For (mostly) wildflower afficionados, unless you like a few butterflies too

 Wildflowers seem to take a back stage to birds for many enthusiasts of the outdoors. I get it. I am sometimes like that myself. Birds are more active, elusive and sing. Wildflowers, on the other hand, are also relatively short-lived at their peak of colour, but they are more predictable in their location. Nonetheless, they are just as important in their own way, as an element of the natural world.

Some types of wildflowers get more attention than others, such as members of the orchid family. I  recently spent a bit more time on the search for them, with varying degrees of success. For example every year or so I typically make a special trip to the Ipperwash Crown Land area in north Lambton County, in late May or early June looking for three species of orchids: Pink Lady's-slipper, Hooker's Orchid and Ram's-head Lady's-slipper. The weather can play a part in exactly when, or even if, they will be in flower, not surprisingly, and this year was certainly an example of that. Even closer to home, the extremely warm period for a couple of weeks, followed by cool and wet weather for an even longer period, caused some species to get off to a good start, but then fail to complete their cycle. The normally very predictable Showy Orchid at Rondeau, where sometimes I see several dozen plants with impressive flower spikes in addition to sets of leaves, had the usual number of leaves, but did not have a single flower spike this year! That is the first time ever, in my many years of checking out this population. And the Puttyroot population at Rondeau, which often  has 50 or more sets of leaves on average, and at least a dozen flowering spikes, had only two flowering spikes.

So when I made the trek to orchid country at Ipperwash, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was so-so. Of the normally seen dozen Pink Lady's-slipper plants in bloom, I saw a single one still hanging on, and 3 others that had finished prematurely, looking quite dried up.

I saw 6 Hooker's Orchids.....

....and none of the Ram's-head Lady's-slipper, by far the rarest of these three.

In the general vicinity of the open dunes and parking lots, were quite a few Dusted Skippers, which were very flighty and territorial. It is considered rare in Ontario and Canada.

A visit to the nearby Karner Blue sanctuary turned up a few Wild Lupine, sometimes known as Sundial Lupine.

Narrow-leaved New Jersey Tea was growing in clumps here and there.

A couple of Juvenal's Duskywings were flitting around...

....as was this Little Wood-satyr.

This moth, a Large Lace-wing Border, was resting on a lily leaf in broad daylight.

Closer to home, in mostly woodland habitat, there continues to be a roll-out of wildflowers, including:

False Solomon's Seal

Blue-eyed Grass

Carrionflower

Canada Violet, mostly white but with the back side of the petals showing a distinctly pink/purple colour.

Canada Mayflower

Gray's Sedge

This next one likes open sandy areas, not woodland.

Hairy Puccoon

Herb-robert, in the next two photos, is dainty and attractive, but not native.

Jack-in-the-pulpit flowers are mostly hidden these days, as the upper leaves may collapse around 'Jack' while the seeds develop.

Wild, or Red, Columbine is mostly finished flowering except in very shaded areas.

Robin's Plantain, a member of the Aster family, likes the edges of sandy woodlands. It looks quite similar to the much more abundant Philadelphia Fleabane, but has more numerous petals and a hairy stem.

White Baneberry will soon be developing its 'Doll's-eyes' fruit.

Wood Betony, in either yellow or reddish purple, is almost finished flowering.

Wild Blue Phlox

There is still a fair bit of Wild Geranium around.

Sanicula sp.

Seneca Snakeroot, next, is found along the open edges of sandy woodland habitat.

Sweet Cicely

Tuliptree flowers are nicely out, although most are fairly high up so they can maximize the sun exposure.

A rather small wildflower, not uncommon in rich woodland is this next one: Running Strawberry Bush. It is anything but 'bush-like', however, merely a few centimetres in height.

In open, wet areas of a woodland, there may be a few of these showing: Yellow Water Crowfoot.

As the season unfolds, there will be more wildflowers to feature, along with birds, butterflies, herps, moths, etc., etc.

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Wildflowers of May

All those showers of April, and also into May, have done their job well. The woodland wildflowers look quite lush! At Rondeau Tuliptree Trail, Spicebush Trail and South Point Trail (the drier, west side) are all great places to find an abundance of wildflowers, although many of them can be found in other woodlands elsewhere in southern Ontario. While these trails are also popular for birders in their search for birds, the birds are sometimes hard to come by. Wildflowers, while they are in bloom for a few days, are a pleasant diversion and certainly more predictable when the birds seem scarce.

 What follows are just a few of the wildflowers that have caught my eye.

Many readers will likely recognize most of the ones I include on this post. Probably the most recognizable one is the White Trillium, the provincial flower of Ontario.

 Less recognizable is the Red Trillium, at least in the form shown next. Trilliums are known to have peculiarities, and sometimes some real unusual ones appear. Normal trilliums have three petals. For some reason this plant got double! Actually this photo was taken a couple of years ago. It didn't show up in 2017, and when I went to check on it in 2018 it was already well past its best.

Wild Columbine is always a treat to see. Hummingbirds are on the lookout for it as well, as they hover beneath the flower and stick their long bills and tongues up the flower tube to get to the nectar in the little bulb at the tip. This next photo shows a typical Wild Columbine.

 As in the case of the Red Trillium, there can be some unusual forms of Wild Columbine. They can occasionally be a pale reddish orange, but very rarely do you see a pale yellow, almost white, version. In fact I have only seen this on two occasions at Rondeau. I came across this plant a couple of years ago, and so far it has reappeared in successive years. I'm not sure what the hummingbirds think about this colour form. White wine vs red wine???

Wild orchids are always a treat to find. This next plant is Showy Orchis (Galearis spectabilis). It is a small orchid and is generally very uncommon in rich deciduous hardwoods forests.

 Next is White Baneberry, also known as Doll's-eyes since the fruit is white with a black dot on one side, looking like the eye of a doll.

 Wild Geranium is widespread.

 Sweet Cicely is common in woodlands. Its flowers are small, and once they finish flowering you hardly notice them, until they go to seed. Then you find out the hard way, if you go walking through a stand of them, that those seeds are hard, pointed and can be somewhat painful. They have a tendency to get stuck in pants, socks and whatever they can latch on to, with their pointed ends jabbing your skin underneath.

 Violets are numerous, and one of the most common ones is Downy Yellow Violet.

Much less common, and restricted to sandy open woods is Wood Violet, shown next. The flowers don't look all that different from other bluish-purple violets, but the leaves are distinctive.

Another uncommon plant is this next one: American Gromwell.

It was on the Rondeau plant checklist, but it had not been seen since the early 1960s. It had been ranked as 'historic' for Chatham-Kent. Last year I came across a single clump, and included it in a blog post about a year ago. When I was in its locale this year, I did a more careful but quick check and noted there were about 10 clusters. Another person alerted me to the location of another clump and when I went and found it and did a more thorough check of the overall area, I came up with 17 clusters. Undoubtedly there are others, too.

From even a short distance away, it blends in with the lush vegetation it grows amongst, so it isn't surprising that it can be missed.

 If you looked at the individual flowers and thought they looked like those of a puccoon that you might find on the sandy beach dunes, good for you! The flowers are indeed similar, but yellow instead of orangey-yellow. And they are of the same genus: Lithospermum.

The heavy overcast days were great for finding and photographing wildflowers. It was also ideal for forest photography.

At least a few of these will continue to bloom well into June.