Native Plants

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Friday - September 30, 2011

From: Weedville, PA
Region: Mid-Atlantic
Topic: Herbs/Forbs, Wildflowers
Title: Early spring wildflowers of Pennsylvania
Answered by: Guy Thompson

QUESTION:

What native wildflower is the first to bloom in Weedville, Pa? (Jay township, Elk county) I am working on a research paper for my Environmental Problems class, and this would be very helpful. Thank you.

ANSWER:

This question was recently answered for another Pennsylvania enquirer. The answer is reproduced below.

Below is a list of early spring wildflowers found in western Pennsylvania. The two earliest would be those blooming in February:

Erigenia bulbosa (harbinger of spring) and Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage)

The remainder of the flowers on the list begin blooming in March. I don't know that I could put them in "spring appearance" order, since there can be variation from one microclimate to another, but I do think I could put Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion) near the beginning of the list.

Erythronium americanum (dogtooth violet)

Epigaea repens (trailing arbutus)

Sanguinaria canadensis (bloodroot)

Ranunculus fascicularis (early buttercup)

Stylophorum diphyllum (celandine poppy)

Cardamine douglassii (limestone bittercress)

Hepatica nobilis var. acuta (sharplobe hepatica)

Thalictrum thalictroides (rue anemone)

Saxifraga virginiensis (early saxifrage)

Claytonia virginica (Virginia springbeauty)

Claytonia caroliniana (Carolina springbeauty)

Viola sororia (common blue violet)

Draba verna (Whitlow grass or spring draba)

You can find more native plants of Pennsylvania by doing a "Combination Search" in our Native Plant Database and you can "Narrow Your Search" by using various Characters (e.g., Habit (general appearance), Light requirement, etc.).

Visit the Western Pennsylvania Wildflowers page to find more photos of the above plants (search alphabetically by common name) as well as many more plants, both native and non-native, found in western Pennsylvania.