Our first class field trip, led by Karyn Molines, was much more fruitful. We looked at more than twenty species, and keyed out most of them, as lots was in flower.
After a look around the C-1 parking lot, with a warm-up with the inevitable Garlic Mustard, we started down the hill through a patch of Cut-leaved Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata). The Bloodroots were done blooming, but we were able to key a single fallen flower. Both Dicentra species were to be found, large drifts of Dutchman’s Breeches (D. cucullaria) and a little bit of Squirrel Corn (D. canadensis).
Near the bottom, along the river, most of the abundant Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) was not yet in flower, but we found a few blooms.
The crowd-pleaser for a walk at this time of the year is the patches of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)—curiously, one of the few species with a common name in the plural. We found them in several places along the river trail.