WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Spring woodland flowers

This is a fabulous time of year in the woods, it's bright in the woods, the leaves aren't out yet, you can see so many things! Naturalist Bridget Butler shows us the spring woodland wildflowers are beginning to pop out!

"We're right in that peak of these wildflowers that won't be around too long, because once the leaves come out on the trees, these guys will be gone."

"What are the little yellow ones?"

"Ah, the yellow ones! This is one that you can expect pretty early, as early as March. This is trout lily, or you could call it trout belly. If you look at the leaves, they kind of look like the speckled bellies of trout, so those are two of the common names for this flower. Beautiful yellow petals, six of them, and two leaves at the base of the flower."

"There are also a couple of different kinds of kind of cute little pinkish, whitish ones."

"Yes, and again, you want to look at the leaves to kind of help you figure out what that flower is. So we're looking at multiple, rounded petals on these two species. One is hepatica, and hepatica is a really quick blooming one, and it has these beautiful leaves that are lobed in threes.

The other one is spring beauty, and this one has, and you've got to get down on your hands and knees for this one, and look inside the flower, because it's got little pink stripes, and it has two narrow leaves at the base."

"Gorgeous! Now the trillium aren't quite out just yet, they are a little bit later, right?"

"Right, so you're still seeing the kind of pod for the flower, but they're going to open soon, and they'll last through June."

"And you know them, because of the three leaves."

"right. It's all in threes. There's three leaves, three petals..."

"Hence the name! ha ha!"

"There you go! Trillium!"

"And this is just the beginning of the season, so you've got time now to go out and in the next few weeks, it's really going to be the height of the season."

"You do! And each week, it's going to change a little, so you'll be surprised with new things, each time you go out!"