straying over the border

[15_the_circle]

[OT from cottage renovations]

[edit: went back the following day to reshoot the white chickory and for another image of the crown vetch -- many thanks for the helpful comments]

I don't often look beyond the Grove for floral distraction.  today was an exception, and at any rate neither site is far away. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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Oakmont Avenue

chickory is an herb that is classified as a common roadside weed, but it is quite bit more charming than most.  there's a good sized patch of it across the tracks down past Hershey's, seen here in morning light. 

common Chickory

I have only come across it with blue flowers though it also blooms in lavender.  I hadn't seen it in white before; this one can be found at the corner of the Oakmonts, across from the former hotel. 

white chickory

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Crabbs Branch Way

I  don't  didn't know what this stuff was [it turned out to be crown vetch, another pretty invasive], but found it growing in weedy profusion along Crabbs Branch Way just N of Shady Grove Road.  its blossoms catch the afternoon light in a completely beguiling way. 

crown vetch

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

the last one looks like a lupine. The chickory is reaching out with it's many five-fingered hands.TK

unknown?

[(Anonymous)]

certainly in the pea/legume family...probably common vetch which is touted for its ability to hold the earth when disturbed by road work, etc. and has the added value of fixing nitrogen in the soil. many organic farmers plant and then plow it under (once it has produced a good cover) to enrich their soils before planting their "real" crops. Ann

Last photo

[betsy-beekeeper.livejournal.com]

This is crown vetch, and as Ann points out, vetches fix nitrogen in the soil and also are very effective at preventing soil erosion. In fact, Crown Vetch was introduced into the US (from Europe?) during your favorite decade, George, the 1950's, for the purpose of erosion control. It is now an invasive exotic. I remember they planted it for erosion control on the berm over the underground ring at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. They called it cow-vetch, which is a different vetch, but I'm pretty sure it was crown vetch. That's ironic because they went to great effort to restore the prairie on the campus, burning off large tracts of land periodically in order to give native prairie plants an advantage, and Crown vetch now threatens the survival of some endangered pairie flora.