First 'Wild' Flowers

The first 'wildflowers' here are the bright yellow Coltsfoot, and the Skunk Cabbage.  It's a little hard to label these as wildflowers though, 'cause the Coltsfoot was coming up through the driveway where we park our trailer, and the Skunk Cabbage was growing in the ditch!  And Coltsfoot can be a bit invasive in places.  But they are certainly not cultivated garden plants, and they are the first in the spring (along with Hepatica, which I haven't seen yet).

Coltsfoot sends its bright yellow flower up on a separate stalk before any leaves appear.  The leaves are quite large, appear later, and last right into the fall.

Here you can see several other flower buds just emerging from the gravel; there will be a little cluster of these in a day or two.

And down the road at the edge of a swamp is the Skunk Cabbage.  It literally comes up right through the snow, and again the reddish purple 'flower' comes first.  Here the first green leaves are showing up.  They're even larger than the Coltsfoot leaves.

Here are the actual flowers of the Skunk Cabbage, the small yellow clusters found on the spadix, inside the spathe, both of which are purple in colour.  I think I was smart this time and used a fill-in flash to light up the flowers in the interior, which are very hard to see.

Won't be long til we have lots more 'real' wildflowers.