them, but there are a few that I can't identify, and one of the NOIDs has been bothering me for several years now, but for some reason it only just occurred to me to ask the internet. I suppose because I didn't have a picture until now.

(I've also thrown in a few other plants that I didn't see on the trip, because they're also weedy and they fit this post better than they could fit another one later.)

So, Iowa roadside stuff. I suppose we should get the obvious one out of the way first:

Zea mays, and Zea mays, and Zea mays . . .
Not really amber waves just yet, but still. That's a whole lot of photosynthesis there, my friends. Oxygen!

Asclepias syriaca, the common milkweed.
I've always liked milkweeds. The leaves get no attention but are actually quite nice. Somebody should slap together a tropical version of these that can be grown indoors.

Or maybe not. "Yeah? You got mealybugs? Well listen, buddy, I'd kill to trade for mealybugs right now. I got monarch caterpillars all over my bed, my toothbrush, the kitchen sink; chrysalises (chrysali?) blocking the air vents and dangling over the toilet; and we can't even watch TV anymore because as soon as we turn it on, all these butterflies jump up and fly into the screen. So I don't even want to hear about your mealybug problems."

One of the NOIDs.
Very patchily distributed. Maybe a deliberate planting. Damn pretty in large quantity.

Rudbeckia hirta, black-eyed susan.
Not a good picture, but I don't like black-eyed susans well enough to care, apparently.

A chicory (Cichorium intybus) flower.
These were everywhere in certain areas, which surprised me: I don't remember seeing them as a child, and I grew up not far from Sigourney, so it's a puzzler. I remember violets, asters, milkweed, plantains, red clover, white clover and dandelions; surely I would have noticed chicory, had it been there.²

Another NOID.
This is the NOID that's been troubling me. Again, I don't remember seeing it as a kid, and yet now it's everywhere -- large stretches of I-80 are lined with it on one side of the road or another. Occasionally both. It's such a vivid yellow that I can't imagine how I would have missed it all those years. So is it new? Invasive? What is this thing?

UPDATE: Julia, in comments, says it's the birdsfoot trefoil, or birdfoot deervetch (Lotus corniculatus), which does appear to be the case. I'll be back to add to the post again if I can find out anything about what it's doing in Iowa.

Another NOID.
This one sort of looks related to the yellow NOID; they both produce small circles of flowers, and they tend to grow in the same places. If I remember right, though, the foliage is completely different. So maybe not.

UPDATE: When I was watering perennials yesterday at work, I saw that we actually have this for sale. It wasn't in flower, but the foliage looked right. Turns out it's crown vetch (or purple crownvetch), Securigera varia, which is found in most states of the U.S. and is a problematic invasive in some of them. So why are we selling it, when it can be invasive, and when anybody could dig some up from along the side of the road if they really wanted some that badly? Bless me, I have no idea. I'll have to ask the boss, or somebody, if anybody actually buys it.

NOID.
When I was a kid, I remember being told that this was an aster. The actual botanical genus Aster has been split up, with Old World species retaining the designation Aster and the New World species getting shattered into a half-dozen or so other genera. So I don't know what this is, but I remember seeing it as a kid. Lots. The bees liked it, as I recall.

UPDATE: Well, it's an Erigeron of some kind, probably E. annuus, which is known to be in southeast Iowa and is a pure white. There are other Erigeron in Iowa that are supposed to be slightly pinkish, though I can't say I've ever seen anything like that. Thanks to Frances for the tip.

Verbascum thapsus, the common mullein.
I like this plant. I see these particular specimens on my way to work every day, but the species seems to be common around Iowa City.

Another NOID.
This was also one I saw on the way to work; the flower didn't last long, and turned into a dandelionish puff of seeds. I feel like I ought to know the name, like I did at one time or something, but I got nothing right now.

Ostrich ferns, Matteuccia struthiopteris. Pretty sure.
I took this picture because I think these are resprouts from disturbed ground: they're alongside of a house in a town near here (Wellman, maybe?) that has, for some reason, had all the ground around the foundation dug up. These appeared to be coming back from roots under the soil, or maybe the original plants were just covered up, not torn to pieces. Not sure how it works. All I know is, I've heard ostrich ferns were tough, and now I believe it.

Large wad of metal.
This was a large wad of metal sitting in a field near West Chester. What is it from? Why is it just sitting there? Is this, perhaps, Art? We do not know. There was some brief discussion of how we might heave it into the car and take it home with us, or offer to buy it as scrap metal and then try to pawn it off to someone else as sculpture, but practical considerations prevailed. Also it's actually more interesting, attractive, and likely to give a person tetanus than a lot of art I've seen, which made the whole thing seem less workable.

If you know any of the NOID plants, or if you'd like to bid on the giant ball of twisted rusty metal (what a garden ornament it would make!), sing out in comments. Or, you know, keep it to yourself, if that's how you want to be.

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Photo credits:

¹ (To look at an empty library. Sort of a long story.)
² I know: stop calling you Shirley. Wilco.