Flowers in Fall Meadows and Fields

     A community of tall, native plants blooms in damp, bottomland meadows of full sunlight in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, during September and October.  Those plants include an abundance of a tall aster with small, pale-lavender flowers, another tall aster with tiny, white blossoms, New England asters that have striking, deep-purple blooms, bur-marigolds with attractive yellow flowers along streams, boneset that have small, white blossoms and the lofty, bushy-looking spotted jewelweeds with orange flowers leftover from earlier in September.
     The asters with lovely, pale-lavender blossoms are the most abundant of these flowering plants, particularly early in October, and my favorites in moist meadow habitats.  The asters with white blooms are also abundant in certain deserted fields.  Some of those fields have so many white aster blossoms in them in October that they look like snow fell just on those fields.
     A few kinds of plants that grow on slightly higher ground in pastures, and more abundantly in fields, include the tall and abundant goldenrod with many tiny, yellow, plume-like blooms on each of several pointing "fingers", the high, spindly chicory that sport pretty, blue flowers, the tall evening primrose with yellow blossoms and the short knapweeds with pink flowers.  In autumn, these lovely flowers add more variety and beauty to the meadows and fields they grow in.  The beautiful goldenrod is the most abundant and prevalent of these kinds of flowering plants during September and October.
     Some abandoned fields are especially attractive with the dark-purple flowers of New England asters and the yellow of goldenrod blooms, from mid-September to well into October.  Those flowering plants create a beautiful combination of colors in overwhelming abundance in certain fields, making those habitats some of the most beautiful places in autumn in southeastern Pennsylvania.  And those deserted fields in fall are made even more striking by the red, orange and yellow of staghorn sumac, Virginia creeper and poison ivy leaves.  They are glorious!
     A variety of bees and butterflies are around all these flowers to sip nectar, the last sources of that sweet liquid they will get each year.  The small, orange and brown pearl crescent butterflies usually are the most abundant of butterflies on blossoms in autumn, particularly on any of the wild aster blooms.  Pearl crescent larvae eat the leaves and stems of asters, pupate in the soil beneath the asters, then emerge as butterflies.
     There are other pretty and interesting aspects of sunny meadows and fields during September and, especially, in October.  The flowers of ironweed, Joe-pye weed, Queen-Anne's-lace and swamp milkweeds are done blooming and have "gone to seed", making those still-standing plants picturesque.  Mice and small birds eat many of those seeds in autumn and winter.  Rushes, cattails, and cockleburs with their prickly seed pods, are also abundant and picturesque in many moist meadows.  And many intriguing spider webs are strung over or between the plants in the pastures.  They are made the more beautiful and interesting when morning sunshine bounces off the innumerable droplets of dew on each web.  
     Several kinds of plants have lovely flowers in meadows and fields in fall.  The seeds from many of those blooms feed mice and small birds through winter.  And those blossoms are a joy and inspiration for us to see.  Get out to experience the beauty of these flowers, along with that of colored leaves.