(Updated on February 8, 2023)
Checking out some Northeast Ohio wildflowers along the Towpath Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It’s late May.
Can you identify these beauties? Click on the photo to see if you are correct!
My attention has been turning toward the smaller wildflowers, the patterns wild grasses make, leaf shapes, sweet-smelling foliage.
The variety of flowering plants is overwhelming. As a kid, I probably didn’t give a second look at the smaller and more subtle Northeast Ohio wildflowers like Bear Corn. But, when you take the time to bend down and look closely, you are rewarded with unusual and interesting plants.
Although it looks like fungus, Bear Corn is actually a parasite plant. It is found growing around oak trees.
The Bear Corn plant sends out shoots in an effort to find and penetrate the roots of the oak tree. This is how it gets its nutrition.
Prunella’s common name is “Heal All.” This plant has been used medicinally for thousands of years and is very popular in Asian holistic medicine. People eat heal all by incorporating it into salads, soups, and stews.
The yellow and orange hawkweed plants are the salsa to the avocado green of the meadow grasses. These colors stand up to the bright sunshine of June.
So many beautiful wildflowers grow in climate of Northeast Ohio.
Here, there is plentiful rain and rich soil.
It’s always a pleasure to take a hike along the trails in this states parks and reservations.
So glad you could come along.
Want to see more wildflowers? Check out these beauties that bloom in Mid-summer.
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