Field Guide To April | Vermont Center For Ecostudies

Wild for Wildflowers

By Kent McFarland

Spring seems to really “spring” at a slightly different time each year. Sometimes the peepers are calling in late March, other years they remain silent until late in the first week of Spring. The timing of signs of spring, like the blooming of wildflowers and the peeps of spring peepers, can depend on everything from latitude to microclimate. In recent years, a trend towards earlier springs is starting to take shape, and one of the best ways to track these changes is by paying attention to phenology.

Phenology, the study of the timing of natural events such as migration, flowering, leaf-out, or breeding, is key to examining and unraveling the effects of climate change on ecosystems. Assessing the overall trend towards earlier springs involves data collection all across Vermont and beyond. Luckily, this data collection can be as easy as photographing the wildflowers in your backyard! Using your camera or smartphone and the iNaturalist app or website, you can document the time and location of spring ephemeral wildflowers wherever you find them. With the help of the Vermont Atlas of Life on iNaturalist, you can even learn to identify species you haven’t seen before!

Spring ephemeral wildflowers are perennial woodland plants that sprout from the ground early each spring, quickly bloom, and seed before the canopy trees overhead leaf out. Once the forest floor is deep in shade, the leaves wither away leaving just the roots, rhizomes and bulbs underground. It allows them to take advantage of the full sunlight levels reaching the forest floor during early spring. Some spring ephemerals to be on the lookout for this April include Trout Lily, Red Trillium, Bloodroot, and Marsh Marigold.

Long-term flowering records initiated by Henry David Thoreau in 1852 have been used in Massachusetts to monitor phenological changes. Record-breaking spring temperatures in 2010 and 2012 resulted in the earliest flowering times in recorded history for dozens of spring-flowering plants of the eastern United States.

Help Monitor Wildflower Phenology

We have the opportunity to start long-term monitoring across Vermont. Find a plot to monitor in a nearby forest or simply record the status of spring wildflowers you find. You can enter your observations on our site at the Vermont Atlas of Life on Naturalist. Please include a photograph(s) of the plant and select from ‘Flowering’, ‘Fruiting’, or ‘Budding’ in the plant phenology section each observation.