Patriotic Roadside Flowers

     Red clover, Queen-Anne's-lace and chicory are common plants that flower abundantly along roadsides in the Middle Atlantic States from July into autumn.  These flowering plants, originally from Europe, are patriotic because the clover has pink blooms, the Queen-Anne's-lace has white ones and chicory bear blue blossoms, all in scattered, mixed bouquets of many plants by rural roads.  And these plants, with lovely flowers, each have a few interesting traits that set them apart.
     These plants are also visited by bees and other insects in summer for their nectar and pollen and small, seed-eating birds in winter to consume their seeds.  Those insects and birds add their beauties to those of the vegetation.
     Red clover is a hay crop that escaped fields, where it is regularly mowed, to road shoulders where some of it is seldom mowed.  The flower heads of clovers are clumps of small blooms.  And their lush, deep-green leaves each have a decorative, light-white mark.  Cottontail rabbits, wood chucks and white-tailed deer eat many clover leaves in fields and along country roads. 
     Queen-Anne's-lace is the ancestor of domestic carrots.  The wild plant smells like carrots and has long, pale-yellow tubers in the ground.  Carrots, if left alone long enough, produce flat clusters of many tiny flowers like Queen-Anne's-lace does, showing the ancestry between these two plants.  But the wild plant is poisonous to humans.    
     In winter, the ends of the flower heads of Queen-Anne's-lace, now loaded with seeds, curl up and resemble innumerable, tiny birds' nests on stalks.  Those little cups also catch snow that resemble scoops of vanilla ice cream.
     Chicory roots can be harvested, roasted and ground into bits to be steeped as a coffee.  This spindly, four-foot plant with the lovely blue flowers seems to reflect the sky on a clear day.  And chicory is particularly attractive when goldfinches visit them to consume seeds from older blooms among the new ones.  Yellow and black male goldfinches are especially striking perched on them. 
     Unfortunately, roadside plants get mowed occasionally, usually by township authority.  All those lovely flowers are gone after each mowing, and so is food and shelter for wildlife.  Some roadside vegetation could be mowed on curves or at crossroads because of safety concerns, but much is cut for no reason, except some people have the mistaken idea that those plants are unsightly and serve no purpose.  Their beauties alone are enough to allow those plants to live.
     When riding along country roads, watch for these patriotic plants, and others, along the wayside.  I think you'll agree; they are beautiful.