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It's always so exciting to find new things to explore or observe in its entirety. Day after day it would appear we haven't been left disappointed, especially when discovering exquisite floral beauties lurking amidst greenery or tall weedy areas on our property.
We've discovered a new-to-us wild flower resembling something our son thought was like the "Dutchman Breech" at first. And then we all thought perhaps it was a "wild lily" or "honeysuckle-bell-type" of floral.
The nagging question remained;"What was this pretty thing?"
With our Peterson First Guide;Wildflowers by Roger Tory Peterson, we thought we found it just be noting the image on the book, but no, this wasn't it at all.
This field guide is a concise guide to 188 common wildflowers of northeastern and north-central North America so we thought we would find it within the book's covers, and we did. Simultaneously while one child browsed the book and flipped the pages in eager anticipation of being the first to identify this floral beauty, I was on the computer using my favorite bookmarked Ontario wildflower websites until the thought occurred to me perhaps it wasn't a wildflower afterall, maybe seeds had been planted a season ago on purpose to bloom these orange and yellow hanging delights.
As our daughter flipped her pages in the field guide to find the "Wild Columbine" exact image on page 77, I too found the same image on this SITE here.
Fun Facts about the Wild Columbine;
- - It is also known as Canada or Canadian Columbine, honeysuckle (which we've had before ourselves but on a vine instead), rockbells and meetingshouses. It is a perenial herb. (And we know what that means....it comes back again and again!) :-)
- - The upward tubes contain nectar that attracts insects, moths, and hummingbirds that have long tongues.
- - The Columbine propagates for years, and although a perenial they increase rapidly by self-sown seed.
- - They remind the children of fire as they have bell shapes of red and yellow flowers, numerous stamens hang below the petals like firelight.
- - They bloom from May-July and we are so pleased we stumbled upon them in our forest-like area near to the left side of our driveway.
One thing is for sure, we aren't eager to press these as it would be difficult to admire them after they are flat. These flowers require observation from the exterior and the interior as they are just too beautiful to view in anything but a 3D form.
