COREOPSIS ARE BLOOMING

FIELD OF COREOPSIS AND AN OLD  TRUCK AND WAGON...

...AN OLD HAY WAGON IN THE FIELD OF COREOPSIS...

LANCE-SHAPED LEAVES

COREOPSIS FLOWER

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  59 degrees F at the ferry dock, 58 on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm.  The sky is overcast and cloudy, the sun having given up trying to shine through.  The humidity is 77%, the barometer is falling rapidly, now at 29.67".  The forecast for the next ten days is for cool weather with highs in the 60's, mixed skies and chances of rain and thunderstorms.

   Tickseed, AKA lance-leaved coreopsis, Coreopsis lanceolata, in the Sunflower Family (Compositae) is a common early-summer blooming perennial wildflower endemic to Wisconsin, Michigan, and southern Ontario, and occurring generally throughout eastern North America and in the western mountains.   Its  ribbon-like leaves and bright golden blooms identify it easily.  The rather unsavory common name tickseed refers to the stick-tight seeds that  cling tenaciously  to clothing when ripe.  Coreopsis is easily distinguished from the coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, which have dark brown to black central  disks.

   Many of our dry, sandy fields and roadsides are now gloriously adorned with these bright golden-yellow flowers.  The field with the abandoned agricultural equipment pictured above is on County Hwy. J, which winds through the orchard country outside of Bayfield.
   Note: the Freckman Herbarium of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point considers this plant mostly a garden escapee in Wisconsin,  except in Door County; so, is it native or not? You decide.

   My  recorded blooming dates for Coreopsis lanceolata are: 7/03/15; 7/10/14; 7/11/13; 6/25/12; 7/05/11; 6/21/10; 6/30/08.  Those dates are pretty consistent, but always right after, or along with the last of, the lupines.