Identifying perennials in spring

This thread is to identify various perennial plant as they first emerge in spring.  


First here are bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) emerging. Each closed flowerbud is tightly hooded by a single gray-green leaf as it pushes up through the soil.



The large leaves of Canadian wild ginger (Asarum canadense) first emerge as tightly folded triangles; flattened whitish fuzz gives them a dull waxy look.  The bright green sprout in this photo is Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), which will soon sport a stalk of blue-purple flowers.


The furled leaves of columbine (Aquilegia) look almost like green carnation flowers pushing out of the soil. The leaves may have a purple cast to them in cold weather.



Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) may emerge with purple leaves or green leaves.  In the first picture, green snow-on-the-mountain (Ageopodium podograria), aka bishop's weed or goutweed, grows next to a purple-leafed bluebell. In the second, green-leafed bluebell grows near some common blue violet (Viola sororia) rhizomes.



A closer look at violet rhizomes, and a picture with new leaves opening up.



Jacob's ladder (Polemonium reptans) may be purple, especially in cold weather. The compound leaves look almost like tiny fern fronds. Also visible in this picture is a columbine at left and an aster just above the Jacobs Ladder.


Native asters, like many perennials and biennials, have a low-growing "rosette" of leaves which survive the winter, or else emerge very early in spring. (best if they have a bit of cover from fall leaves and snow). This little sprig of fuzzy, spade-shaped leaves gather energy from the sun so that in late summer the plant can put up a tall stem which will support large panicles of flowers. The leaves which you will see on the mature plant later in the year look much different from these on the early spring rosette.  This is Short's ast


er (Symphyotrichum shortii)



Here is Bee Balm aka wild bergamot (Monarda sp.), which looks pretty much like a miniaturized version of the mature plant.


I believe this is Phlox (Phlox sp.) emerging from its fallen fall stems.


The shiny, wrinkled, light green leaves of late figwort (Scrophularia marilandica) look almost like little lettuces.


IN cold spring weather, lovage (Levisticum officinale) may be tinged red or purple.  Here new shoot emerge from last year's dry stems.


Hosta's thumb-sized conical shoots push up through the soil.  This is another plant that may first emerge as purple, regardless of the mature leaf color.


Canada goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) may have reddish highlights on its shoots of shiny, yellow-green leaves.


Golden alexanders (Zizia Aurea) similarly has a reddish cast to the early leaves and stems.

Mk, those are nice pictures! Thanks for sharing.

Great idea! I’ll try to add a few images tomorrow morning.

Spring marches forward into April here in the midwest.

First some progress pics from last week's plants:

The bloodroot are in full bloom!  Not hard to identify, but I do love them so here they are:


Many more leaves of Canadian wild ginger have pushed their way up, but they have not yet unfurled:


New arrivals this week:

The leaves of Bigleaf ligularia (ligularia dentata) are the largest around this time of year, though nowhere near their summer size. Another plant that starts out red. This specimen is surrounded by creeping charlie/ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea )


Maple seedlings are cropping up all over. Unless you want a maple forest, pull up these sprout with the two long shiny leaves.


I don't actually know what this is, but it is a sort of very soft weedy annual that gets maybe 20 inches tall and comes up everywhere. I pull it anyplace I am try to grow other things.


Spearmint (mentha spicata) just begins as a tiny version of its future self.


Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) is an attractive but invasive flower. I am constantly digging the little bulbs out of all of my beds.  It does make a nice "lawn" in low-traffic areas. The grassy foliage is reminiscent of crocus, and shoots up very early.  However, the white flowers do not emerge until late spring, nearly summer.


What is this brown knobby thing like a fist forcing its way out of the earth?  That's a Ostrich fern (matteuccia struthiopteris) crown, each bumpy little knuckle is a tightly curled "fiddlehead" still wrapped in its papery brown cover. Maybe in a few weeks the fiddleheads will be ready for eating.


This is one of my personal favorites, Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), the shoots are purplish striped cones pushing up out of the earth, rather like hosta shoots though a bit smaller. I don't know what the little green sprouts are, but they are unlikely to bother the well-established bellwort.


Many trillium are spreading their leaves now. The first picture is a close up of Prairie trillium (Trillium recurvatum) which will have a maroon flower, surrounded by green rosettes of the biennial tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum). The second I believe is a patch of yellow trillium (trillium luteum). Each individual flower has its own stem and a collar of three leaves.



Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) push their little umbrella leaves up through the soil.


Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) shoots emerging among last year's stems. Note also a little green nub which may be a branch bud actually growing out of the base of one stem. As with many plants, these early shoots are reddish even though the mature plant is not.  


Ozark bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana) shoots emerging among last year's stems.  With a cicada skin.

Thanks for sharing the photos MK! I am very impressed with the diversity of plants you have.

I recently tried to ID some newly emerged plants with online plant ID app, but the results weren't very satisfying.

I got something to share too but I don't know how to embed the pictures.

1. Mayapple popping up with flower on top
2. Blue-eyed grass with flower stalks developing
3. Foxflove beardtongue Penstemon digitalis, and a stray burning bush need to be removed
4. St John's wort.

Great shot of the mayapple with the little hat, May!  Thanks for adding to this thread.

I wasn't paying attention to the wooded area until I saw your mayapple pic. Almost miss these little cuties. Thanks for starting this thread,  it's especially useful when someone wants to transplant/divide the perennials early in the season.

Rains this week really got the plants shooting up.

