FIREWEED AND BLACK EYED SUSAN ARE BLOOMING

FIREWEED GROWING ALONG HWY. 13...

...FLOWER SPIKES

BLACK  EYED SUSANS ALONG HWY. J...

...DAISY-LIKE COMPOSITE FLOWERS

Monday,  8:30 AM.  64 degrees F, wind WNW, calm with occasional light gusts.  The sky is overcast and it is raining pretty steadily, with about a third of an inch of rain fallen so far.  The humidity is 94% and the barometer is beginning to trend upward, now at 29.96%.  We really need this rain, so much so that I don't mind the smell of a wet dog.
   Fireweed, Epilobium angustifoliun, is very prevalent in roadside ditches and other wet areas throughout the northland.  There are numerous varieties of the plant and a number of other species, and it is one of those genera that takes a specialist to sort out.  Suffice it to say it is a beautiful wild perennial plant, often prevalent in burned over areas. The maturing flowering stems bear ripe seeds and flowers at the same time, as do other plants in the evening primrose family, the Onagraceae. Some medicinal uses for dermatological and gastrointestinal ailments by Native Americans are reported in the literature.
   Black eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, in the Compositae family, are blooming along the roadsides here and there.  They are a biennial or weak perennial, sometimes escaped from cultivation but also native throughout Wisconsin.
  Political aside: I often wonder what planet the news media reside upon.  They keep reporting on our aircraft bombing ISIS militant trucks and guns in Iraq.  They are our trucks and guns, left on the battlefield by the partially trained and totally inept Iraqi army, which our feckless president has abandoned to their fate.  The news media and the Obama administration celebrate blowing up our own expensive modern equipment.  What  total totally inept fools we have become.