all in the (mint) family

my husband and i have been having so much fun finding all the wild native wildflowers on our land this year. during covid, i used some of the down time to start clearing our land of overgrown invasives  (primarily buckthorn, thatches of rouge raspberry canes, and garlic mustard).  freeing up the understory has now let enough sunshine through to nourish a whole host of native plants we didn’t know was here. today alone we made five new discoveries: this obedient plant, turtlehead, ditch stonecrop, yellow nodding bur-marigolds, and ink cap mushrooms. yowza. all these plants had been there all along competing for sunshine under the thick cover of buckthorn. there is a metaphor here for us humans. what is our buckthorn? cellphones? social media? the news media?  it makes one wonder.

obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana)