See those tall white flower spikes behind Wendigo? Those are yucca blossoms. When I think of yucca plants I envision the southwest, or my grandma's yard in Kentucky. We were careful when playing freeze tag to avoid the yucca patch by the clothes line.
There were a few of these spiky plants here when we moved in, and they are spreading. The flower stalks are huge, and pretty. I read on Wikipedia that people in the Appalachians called yucca the meat hanging plant, because the fibers from the leaves are so strong they could be used to hang meat in the smoke house.
The flowers don't have a very strong fragrance.
As Brandon expands his mowing area, the yucca are being released from the weeds that have surrounded them, so Wendigo and I can get close to admire the blooms.
Look what grows in the grass near the yucca plants - poison ivy! Can you see the leaflets of three?
"Leaves of three, let them be." The leaves also have a "mitten" shape or a "thumb". Poison ivy can be tricky to identify because it can be a tiny plant hidden in the grass, like this, or a long vine growing on a tree, or a tall woody looking shrub and vine, that can brush against your face as you walk. When it doesn't have leaves, I can identify it by the naked end bud - the last bud on the end of the branch or vine doesn't have scales, and looks fuzzy.
See the tiny new leaf that is growing from this poison ivy plant? It's red in color. I notice that poison ivy often has a reddish stem, new red leaves, and a bit of red at the bottom of each leaflet. It took years of me pointing out poison ivy plants before Brandon learned to identify it. I forget that not everyone looks at each leaf in the world and wonders what kind it is. What does the world look like through the eyes of someone who doesn't notice the shape of individual plant leaves? Is it all just a green tangle?
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