Wild Flowers

Last night my chapter of master naturalists had a meeting.  Dave, a former park ranger, spoke about winter wild flowers.  He talked about how some seeds are dispersed. Seeds with fleshy fruit around them, like rose hips, are usually eaten by birds or animals.  The seeds can tolerate the travel through the body of the bird or animal and are spread that way.  Other seeds are flung out by the force of the seed pod springing open in a sudden manner that throws the seeds out some distance.  Others float away like milkweed seeds.  He put up slides of wildflowers as they appear at this time of year and asked us to identify them.  I thought one was bergamot and I was right. I thought five other ones were also bergamot and they weren't. Without seeing the flower in color and location, these slides were difficult for all of us. We have two members in our group who are really talented at identifying wildflowers and neither one of them was there last night. I don't know a vetch from a aster from a Canada puccoon from a zig zag goldenrod.  What I can do is look at a plant and study a dichotomous key and figure it out.  Or ask somebody, I can do that too.