Sunday, April 21, 2013

Woodland Poppy 2013

Woodland Poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum, started flowering today along with a few other wildflowers. I'll be posting more on those later this week. The little yellow flower on this plant is as bright as a dandelion and loaded with pollen. Despite being a prolific seeder that ants are happy to run away with, I haven't noticed any new plants coming up at all. 

As far as Myrmecochory relationships go (ant plant seed dispersal) this one gets my top pick. They're way easier to grow than Trilliums, produce lots of flowers each year, have a long bloom time (April to early Summer), and start dropping seeds a few weeks from now. Their yellow flowers are a brilliant mix withing blue such as Virginia Bluebells.