June 4: Birdsfoot Trefoil and Yellow Sweet Clover:

Birdsfoot Trefoil is turning out to be one of my favorite summertime flowers. It's beautiful and has many uses...you often find it along roadsides to control wind and water erosion.

Birdsfoot Trefoil

It's also a good food for Canada geese, deer, and elk, and is used to feed livestock, as a non-bloating legume.  As a dryland pasture legume, it produces 20 percent more growth after July 1 than most dryland grass legume mixtures.


Yellow Sweet Clover is also beneficial, as well as beautiful.

Yellow Sweet Clover

Kalmuks (western Mongols), used to eat Yellow Sweet Clover shoots like asparagus, if the shoots were  young enough. Young leaves can be eaten in salads and the leaves and seedpods cooked as a vegetable. However, only fresh leaves should be eaten because dried leaves can be toxic -- they are used in rat poison.


Leaves release the smell of newly mown hay when drying, and dried leaves can be used as an insect repellent, or used to keep moths from clothing. 

May 31: English Dogwood

This flower is very pretty but has no scent. It is English Dogwood, sometimes also called Mockorange.

English Dogwood

The name "dogwood" is a bit weird -- there are no "catwood"s or "horsewood"s or even "birdwood"s -- but it may have evolved come from the word "dagwood" since the wood of this tree is slender yet hard, and so good for making daggers. And since we all know that "dagwood" is a familiar name (as in Blondie and Dagwood), this at least seems plausible.

May 29: Field Bindweed and Moneywort

Field Bindweed, though pretty, is one of those plants I would call a wildflower but others might call an invasive weed, though it is in the Wildflowers of Michigan book. It's related to the Morning Glory.

Field Bindweed

As you can tell from the holes in the leaves, somebody likes this plant! And tortoises reportedly love it, so if you have a pet tortoise you can feed it this plant. The plant is not good for humans or livestock to eat, however. And it spreads rapidly -- it's the bane of farmers and gardeners -- so feel free to pick all you want.

Moneywort, also called Creeping Jenny or Creeping Charlie, is also invasive, but is looked upon a bit more kindly. It's called "Moneywort" because the leaves are round like coins. It's an herb.

Moneywort

In olden days the leaves of Moneywort were bruised and then used to staunch blood. Moneywort also has Vitamin C so you can make a tea from it, though I have no idea what that would taste like -- you'd probably want to add honey to it. It's best to pick the leaves when the flowers are in bloom.

May 27: Blue Iris and Canada Hawkweed

I was very surprised to see these flowers -- they are so large as to look domesticated. However, they were growing by themselves unaided in a wild area. They are called Blue Iris. though they look purple.

Blue Iris

Ancient Eqyptian kings were just as impressed by the iris, and you can find drawings of irises in a number of Eqyptian palaces. The flower is found in Greek culture too. Iris is the name of a Greek goddess. She was messenger of the gods, acting as a link between heaven and earth, and was personification of the rainbow. Purple irises were planted over the graves of women to summon the goddess to guide the dead in their journey.

I'm pretty sure this next one is Canada Hawkweed. There are many types of Hawkweed but Canada Hawkweed is listed in the Wildflowers of Michigan book. Although this flower looks a little closed up, the leaves do look similar -- very sharp, jagged edges. And the back of the flower looks the same as what is shown in the Wildflowers of Michigan book.

Canada Hawkweed

Oddly, this plant is considered to bloom in late summer to autumn. Perhaps it's unusually early this year. There are a lot of varieties of hawkweeds, so I'm not positive this is the Canada one. Here's a website that lists them all (no pictures, though). Hawkweeds are used as food plants by moth larvae and small beetles.