April Yellows

     Several kinds of plants that produce yellow flowers bloom abundantly in various Lancaster County, Pennsylvania habitats during April.  All those blossoms are quite noticeable and cheery, each species in its own niche.
     Dandelions are a familiar flowering plant on our lawns, fields and roadsides.  This is an alien species from Europe with leaves that are edible to people, cottontail rabbits and wood chucks.  And when their yellow blossoms are pollinated, the flower heads produce seeds, each of which has a silky, white parachute that carries the seed away from the parent plants to sprout elsewhere.  But most of those seeds are eaten by mice and several kinds of seed-eating birds, including northern cardinals and a variety of sparrows and finches, which add their feathered beauties to lawns and fields.
     An interesting fact about dandelions is that they reproduce themselves in spite of regular mowing. Dandelions produce flowers on tall stems so the blooms are noticed by pollinating insects and can be fertilized by wind blowing pollen around.  But This plant also grows blossoms on short stems that are not cut off by mowing.  In places that get mowed, only plants with short stems can reproduce, thereby producing plants that only develop short stems.
     Another alien from Europe, field mustards can grow to be four feet tall with yellow blooms at the tops of their stems.  This is a species of fields that grows and blooms early before the fields are plowed or cultivated.  It's a joy to drive along a country road and see the bright blossoms of this vegetation while it lasts during April.
     Lesser celandine is another alien from Europe that carpets many acres of tree-shaded, creek-side floodplains here in Lancaster County.  Large patches of this species with glossy, dark-green foliage and innumerable, shiny, yellow blooms are inspiring to see.  This plant, however, pushes out other kinds of plants.  But patches of blue violets and grape hyacinths with their violet flowers pop up through spreads of lesser celandine.             
     Daffodils and forsythia bushes also have yellow flowers that brighten the lawns they were planted on.  Daffodils are introduced to lawns by people planting bulbs.
     Trout lily, yellow violets, colt's-foot and spicebushes are woodland plants that have yellow flowers during April.  All these species are native to this area, except colt's-foot, which is from Europe, but escaped from flower gardens in this country.  Trout lilies are so-named because they have oblong, spotted leaves like the flanks of trout.  And they bloom during trout season in this area.
     Colt's-foot seems much like dandelions in that they have dandelion-like blossoms.  And their seeds have parachutes that float away on the wind, spreading the species along sun-filled, disturbed- soil dirt roads in woods.
     Spicebushes are common, under-story, woodland shrubs that produce innumerable, tiny yellow blooms that create a yellow haze in the woods in April.  The pollinated flowers each produce a green berry that turns red by September and is eaten by rodents and berry-eating birds.  The birds digest the pulp of the berries, but pass their seeds far and wide as they fly around, thus spreading the species in bottom-land, woods habitats across the landscape.  And, interestingly, every part of this shrub, including leaves, bark and berries have a spicy, lemony scent that is pleasant to smell.
     This April, or succeeding ones, look for the cheery, yellow blooms of these plants.  They offer joy and inspiration to our senses in spring when we can use them.