Phenology Friday: Northern Starflower
Happy Phenology Friday! I hope you have been enjoying the sunshine, heat, and an abundance of blooms. This week we are featuring the northern starflower (Lysimachia borealis) as this has been a recent addition to our target species list.
You can find this flower peering at you through the woody understories from late May to early June. As its name suggests, the flowers shine bright white from the forest floor, cupped by an arrangement of whorled or alternately arranged leaves. Northern starflower is proven to be a bioindicator of climate change as some scientists have used herbarium records to track its earlier flowering times with warming temperatures in the Midwest (Dangremond et al. 2022).
Photos: Whorled leaves of northern starflower and a plant with flowers (credit: @youngmaleturkey)
Be careful not to confuse the northern starflower with the similarly appearing cucumber root (Medeola virginiana), which has a similar whorled base but also includes a second tier from which flowers emerge. Of course, if you observe cucumber root you should still add your observation to our growing project!
Photo: Cucumber root with buds
Happy observing!
Sources and further reading:
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/starflower
Dangremond, E.M., Hill, C.H., Louaibi, S. et al. Phenological responsiveness and fecundity decline near the southern range limit of Trientalis borealis (Primulaceae). Plant Ecol 223, 41–52 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-021-01190-w
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