Here are a few more photographs of spring wildflowers, taken earlier this week in Cass County, Michigan. The first four images are hepatica. These beautiful (although small) flowers can be found in a range of colors - as you can see in the photos which vary from purple to pink to creamy white.

The last photo is Harbinger of Spring (Erigenia bulbosa) also known as Salt and Pepper. This flower vies with skunk cabbage as one of the earliest flowers to appear on the forest floor. Click on the images for larger files.

Hepatica and Harbinger of Spring are spring ephemerals - wildflowers that exploit the few weeks in spring when full sunlight reaches the forest floor. These plants emerge to soak up energy from the sun before the trees leaf out and the forest canopy shades the ground. Individual plants have just a few short weeks (or even days) to build up energy, store it in their root system, flower and seed, and then go dormant again until the next spring. Spring ephemerals emerge in certain sequences - some species appearing earlier than others.

The Heaptica is just getting started and still to come are Spring Beauty, Trout Lily, Trillium and many more. Check out the wildflower gallery for selected wildflower images from prior years. For blog posts about hunting wildflowers in southwest Michigan starting in 2006 - see the wildflower catergory.