August Meadow Flowers

     One late morning in the beginning of August of this year, I drove by a sunny, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania meadow that was spangled with many pretty flowers of several kinds, as I have most every year at this time for the last several years.  Some of the blooming plants flourish in moist soil along a shallow, flowing brook, while other plants fare better in slightly higher, drier ground.  But they all blossom from mid-July to late August, creating much beauty and interest in that pasture, and other local ones, for those who are interested in enjoying their beauties.
     The flowering plants in sun-filled pockets of damp soil share that habitat with cattails and rushes, which are wetland vegetation.  Cattails and rushes add diversity, and more beauty, to plant communities in moist soil. 
     The blooming vegetation, in order from the streamside out, include arrowheads with white flowers, deadly nightshade vines that have purple and yellow blossoms, swamp milkweeds that produce pink blooms, blue vervains with tiny, lavender ones, ironweeds that have deep-pink flowers and Joe Pye-weeds with clusters of dusty-pink blooms.   
    Arrowheads and nightshades grow along water lines.  Nightshades have blooms with purple petals and yellow stamens, which offer a lovely contrast of colors.  Bees and other kinds of insects visit nightshade blooms to sip nectar, pollinating those attractive blossoms in the process.  Later small, green berries form where the flowers were.  Those berries turn yellow, then orange, and red like tomatoes do.  Nightshade vines are related to tomato plants.
     Swamp milkweeds and vervains also offer a pretty contrast of colors.  Bees, butterflies and other types of insects consume nectar from the flowers of both these plant species.  Female monarch butterflies lay eggs on milkweed leaves, the only food their caterpillars will eat.  The tall vervains have flower stems that resemble candelabras.
     Ironweed and Joe pye-weed flowers attract lots of insects, including larger butterflies, such as tiger swallowtails and monarchs.  These plants are the tallest and most striking of flowering vegetation in local sunny pastures.
     The more upland flowering plants in this sunny meadow are also beautiful to see.  Their blooms are of a variety of colors, including blue, white, pale-lavender, pink and yellow.  The abundant chicory grows blue flowers that are an inch across.  Those blooms usually close in afternoons, so look for them in the mornings. 
     The plentiful Queen-Anne's-lace, which is the ancestor of domestic carrots, have flat clusters of tiny, white blossoms that look like doilies.  Seeds develop where the flowers were and those seed heads curl up in winter.  Those seed heads resemble little birds' nests, and they look like vanilla ice cream cones when snow collects on them. 
     Peppermints bear tiny, pale-lavender flowers that are attractive to nectar-seeking flies and hover flies.  Green bottle flies are the most common insects on peppermint blooms.
     Common milkweeds, bull-thistles and red clovers all have pink blossoms.  Several kinds of bees, butterflies and other insects consume nectar from these blooms and female monarch butterflies lay eggs on the milkweeds.  And milkweed beetles ingest milkweed foliage while two kinds of milkweed seed bugs eat the maturing seeds of their host plants.
     The lovely, black and yellow American goldfinches and other kinds of seed-eating birds consume the seeds of bull-thistles.  The goldfinches also use thistle fluff from the thistle seeds to make their dainty, little nurseries in shrubs and sapling trees.
     Most red clover hay fields swarm with bees, butterflies and other types of insects that visit their pink blooms to ingest nectar.  Some red clover fields shimmer with the hordes of insects flying from flower to blossom.
     And a variety of vegetation with yellow blossoms grow on the drier parts of cow pastures.  Those plants, in order of abundance, are early goldenrods, butter-and-eggs, green-headed coneflowers, wild lettuce, buttercups and evening primrose.  These golden flowers offer a diversity of colors in cow pastures.  Insects commonly visit the tiny goldenrod blooms to get nectar.  Goldenrods, coneflowers and evening primroses are all tall plants that are striking and obvious in the meadows they inhabit.          The many types and colors of flowers blooming in this meadow offer much beauty, free, to those who look for them.  And all one has to do is get out to where these blooms, and other beauties of nature are.  Those beauties, when spotted, never fail to inspire and give spiritual lifts.