Eli's Native Plants
LightNews LightNews
banner
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Eli's Native Plants
@elisnativeplants.bsky.social
660 followers 710 following 630 posts
Trying to stop the 6th global extinction event. Encouraging others to garden for wildlife and for themselves, to identify plants, and forage, and improve their connection to the wild world.
Posts Replies Media Videos
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Joining the Ash Graveyard.

A brittle White Ash (Fraxinus americana) that shattered in the wind shattered again as it hit the trail. I cleared the debris from the tail, in #BoxboroughMA, in Beaver Brook Meadow / Steele Farm, but there is some chainsaw work needed.
Fragments from where the trunk shattered into three pieces, the standing stump, and two standing ash snags to its left Ash stump and Ash snag neighbors, with all the small branches missing Trunk and pieces cleared from the train. Lichens and mushrooms are still colonizing this snag, but they'll probably cycle to different decomposers now that it's down Cleared trail
December 20, 2025 at 7:18 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Hey #BoxboroughMA, Beaver Brook Meadow / Steele Farm has tree lines completely given over to Asiatic Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus). It spreads from the highway (I495) and destroys advancing forest and edges faster than overpopulated deer, then works that edge back.

#invasivespecies #parks
A forest above a yellow dry meadow edge. Sparse dead trees with amputated limbs are heavily draiped with Asiatic Bittersweet, festooned with bright red berries. Denser, older, intact forest fills in around a hundred yards back. An Eastern Red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana) standing in the wind between the horse pasture and meadow. This Juniper seems bent on sticking little plooms of branch tips out through feet thick of nested Asiatic Bittersweet tangled around the trunk. A good strategy against a foe who uses girdling to top its host. A dead ash tree (likely Fraxinus americana) with the last few thick limbs carrying a massive load of bittersweet vibes hanging down like a skirt An ascending gradient from field through shrub with bright red Asiatic Bittersweet berries on vines covering the shrubs entirely, to a large Juniper (Eastern Red-cedar probably) losing the battle to Bittersweet over 50 feet up.
December 20, 2025 at 6:46 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Check out who voted yes to strip searching immigrant children (H.R. 4371). The pedophile party all voted yes, of course, but 7 Democrats joined them, including representatives from CA, ME, NC, NY, TX, and WA. Traitors.

#immigrantsrights #humanrights #pedophiles

www.govtrack.us/congress/vot...
H.R. 4371: To amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection … -- House Vote #340 -- Dec. 16, 2025
House Vote #340 in 2025, in the United States Congress.
www.govtrack.us
December 17, 2025 at 2:02 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Marcescence:
The leaves that intend to #fall have fallen. Some trees, like White and Red oak, retain leaves throughout the winter, especially when they are young. Is it to protect buds from frost or deer? To shelter the soil? It seems that we have more to learn.

#nativeplants #ecoregion59
A White Oak (Quercus alba) seedling at the forest's edge, retaining seemingly every leaf it made this year. They are a lovely rusty red on top, with pale undersides. The small White Oak, retaining all of its leaves, next to a taller sapling Red Oak (Q. rubra) which is retaining the lower leaves on the side of the clearing. Red Oak leaves are brown in the winter, and White Oak leaves are red. The Speckled Alders (Alnus incana) behind them have attractive cones that were hard to capture, but nary a leaf about them.
November 25, 2025 at 2:01 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
We got our first Aronia berries this year. I learned that each Common Milkweed seed pod comes from one of the 120-200 flowers in an inflorescence. Our lonely northern mallow species, Hibiscus moscheutos proliferated, as did H. sawflies, Elderberry sawflies, and birds. #nativeplants
#ecoregion59
Our first aronia berries, plump and black on waxy, ovate, lightly toothed leaves. They will stain your fingers, even if you don't crush them. Rosemallow buds, clustered at the tip of a stem with whorled leaves densely filling in behind. The sawflies were on the lower leaves, and were soon found by finches when they put holes in upper leaves. Elderberry sawfly on an elderberry cutting I took last year. The cuttings were fine, and all Elderberries were as well. The finches hunted sawflies as they waited for the elderberries to bloom. Nature provides balance when given the chance.
November 22, 2025 at 3:37 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Our house will be listed today. I'm going to miss the gardens that I poured my heart and soul into for the past three years. I will definitely consider who will keep the birds and the bees safe and fed when considering offers.

