The Forest Floor
When woodland flowers come to mind, one usually thinks daffodils and crocuses, but the true forest blooms are smaller, wilder and more subdued, and grow in mass to paint the forest floor in large blocks of color.
They usually come in white, yellow or purple, as these are the most common colors for wild flowers, and their names are unfamiliar.
The small and delicate bluets, spring beauties, lesser celandines, mayapples, toothwort, trillium, bloodroot and Jack-in-the-pulpits create lacy flower carpets in the shade of trees, which you must get close to in order to enjoy fully.
Most woodland flowers bloom in spring before the trees leaf out; the forest ecosystem functions symbiotically, and its components come back to life in reverse order of their size, beginning with the forest floor.
The early spring forest is a vibrant array of colors, from the cheerful yellow of buttercups to the chartreuse of birch aments and the pink canopies of redbuds.
Everything changes to dark green when the large trees leaf out.
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