May Yellows

     Several adaptable and common kinds of flowering plants have pretty yellow blossoms in southeastern Pennsylvania in May.  Blooming dandelions and field mustards are left-over from April.  But most plants with golden flowers in May only begin to bloom during that month, at least in noticeable abundance.  Look in a field guide to eastern wild flowers to see these plants. 
     Though too many people consider these plants to be weeds and want to eradicate them, I think they have flowers as beautiful as blooms on any plants, and for free.  And I think a lot of time and money is wasted trying to get rid of them.  I suggest we try to appreciate the beauty these plants have, wherever they are growing.  And it could well be that adaptable plants like these will be some of the few left on this planet.   
     Some of these plants are valuable as food for a variety of rodents, birds and other kinds of wildlife.  Dandelions are particularly useful to rodents and birds.  The pretty house finches, northern cardinals, indigo buntings, chipping sparrows and other kinds of seed-eating birds eat dandelion seeds on lawns and other, human-made habitats where we can enjoy the beauties of those birds.   
     A few species with yellow flowers, including yellow violets, golden ragworts and yellow wood sorrels, are native to eastern North American woodlands.  And yellow violets and yellow wood sorrels are also abundant on some short-grass lawns, adding beauty to them. 
     Golden ragworts grow close to two feet tall and are partial to moist soil and limited in where they are noticed.  Colonies of this species grows in some roadside ditches in woodlands.
     Most of the flowering plants with golden blossoms in this area are aliens from Europe.  And the most abundant of these, by far,  are buttercups.  Buttercups inhabit lawns, rural roadsides and meadows.  Some pastures are yellow with the abundance of striking buttercup blooms, creatring magnificent scenes in agricultural areas.
     Celandines are a few feet high and bushy looking.  They mostly inhabit roadsides where they are quite decorative.       
     Indian strawberries are prostrate plants on short-grass lawns.  Their small, yellow flowers peek out from between blades of grass.  And their pollinated blooms produce small red berries that resemble real strawberries, but are smaller and seedier.  But the fruits of Indian strawberries are attractive on lawns and eaten by rodents, small birds and other creatures.
     Yellow goat's-beard is an uncommon roadside species that stands over two feet tall and has a few yellow blooms.  Its name comes from the fluffy seed heads of many seeds, each one with a dandelion-like, fluff "parachute" that carries its cargo away on the wind.
     Yellow iris is an emergent plant of shallow water and has big blossoms.  Its long, upright, thin leaves resemble those of cattails.  Some female red-winged blackbirds build nurseries on iris leaves, as they do on cattail stalks.    
     The pale-yellow, dandelion-like flowers of cat's-ears, which is a kind of hawkweed, dominates and beautifies some lawns toward the end of May.  And like dandelions, this species produces seeds even amid regular grass mowing by growing blossoms on short stems. 
     Try to enjoy the beauty of these plants and the wildlife that benefit from them.  They beautify the Earth right at our doorsteps.