Four kinds of abundant, native, flowering plants bloom in many moist, sunny meadows in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as elsewhere in eastern North America, during the latter part of summer. They are all noticeable to even casual observers of nature because they are tall with showy blossoms at the tops of their flower stems. And bees, butterflies and other kinds of insects visiting them to sip nectar, pollinating them in the process, add to the beauties of these plants. The four are swamp milkweeds, blue vervains, ironweeds and Joe-pye weeds in that arbitrary order of blooming.
Swamp milkweeds, like all their family, have flowers that appear waxy and sculptured. Those blooms, in upright clusters, are also pink and sweet smelling. Standing up to three feet tall, swamp milkweeds bloom from June to August. Female monarch butterflies lay eggs on their leaves because milkweed is the only vegetation monarch larvae will consume before pupating to become adult butterflies.
Blue vervain plants are about five feet high and slender. They have groups of tiny, blue-violet blossoms that bloom a few at a time from July through September on each flower stem. Four or five flower stems together are shaped like a candleabra.
Ironweeds are up to five feet tall and called that because they have hard stems. This species has several deep, purple-pink blooms per plant during late July into October.
Joe-pye weeds are the tallest, most stately of this grouping of wild plants in damp, sunny pastures. Each plant can stand up to seven feet high, or more, and has a few large clusters of small, dusty-pink flowers on top of each flower stem from late July into September. The larger butterflies, including the various kinds of local swallowtails, and monarchs, like to sip nectar from this species' blossoms.
When in farmland late in summer, check out the sunny meadows for these kinds of flowering plants. Their blooms and the insects that visit them add much beauty and interest to those pastures.
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