#nativeplants #ecoregion59 #actonMA #houseforsale
Hibiscus blooming by the path along the walkway, with sedges, Cardinal Flowers, Echinacea, and Jerusalem Artichokes in the background. Along the steeply sloping driveway is the main pollinator garden and budding food forest. Swamp Milkweed, Bee Balm, Little and Big Bluestem and young Jerusalem Artichokes are growing up in front of the Canadian Elderberry and Pokeweed Eastern Prickly Pear cactus with yellow flowers, over a loose rock retaining wall by the driveway A full view of the gardens and Sugar Maple in front, with Bee Balm blooming. This is last year, before the Elderberries were so large.
November 19, 2025 at 2:11 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
This group is taking real action to end corruption in our political system. They are a nonprofit getting anti-corruption measures around campaign finance and lobbying on ballots state-by-state. Please check out their website, sign the petition for ballot measures and share.
represent.us RepresentUs @represent.us · Oct 23
Trump’s not fighting corruption. He’s perfecting it. Enough is enough. It’s time to say no to cartel politics. Take action NOW! represent.us/cartelpolitics
Trump’s Not Fighting Corruption. He’s Perfecting It.
What’s happening in Washington isn’t democracy. It’s cartel politics.
represent.us
November 12, 2025 at 12:44 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Witchhazel is blooming! Hamamelis virginiana is easy to miss. Look up and you might look right past these arching understory trees, but look closely and you may be rewarded with our latest bloom of the fall.

#nativeplants #forests #newengland #ecoregion59 #bloomscrolling #flowers #trees
A yellow bloom on a Witchhazel twig, with long, thin, crumpled petals Looking up through leafless attaching Witchhazel trees at a large oak in the overstory
November 5, 2025 at 5:03 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Oaks are in full fall regalia, here in Acton, MA. They took their time, then changed fast over this rainy Tuesday-Wednesday. They are just in time to join the maples and birches before the maples go bare. Look at the colors on these three saplings!

#quercus #nativeplants #ecoregion59 #fall
Starting from the left, the pale-leaved oak is a Swamp White Oak, (Quercus rubra). Front and center is a Northern Red Oak (Quercus bicolor), with mottled red-yellow leaves. Behind the Red Oak, to the right, with deep red leaves is a Black Oak (Quercus velutina).
October 23, 2025 at 2:35 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
First frost here in Middlesex Cty, MA. This is probably the end of the Touch-me-nots and Tomatoes. The Calendula may pull through. Our lovely sugar maple will probably drop its bright orange leaves quickly now.

#nativeplants #fall #firstfrost #ecoregiin59 #frost
Wild Strawberries (Fragaria virginiana), still green, showing off their frost rimed hairs Touch-me-nots (Impatiens capensis) with leaves curled and hardened with a thick frost. The little orange flowers are frosted too. Raised beds with Calendula (C. officinalis), Tomatoes and Woolly Beans (Strophostyles helvola). The Calendula has scrunched up its yellow-orange flowers and seems to have resisted frosting over like the other plants Our sugar maple, bright orange, standing at the bottom of our property (the low point of the SW slope, by the road), and holding onto the majority of its leaves, though it dropped a third after the rain on Tuesday.
October 10, 2025 at 11:49 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Wouldn't it be cool to scroll your local ecosystem - seasonal #nativeplants info? I started #ecoregion59 with @jp0610.bsky.social so you can see at least our perspectives on the Northeastern Coastal Zone.

Find your ecoregion:
bplant.org/ecoregion_lo...

Ecoregion 59:
archive.epa.gov/esd/archive-...
Ecoregion Locator
Pin a point on a map and find which ecoregions it is in.
bplant.org
October 8, 2025 at 2:26 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
It's Aster season! American asters (genus Symphyotrichum) are diverse and ubiquitous. Take a closer look and I bet you'll find some new-to-you species you've been walking by. My favorite Disney quote: "Look harder" -Rafiki

#nativeplants #bloomscrolling #fallflowers #ecoregion59
Aromatic asters (S. oblongifolium) look like New England Aster from afar, but have less pink in the blooms (they are lavender), and smell like balsam when you crush the foliage. They have oblong leaves, as suggested by the Latin name, and the foliage makes patterns that are very distinct from other asters. Frost Aster (S. pilosum) have tiny hairs all over then, that makes the foliage look frosted. They are prolific bloomers that handle dry sites in old fields very well. Ours are dripping with bees, bumble, honey, and Halictid Heart-leaved Aster (S. cordifolium) line woods edges, look skinny and small throughout spring and summer, then fill out to bloom profusely in the fall. These plants by the woods in our habitat are shimmering with bees and wasps, with half the flowers shaking from a recent landing or departure
October 8, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Eli's Native Plants
tomjoscelyn.bsky.social
After the Trump regime’s invasion of an apartment building in Chicago earlier this week, all Americans should brush up on their 4th Amendment rights.
October 4, 2025 at 10:57 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Some Purplestem Asters volunteered? I probably dropped seed uphill, and they wound up right by the road. I'll move them somewhere with moist soil where they won't block the view of incoming traffic, but I couldn't bring myself to move them in the growing season.

