Now, for something completely different. I did a fun (to me) project yesterday that didn’t require any human contact nor leaving the property where our office is. I decided to see how many different yellow flowers I could find in the weed/wildflower collection known as our empty lot. As you can see, I managed to fill a whole screen in iNaturalist!
Most of the field LOOKS purple, because there is so much storks-bill growing in it, but when you look closer and closer, the yellows dominate (purple is in second place, with field madder and a little patch of grape hyacinth that must be left over from when there was a house here – I plan to replant them in the “flower bed” I’m making).
What have we got? Let’s take a look. Many of these flowers look really similar, but are different sizes or have other subtle differences.
Common Dandelion. Taraxacum officinale. Delicious and nutritious. Bees love them.
False Dandelion.
Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus. Plus a tiny wasp and tinier beetle.
Prickly Sowthistle Sonchus asper. It’s everywhere. And very prickly. Note that there are aphids or something on it.
Smooth Cat’s Ear. Hypochaeris glabra. Looks like a teeny dandelion on a very long stem. Compare to the first dandelion and you’ll see how small it is.
Cutleaf Evening Primrose. Oenothera laciniata. Smaller than most evening primrose, but a beautiful buttery yellow.
Crete Weed. Hedypnois cretica. I thought it was a dandelion, but look at the leaf and the cool petal shape.
Woodsorrels. Genus Oxalis. I’m not sure which one it is, but it’s certainly oxalis. Sour tasty leaves!
Bur Clover. Medicago polymorpha. It’s about finished blooming and starting to make burs. Yellow is a hard color for my camera, and I couldn’t get a good shot of these.
Straggler Daisy. Calyptocarpus vialis. Lots of leaves, tiny flowers. They are pretty up close, though.
I got a lot of bugs and other things, but I’m just going to leave this parade of yellow-ness alone, in all their glory. I’ll see what other themes I can come up with over the next few weeks as all the flowers bloom away.
The Hermits' Rest 
One thought on “Mellow Yellow Overload”