Get Your Botany On!

A coworker recently brought me two fossils that were collected by an excavator working near Dewart Lake in Kosciusko County, Indiana.  ...

Common throughout the eastern half of North America, Claytonia virginica is just one of those plants that many of us continue to photograph...

Here is a question I find myself wrestling with on a regular basis; are field guides good for the SCIENCE of botany? The more botanically ...

Does anyone recognize this plant? I don't know what it is, but hopefully some of you can provide a name. It's not aromatic at all, b...

At Cornell University, the spathe of Amorphophallus titanum (Titan Arum, aka Corpse Plant) has opened, exposing its spadix of smelly flower...

On Saturday, March 10, Trillium nivale was flowering on a steep, southwest-facing slope in the Kokiwanee Nature Preserve, Wabash County, Ind...

Alnus rugosa was flowering profusely today in wet ground along the Norfolk Railroad in Starke County, Indiana. The yellowish catkins bear t...

Several plants of Hepatica acutiloba were flowering Saturday on an eroded, southwest-facing slope in the Kokiwanee Nature Preserve, Waba...

On a recent wintry day at the town library, I was walking past the magazine racks and there was our legendary botanist Charles Deam on the c...

Today in a mesic forest dominated by beech and sugar maple, Harbinger-of-Spring was flowering here and there. None of the plants I saw had r...

Sunshine, blue sky, and mild temperatures worked their charm on northern Indiana today, and Bird's Eye Speedwell responded with a few sk...

Little Draba verna is a mustard that flowers very early. It tends to cover a lot of sandy and gravelly places, and is also quite frequent ...

Good call Nate! It is Blephilia hirsuta , Wood Mint. This plant is often associated with alluvial soils and slopes in mesic woodland. The le...

One of the most extraordinary people ever to have lived was Charles Clemon Deam, a self-taught botanist from Indiana . His fascinating life ...

Good call, A.L.! It is Robinia pseudo-acacia , Black Locust. This is an impressive looking tree when it matures, but it is said to have nitr...

Good call A.L. and Tom! It is Gleditsia triacanthos , Honey Locust. This is the native tree that normally has large, stout, branched spines ...

Today in central Indiana I was startled to see Spring Cress with a single open flower right near the basal leaves. Remarkable! Photographed ...

Today in central Indiana I saw a few plants of Harbinger-of-Spring in flower on south and west facing slopes. Back in the late 1980's an...

Today on a wet talus slope above the Wabash River I saw Skunk Cabbage with spathes opening and tinged purple, and since they were abundan...

Lycopodium clavatum has an affinity for thinly wooded sandy acid flats in northern LaPorte County in Indiana. It is occasional in Porter an...