Thistle

Thistle and Bug, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

Usually classified as a weed - and a noxious one, at that, with its sharp prickly edges all over making it painful to pull - there is no denying the beauty of its purple blooms.

Fortunately, we don't see too many of these at the farm.

Star Chickweed

Star Chickweed, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

~Edna St Vincent Millay

Spring Beauty

Spring Beauty, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

What a great name for a beautiful early spring flower. I saw this on a stroll on March 24, but I think the flowers and everything are blooming earlier this year...

Dogwood Flowers

Dogwood Flowers
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To see a hillside white with dogwood bloom is to know a particular ecstasy of beauty, but to walk the gray Winter woods and find the buds which will resurrect that beauty in another May is to partake of continuity.

~ Hal Borland

Mayapple Bloom

Mayapple Bloom
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Spotted the first of May 2010. Beautiful dewy white flowers were blooming or soon blooming beneath the umbrella of all the Mayapple plants.

Celandine Poppy

Celandine Poppy
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

This is a bright yellow flower that I saw blooming in Kentucky (at the Louisville Nature Center) in Early May. The plant has large green leaves that look a bit like certain Oak leaves and the seed pod (as you can see behind the flower in this photo) is about an inch long and spiky-looking.

Goldenrod

Goldenrod
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

One of the many species of goldenrod. This blooms in late summer - July-September-ish. Although allergies acting up are often blamed on goldenrod, I have it on good authority (wikipedia) that it is not goldenrod pollen causing bad allergies in the late summertime, but more likely Ragweed.

And now you know.