These tropical garden escapes seem to love the Pittsburgh climate. They can cover whole hillsides or fences with twining vines that produce heart-shaped leaves, or sometimes three-lobed grape-like leaves when they really get large and vigorous. The flowers close by noon, giving us one of our best incentives for early rising.
-
-
Tall Ironweed (Vernonia altissima)
No photograph can convey the vivid purple color of ironweed, one of our most spectacular late-summer flowers. A field of ironweed and goldenrod is a sight not easily forgotten. Two species are common in our area; Tall Ironweed is, as its name implies, taller than New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), but otherwise very similar.
-
Crown Vetch (Securigera varia)
Wherever there are hillsides that no one wants to mow, there is crown vetch. Its cheerful vigor means that it often escapes and invades a hillside on its own, but its happy clover-like pink flower heads make us willing to forgive its bad manners.
-
Common Nightshade (Solanum nigrum)
This common and poisonous little member of the tomato family grows in vacant lots, at the edge of the sidewalk, and anywhere else it can gain a foothold. Up close, the little white flowers with bright yellow centers are cheerful and pretty.
-
Bugleweed (Lycopus virginicus)
Bugleweed is common at the edges of ponds, often dangling over the water. Here we see it framed by the clouds reflected in a pond in the Allegheny Cemetery in Lawrenceville.