Saturday, May 16, 2015

Groundsel

For years, I have seen the yellow fields in Springtime Indiana.  Being basically ignorant of botany and agriculture, I mistakenly assumed that the plants were mustard, and in some instances even imagined that they were literal rape (canola) crops.

Today I took the time to walk into a field and pluck a sample of this creature for closer study.  Imagine my surprise when at first look I saw not a blossom with four petals, but rather an aster-like cluster of flowers on each stalk.  To the interwebz!  A Purdue University site quickly made identification certain: Butterweed or Cressleaf Groundsel (Packera glabella formerly Senecio glabellus).

It’s everywhere!  It’s everywhere!

Look at that little dickens.  Would you look at that?


7 comments:

Vee said...

Nice. We should appreciate the beauty of wildflowers more.

Secondary Roads said...

They are lovely!

vanilla said...

Vee, forty acres of those make quite a display!

Chuck, bright yellow, cheery little flowers. Farmers are not too fond of them, though.

Grace said...

Just about anything yellow makes me smile...most especially flowers tho. I do believe that when we had a house with a yard we had these. I had probably dubbed them weeds and any weeds with flowers were okay in my book.

vanilla said...

Grace, yellow in nature just seems to radiate happiness. My older daughter, though, does not like yellow flowers because she thinks "dandelion." So? I say; dandelions are flowers, too!

Lin said...

I love wildflowers. I love that they just pop up anywhere and surprise you with beauty and color.

vanilla said...

Lin, we won't tell the farmers; we will just enjoy them quietly.