Late Bloomers

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Top left is a milkweed. It is the prime food for the monarch butterfly. This weed/flower lines the roads on the ways to my favorite streams throughout southern Wisconsin.

Middle top is the infamous touch me not flower. Its pods explode and rain down seeds on the one that touched it. Most of my late season streams in the driftless are lined with these.

The right top is a wild bergamot. This flower was dried and used as in a paste for acne relief. They are a very late season arrival on clean pristine streams throughout Crawford county.

Bottom left is a lily that thrives on the Fox Bluff Creek in Richland County.

Bottom middle is a very rare poisonous flower located on Mill Creek in Richland county. It is called woody night shade.

Bottom right is an aster. This flower is a favorite place for butterflies to land upon. This flower resides in Crawford county on Crow Creek.

[Grn Mt Man]

Len,

The Touch Me Not is called Deadly Nightshade around here in Virginia. We use the fluid from breaking off the hollow stems as a cure for poison ivy. Squeeze the juice out of the stem and and rub it all over any poison ivy you have on your body and it usually will take care of the itch fairly soon and start drying up the ivy too. Our oldest son used to get it quite often and I'd go down to the banks of a little creek near where we live and pluck a bunch of stems for him. He said the itch stopped pretty quickly and the patches dried up in about three days if I remember correctly.