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Spring Ephemerals

Wildflowers are blooming. The spring ephemerals are only out for a short time. My camera and I are trying to get out looking.

spring ephemerals toothwort
Toothwort is one of the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom. It is a member of the Brassicaceae or mustard family. I find it in moist woods. The flowers are replaced with long seed pods, then the plant vanishes for another year.

What Are Spring Ephemerals?

Trees are bare in the early spring letting sunlight hit the forest floor. Lots of plants grow up quickly, flower and seed, then die.

These are the fleeting flowers I need to find now or wait another year to find them. My Dent County Flora is missing many of them.

spring ephemerals Pale Corydalis
Pale Corydalis grows where the soil is moist. It gets about eight inches tall with lacy foliage. The yellow flowers have a crest on top of the tube section. Finding it down along the river was a surprise as I usually see it along the road and in the front yard.

The Plan

Dent County has seven Conservation Areas plus a state park plus a federal riverway. I have visited a couple of them and know I need to go back as there are plants I found, but didn’t get all my pictures of.

This year I am trying to visit all of them. Last week I stopped in at Short Bend. This is on the upper Meramec River like the one up the road from me. The flowers were the same. It is crossed off my list.

Next weekend I will drive out to white River Trace. This has prairie so I will be sure to take a hat. Maybe it will be cloudy.

spring ephemerals Spring Beauty
Spring Beauty is just that. A member of the Portulacaceae family, Down near the river the plants with their single pair of leaves spread across the ground. They like moist places and will grow in lawns. These are among the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom.

At Home

I do keep finding new plants around me, so I do try to keep walking the hills, roads and ravines. So far all I’ve found are old friends.

There is a bluff and a glade to visit. The bluff has a very, very steep approach which makes me a bit leery. The glade is up a hill.

spring ephemerals Yellow Violet
Not all violets are blue. This one is yellow, but has the usual flower look and heart-shaped leaves. Unlike the common blue violet, yellow violets are ephemerals, only around for a short time in the spring. The flowers normally point toward the ground.

Finding Time

This is always the hard part for me. I look around and see so many things needing to be done. It’s that never ending list.

There’s writing, animals, garden and errands, so time is fleeting for me. The only solution is to make time to go searching for the spring ephemerals. Besides, it is nice to take time away from all the chores.

Nature essays about a variety of Ozark wildflowers with photographs are in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

By Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.