©voyager, all rights reserved

Much like leaves in autumn, white trilliums put on a bit of a show before they disappear, turning delicate shades of pink as they begin to wither. Their passing marks the end of the showy spring flowers in the forest. The mayapples are still to bloom, but their flowers hide under big umbrella leaves and are barely seen. The buttercups and forget-me-nots that linger are small and fragile and just don’t command the same attention as a trillium or bloodroot or Jack-in-the-pulpits. The forest is losing its frills.

©voyager, all rights reserved

©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack-in-the-pulpits are one of my favourite spring flowers and they won’t be around for much longer so I’m sharing while I still can. This has been an excellent year for them in our wee forest. They’re literally all over and many of them have grown to be a foot tall or more. Obviously, they like this year’s wet and dreary type of spring much more than I do.

©voyager, all rights reserved

False Solomon’s Seal, ©voyager, all rights reserved

The day started out rainy, but by noon the sun was shining in an azure blue sky and the day was warm and inviting. Jack and I took ourselves off to the woods and we had a lovely, slow stroll whilst chatting about this and that and listening to the birds sing. We marveled at how quickly things change at this time of year. The white trilliums are still blooming, but the red ones have vanished and so have the happy white flowers of bloodroot. Other things are growing madly. The mayapples have become umbrellas and they’re full of buds. The false Solomon’s Seal is in bud, too, and leaves of many kinds are sprouting up along the entire forest floor. Jack took extra care to sprinkle pee where it was needed the most and by the time we’d gone all the way around his tank was empty and he was doing the air-pee. All in all a brilliant day.

The Canopy Cometh ©voyager, all rights reserved

The canopy of the forest is filling in quickly and soon all the light that’s been fueling the growth of spring flowers will turn to shade or bits of dappled sunlight. The trilliums are still blooming madly, though, and we even found a few red trilliums still hanging on. The Jack-in-the-pulpits have sprouted up all over and I can’t recall a year that there have been so many of them. They’re everywhere and some of them are huge. It seemed to take forever for spring to arrive this year, but the woodland flowers are obviously very happy with the conditions.

Open for Business. ©voyager, all rights reserved

A red trillium is a rare sight once the white trilliums bloom. ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack-in-the-pulpits ©voyager, all rights reserved