#nativeplants #ecoregion59
Purplestem Aster (Symphyotrichum punicium) flowers with lavender petals (ray florets) and disc florets that are bright yellow when unpollinated and rusty red when pollinated. Purplestem Aster fliwering in front of the retaining wall 4' from the curb in our front yard.
October 3, 2025 at 12:17 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
In the lower courts, should I say 'the people's courts?' the Republican-appointed judges as well as the Democrat-appointed ones are upholding limits on executive power and protecting the constitution. Our supreme court is, however, supremely corrupt.
mikesacks.bsky.social Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · Sep 27
This rules - @raskin.house.gov straight up called out Roberts to his face.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center...
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin Prepared Remarks for the Judicial Conference September 16, 2025 Thank you, Chief Justice Roberts, for the invitation. Forgive my directness here but the times are serious, as you know, our time is short. I have just five minutes and don't want to trespass on Senator Cruz's time. Sometimes these days I feel as if all the foundational principles are being trampled and lost. Often, I hear my colleagues in the House, and these are fellow Democrats, get up to protest some Executive usurpation of legislative power and they begin their lament with the plaintive cry, "We are a coequal branch of government..." And I always feel they have lost the argument right there just by repeating that fifth-grade dogma. First of all, co-equal is not even a word. It's an embarrassing redundancy like "very unique" or "irregardless. " But there's a reason all legislative power is vested in the Congress and there's a reason it's in Article I. The Founders had a revolution against monarchy and its constant assaults on liberty. In America, the Framers determined, only the representatives of the people would have power to declare wars, pass budgets, impose taxes and tariffs, and so on. Article lis pages and pages of all the powers vested in Congress. Then you get to Article Il, which is tiny. The key paragraph says a president shall be removed from office upon impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. If we are co-equal, why do we have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and permanently disqualify the president and he doesn't have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and disqualify us? The core job of the president is plain: "To Take care that the laws are faithfully executed." That's it. Not abused, not thwarted, not impounded, not redirected, but faithfully executed. A lot of the cases entering the federal courts are variations on this theme. Here's the remarkable thing: Americans have brought over 300 cases in federal district courts against the Administration so far for usurping legislative powers, defying federal laws, or violating the rights of the people. This summer, researchers found that plaintiffs were winning an astonishing 77% of the cases in the district courts. Moreover, they found that President Trump was losing about equally before Republican-appointed judges (72%) and Democratic-appointed judges (80%). The numbers in the federal circuit courts of appeal are similar, with plaintiffs against the Administration winning overwhelmingly and again without a sharp partisan valence to the appeals courts' voting. A good example is the birthright citizenship case where four district court judges, two appointed by Republican presidents and two appointed by Democratic presidents, all struck down the President's purported negation of birthright citizenship. Then, on appeal, three circuit courts again all ruled against the Administration. But everything is flipped when the cases come to the Supreme Court.
September 28, 2025 at 1:38 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
What could be more wonderful than a tiny capsule that is ready to create life if left in the right place? I love seeds. Here are some that I'm particularly excited about. My favorite right now is American Hog-peanut, partially because I love a native legume.

#nativeplants #ecoregion59 #seedsaving
A wooden bowl with a tree print and an assortment of native seeds. Starting with the top and going sunwise, there are Wild Cucumbers (Echinocystis lobata), American Hog-peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata), Partridge Peas (Chaemaecrista fasciculata), Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana), American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), and Wooly Beans (Strophostyles helvola). A close up of American Hog-peanut seeds and pods. Each pod has 3 seeds. American Hog-peanut in the wild: a thin, twining vine with sets of 3 leaves. It grows it wet areas and climbs all over everything, but usually isn't dense enough to choke anything else out where I find it.
September 27, 2025 at 8:57 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
If we want to prevent the precipitous slide into authoritarianism that degrades all the values that made this country great, we need to flip seats in this midterm election. If we want to make the United States decent again,
we need to win overwhelming.

secure.actblue.com/donate/erra-...
Donate to Yes on 50 – the Election Rigging Response Act
If Californians don’t act now, Donald Trump will seize total power for two more years.
secure.actblue.com
September 25, 2025 at 1:50 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Sharp-toothed Nodding-aster (Oclemena acuminata), can be one whorl of leaves, and an inflorescence. Images and descriptions typically show it taller, with leaves spread along a stem.

gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/ocle...

