Among Rhode Island Wild Flowers and Native Plants

NEWS
Last Updated:
July 24, 2017

The
Amateur
Botanist

Current Article:
Rare Plants of City Park,
Warwick, RI

For past Amateur Botanist
articles, click HERE.

Big River MA
Rare plants found in the
Big River Management Area

ARIW has partnered with the
New England Carnivorous Plant Society to develop a catalog of the Carnivorous plants growing in RI.

RI Ferns
ARIW has teamed up with
Don Lubin to produce an article
about the ferns found in RI.

RI Equisetopsida,
Lycopodiopsida
and Isoetopsida
Horsetails, Club-mosses,
Fir-mosses, Spike-mosses
and Quillworts
Formerly known as
the Fern Allies

RI Orchids

RI Violets

Oddities

References

Who we are

 

What plant is that?

Click on photo below
to view larger image.

top: Katja Schulz, CC BY-NC 2.0, via
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu

2nd photo: Cathy DeWitt CC BY-NC 4.0, via https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu

Third photo: CourtesyAlan Cressler,
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Bottom photo: Nelson CC BY-NC 4.0, via https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu

The mystery plant for January 2022
is an aquatic perennial.
It can be found
in wetlands and marshes
from Maine to Minnesota
and south to Florida. 
It grows in clumps of
long petioled (12-24 inches)
basal leaves which have
arrowhead-shaped blades
growing 6-20 inches long
and 5-12 inches wide. 
The leaves are
smooth along the margins. 
In northern areas
the plants are deciduous
but along the Gulf Coast
they are evergreen.
The flowers grow in a spike
along a small crowded spadix. 
The inflorescence is 3-6" in length.
It has tiny flowers
which are arranged
along a cylindrical spadix
 surrounded by a narrow spathe.
The inflorescence is 4-8" long. 

Items of Interest

Spring —a poem by Willam Whitman Bailey

Spring Fever —a spring blooming calendar with images

Printable 2 page Spring Blooming calendar with status codes

US Forest Service has
Fern coloring pages (6 ferns native to RI) and a Celebrating Ferns Poster available on its website.

An Manual of Florinthology for Beginners
A spoof of field guides and nature fakers by Robert Williams Wood, a well-known physicist in the field of ultra-violet radiation
. Includes his biography and a description of the "Nature Fakers" controversy.

Animal Analogues
Due to the interest in the Flornithology Manual, I'm adding Robert Williams Wood's second/last field guide. You will now be able to tell an ape from a grape.

Rhode Island Rare Plants 2016

Sixty RI Wild Flower coloring pages.
Available as eiither individu
al plants or the complete collection in a pdf.

Natural history and wild flower books Previously serialized books on natural history and wild flowers

The Mushroom Expert
A poem.

Common Plant Names
A compendium of nomenclature
of common wildflowers that has been lost over the past 150 years.

Virtual Field Trips
Robert Zottoli
Professor Emeritus, Fitchburg University

Luncheon Special: Lady-slipper Salad
Thomas J. Rawinsk's article on the impact of deer browse in RI.

For more information on the impact of deer browse from the American Institute of Biological Sciences, click here.

The Vacant Lot
by Rose Korawlesky. Rose was a teacher in Warwick from the 1920's to the 1950's. She was well-known in Warwick and East Greenwich for her daily walks whatever the weather.

William Whitman Bailey
2009 Rhode Island
Distinguished Naturalist

Updates on nomenclature

Links to Botanical sites;
both fun and serious.