Kalmia

Kalmia is a species of about 7 species of evergreen bushes from 0.2-5 m tall, in the family Ericaceae. They are inhabitant to North America and Cuba. Kalmia is named after the Finnish botanist Pehr Kalm, who unruffled it in eastern North America.

The leaves are 2-12 cm long, simple lanceolate, and prearranged spirally on the stems. The flowers are white, pink or purple, in corymbs of 10-50, suggestive of Rhododendron flowers but compliment, with a star-like calyx of five conjoined petals; each flower is 1-3 cm diameter. The fruit is a five-lobed container, which splits to release the plenteous small seeds.

Kalmia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some lepidopteran species including Coleophora kalmiella which feeds completely on Kalmia.

Cherokee Rose

Cherokee Rose is a rose resident to southern China and Taiwan south to Laos and Vietnam. It is an evergreen climbing plant, scrambling over other shrubs and small trees to heights of up to 5-10 m. The leaves are 3-10 cm long, with typically three leaflets, sometimes five leaflets, bright silky green and glabrous. The flowers are 6-10 cm diameter, scented, with pure white petals and yellow stamens, and are followed by bright red and stubbly hips 2-4 cm diameter. The flower stem is also very unkempt.

The species was introduced to the southeastern United States in about 1780, where it soon became naturalized, and where it gained its English name. It is the state flower of Georgia. The flower is evermore linked to the Trail of Tears and its petals symbolize the women's tears shed during the period of great poverty and grief throughout the historical trek from the Cherokees' home to U.S. Forts such as Gilmer among others. The flower has a gold center, symbolizing the gold full from the Cherokee clan.

California Poppy

The California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is indigenous to verdant and open areas from sea level to 2,000m (6,500 feet) elevation in the western United States throughout California, extending to Oregon, southern Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and in Mexico in Sonora and northwest Baja California.

It can grow 5–60 cm high, with alternately branching glaucous blue-green plants. The leaves are ternately divided into round, lobed segments. The flowers are introverted on long stems, silky-textured, with four petals, each petal 2-6 cm long and broad; their color ranges from yellow to orange, and flowering is from February to September. The fruit is a slender dehiscent capsule 3-9 cm long, which splits in two to release the plentiful small black or dark brown seeds. It is perpetual in mild parts of its native range, and annual in colder climates; growth is best in full sun and sandy, well-drained, poor loam.

An excellent color inflection to any wildflower planting. The state flower of California. Blooms close each night at sunset or on dull days. The delicately divided foliage is bluish-green in color making classification easy prior to flowering

Sunflower

The sunflower is an annual plant native to the Americas in the family Asteraceae, with a large flowering head. The stalk of the flower can breed as high as 3 metres tall, with the flower head reaching up to 30 cm in length with the "large" seeds. The term "sunflower" is also used to refer to all plants of the genus Helianthus, many of which are permanent plants.

What is typically called the flower is actually a head of many flowers (florets) crowded together. The outer flowers are the ray florets and can be yellow, maroon, orange, or other colors, and are disinfected. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets. The disc florets adult into what are conventionally called "sunflower seeds", but are actually the fruit (an achene) of the plant. The true seeds are encased in an unpalatable husk.

The florets within this cluster are arranged spirally. Typically each floret is oriented toward the next by roughly the golden angle, producing a pattern of interconnecting spirals where the number of left spirals and the number of right spirals are succeeding Fibonacci numbers. Typically, there are 34 spirals in 1 direction and 55 in the other; on a very large sunflower you may see 89 in one direction and 144 in the other.

Daffodil

Daffodil - Beautiful spherical flowers of mountain and alpine pastures, plains, or woods, thriving worthily in most parts of our island; if anywhere, better in the cooler northern parts and in Ireland, though excellent in cool soils in the south. They are to the spring what Roses, Irises, and Lilies are to summer, what Sunflowers and Chrysanthemums are to autumn, and what Hellebores and Aconite are to winter. No good garden should be without the best of the lovely varieties now known. Narcissi vary so much in form, size, color, and in time of flowering, that a most gorgeous spring garden could be made with them alone; provided one had appropriate earth, and a background of fresh turf, shrubs, and trees. The best of the commoner kinds should be planted by the thousand, and, indeed, in many cases this has been done with the best results. On verdant banks, on turfy bosses near the roots of lawn-trees, or in meadows near the house, their effect is wonderful. All the best Narcissi, and virtually all the forms of the yellow and the bicolor Daffodils, may be planted in June, July, or August, in three ways-in the lawn or field, in the beds and borders of the garden, or in 6 or 8-inch pots. Five bulbs should be planted in a pot and covered over with coal-ashes or sand until January, when they may be placed in a sunny frame, pit, or greenhouse, or even in a sunshiny window, and a crop of flowers can be secured earlier than on the open ground.