From the Field: Virginia Saxifrage

It seems like every spring I need to remind myself how to identify a wealth of small flowering plants. At least some identifying features of large trees and shrubs are appreciable year round and consequently, their identities tend to stick a bit better. It’s the small guys who flower for short windows that always seem to throw me for a loop. One such species is the Virginia Saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis). I’ve definitely seen this species before, but recently I ran into it and quickly turned to my old pal iNaturalist to help reveal it’s identity (which is a sequence of events that occurs more often than I’d like to admit). This blurb you’re reading is little more than an attempt to 1) share a photo of this really cool native plant, and 2) help build a stronger network of memories associated with this species so as to decrease the probability that I’ll be stumped by it again the same time next year.

We’ll see how effective this turns out to be. Thanks for reading.

- S.Harris