Here are is the bellwort again, more shoots and taller now:


Astilbe (Astilbe chinesis) shoots look like little reddish-purple question marks or fiddleheads rising out of the soil before the leaves unfurl:


The pointy shoots of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) are sheathed in purple/gray when they first break the soil. This heady-scented flower grows in shade.  The plant spreads by rhizomes and forms a thick mat of fibrous roots which exclude other plants.


Purple peony shoots almost look like flowers.


Gooseneck loosetrife emerging from the soil. This plant spread rather aggressively.


I was worried that I killed off my rhubarb last year, but this one little shoot has come up! It emerges like a little wrinkled version of the mature plant.


The dark green, almost stemless, pointed leaves of purple coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea) coming up in front of the rounder leaves of a rosette of tall bellflower.


Queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra) shoots look like a larger version of astilbe. Long, purple-red curved stems emerge with the leaves tightly furled.  As the leaves spread open, they become greener.

The green fiddleheads of the ostrich fern are now beginning to push through their brown sheaths. This is the same crown pictured earlier.


Palm Sedge (Carex muskingumensis) shoots up from among last year's leaves, some of which are still green.



Young leaves of prairie coreopsis (Coreopsis palmata) are like long-fingered hands.  The stems are reddish now, but will be green when mature.


Red Baneberry (Actaea rubra) puts up a thick purplish stem with a little fist of fringed leaves on top. This is an interesting woodland flower. Wildlife eat the fall berries, but I am told all parts are poisonous to humans.


I believe this is a Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), but I will need to watch it over the next week to be sure.

Further developments and mystery plants.

I was right about the Jack-in-the-pulpit, here you an see the leaves and flower beginning to break through their sheath.  You can also see a smaller spike emerging in front of the larger one.  In the background is wild (Canadian) ginger.


My trilliums are now in their prime.  Looking at different wildflower websites, I am not sure if these are actually prairie trillium (Trillium recurvatum) or sessile trillium (Trillium sessile).  Both seem to go by the alias toadshade, and the latter is also called "little sweet betsy" by some people.  I guess it does not matter so much.


The liliy-of-the-valley is more recognizable now, as its graceful vase shape unfurls.


The same fern crown as from past photos, the fiddleheads are at good eating size now.


White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) is starting to emerge. the new crumpled leaves are tinged with purple and a bit shiny, though they will be dull, dark green at maturity.  This plant is an easy to grow (some my say "hard to kill") plant that provides late-season nourishment to pollinators.  However, all parts are toxic to mammals and this was the cause of "milk sickness" in past centuries.  Google it!  Fascinating story of two women solving a medical mystery and not getting much credit. So...if you have dairy animals best keep them away from this.


Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) is a Eurasian species that has naturalized. You can really see the resemblance to domesticated lettuce at this stage in spring. It is a good spring green, this one here is tender and mild enough to eat raw. The "prickles" are actually quite soft and not bothersome at this stage. Larger leaves are better cooked.


I am not sure what this is.  The leaves are thick and resemble milkweed, but I do not recall having any milkweed in this spot.  I will keep and eye on it.


Note sure about these either. They look a bit burdocky, but the texture is wrong. Also to keep an eye on.

Butterfly weeds are just emerging
Blue-eyed grass blooming

Mk Neal wrote: The first picture is a close up of Prairie trillium (Trillium recurvatum) which will have a maroon flower, surrounded by green rosettes of the biennial tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum).

AWESOME! I was looking far and wide this morning to find a pic of the bellflower basal rosette and couldn't find anything... until I was on Permies later and tried on a whim. I transplanted several 2nd year bellflower off a path that will be mown and into a flower garden, and now I can ID and transplant some 1st year rosettes in the same place so they'll bloom next year. Biennial fun!

False Solomon's seal

Passionflower/ fruit

Great Burdock

A correction, a month ago I posted a photo of shoots coming up between old milkweed stems, and I thought due to the location that they were milkweed.  However, as they grew they were NOT milky, and soon became apparent that this was gooseneck loosetrife (Lysimachia clethroides) that had invaded my milkweed patch!

Now a month later the TRUE swamp milkweeds (Asclepias incarnata) are emerging as pencil-thin, rubbery textured light green shoots, with the loosetrife in the background:


In another area, larger common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is also shooting up.
Here is is surrounded by violets, coneflower, and columbine:


And a view of the geometry from above:


Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) now in its prime. I have never seen it with a burgundy leaf like this one.


Blazingstar (Liatris aspera) is just starting to come up, one of the later perennials.


I think this is some kind of Rudbeckia, like Black-eyed Susan.

Some latecomers that did not show up until near the end of May:

Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum) rises from among grass-like leaves of Star-of-Bethlehem.  By late summer, the Joe-Pye will be 4 feet tall.


This cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata) is not competing very well in a mixed planting of prairie and savanna flowers; it is still quite small.  The foliage is similar to other plants in the pea family.


These are the seedlings of halberd-leaf rose mallow, (Hibiscus laevis). It is a large plant, up to 6 ft tall and spreads seed prodigiously within about a ten foot radius. I need to pluck these seedlings outof my vegetable beds all spring and summer.  I have not been successful at starting seedlings indoors, however.  

A few more spring perennials to add to the collection:

Turkish Rocket (Bunias Orientalis). I've yet to try the flowerheads which are supposed to be less spicy than the leaves, although I suspect the leaves would mellow on cooking. I now have a few plants, so maybe will get some seed set :)

Turkish Rocket Spring leaves

Udo (Aralia cordata) Again one I've yet to try eating, since it is still establishing for me. It has edible stems. I suspect I'm just a bit cool for it to do well and now wish I had planted it in a sunnier spot. It is supposed to grow huge but mine are still a bit pathetic!

Udo Spring shoots