#nativeplants #ecoregion59.
A Sharp-toothed Nodding-aster with a single whorl of lanceolate, toothy leaves and a spray of 7 compound flowers with a pink center and white ray florets around the edge Two Sharp-toothed Nodding-asters with single whorls of leaves below their inflorescences.
September 21, 2025 at 3:12 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
This is a true champion of democracy and freedom, fighting for the rights and the freedoms of the downtrodden, pushing through pain and abuse to do what is right. A real hero.
iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · Sep 20
A woman protesting outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, was brutally assaulted by goons who used mace and sting balls on her.
September 20, 2025 at 1:56 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Yarrow is a great filler for a garden bed, a native host and nectar plant. But did you know that many Roman soldiers carried it to stop their bleeding? Instant stopped a welling cut on my finger just now. It is antibacterial and speeds wound healing.

#yarrow #herbalism #nativeplants #gardening
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) powder and a just-stopped cut on my index finger Yarrow with Hibiscus shoots and Nimblewill near the end of spring. Yarrow blooms are white and fresh Hibiscus in full bloom in August, Yarrow leafing out more as the blooms fade Yarrow spilling out over the patch, and the Hibiscus putting out its last blooms of the year, in mid September. Also, Ezra, our Ausidoodle
September 17, 2025 at 12:03 AM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Put your Pawpaws on the North side of your garden beds, with taller plants. Young pawpaws need shade. A fully-grown pawpaw produces best in full sun. This accomplishes both, and lets them grow without relocation and damage to their big taproot.

#nativeplants #foodforest #ecoregion59
A little pawpaw (Asimina triloba) tree with large lanceolate leaves, at the North end of a bed of yarrow and native Hibiscus. A Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) on the North side of some taller Cardinal Flowers (Lobelia cardinalis), Grass-leaved Goldenrod (Eurybia divericata), and Blunt Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), surrounded by a groundcover of Wild Strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) A little Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) surrounded by tall Rough-leaved Goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) and a shorter, dense patch of Licorice Goldenrod (Solidago odora)
September 15, 2025 at 12:40 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Goldenrods are powerhouse plants. First, edible shoots for humans and deer in the spring. Next, a host for more species of caterpillar than any other North American genus of herbs. Then, as an incredible pollinator plant, as you see here. Finally for the finches who feast on seeds.

#nativeplants
September 11, 2025 at 10:12 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Angel-winged Katydid (genus Microcentrum, sp?) on our Common Evening Primrose. I was thrilled and curious, and the poor thing tolerated my many photographs, then flew over and landed on my shirt. Whoops!

#nativeplants #insects #ecoregion59
A close up of a Katydid with large leaf-like wings, on a leaf.
September 10, 2025 at 9:58 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
This Calico Paint Caterpillar would like to remind you that Solidago (goldenrods) are powerhouse herbs for lepidopterans, hosting more butterfly and moth caterpillars than any other. The bumblebees, Halictid bees and an array of wasps visit every day for nectar now. Birds will feast on seeds soon.
Calico Paint Caterpillar, larva of the Brown Hooded Owlet, Cucullia convexipennis, eating Solidago rugosa buds, fall 2024 Solidago odora, Licorice Goldenrod, blooming in profusion at between 2 and 3 feet tall, supported from flopping by baking twine Solidago odora flowers
September 7, 2025 at 12:12 PM
elisnativeplants.bsky.social
Closed Bottle Gentians (Gentiana clausa) have slits at the top. Only bumblebees are strong enough to break in to get the good stuff.

Please don't pick/dig them. This population in a popular park is down to one last individual, hiding under the alders.

#nativeplants #conservation #ecoregion59
A single stem of Gentiana clausa, with three flowers in a row. The flower are bud-shaped and closed at the top, though there are slits between the petals meet. Alder branches reach out toward a pond in the background. Clusters of alder trunks with a few young oaks by the edge of a pond
September 2, 2025 at 4:42 PM