Let's say you're out walking in the woods in May and you see a plant with bright yellow flowers with leaves that are lance shaped at the base, green in color with purple stripes throughout. There are a lot of these around you. What is this plant?

Well, you sit down beside the plant and start studying it and you notice that it is anywhere from 4 to 12 inches tall. The stem is slender and there are two leaves that are from 2 to 3 inches long and about 1 inch wide. They are opposite from each other.

The flower is lily-like; about an inch across and bright yellow, with 6 petals that curve back (reflexed). The flowers are also nodding (bent downward). The flowers are also purple blotched on the outside of the petals. As you continue to look and the day turns to evening, they close up for the night.

The area that you're in is moist and wooded and the light is filtered.

You also see many, many single leaves protruding from the forest floor that are the same as the ones that have two leaves and flowers on them and realize that these must be younger plants.

Close by you see a plant that you recognize as Cut-Leaved Toothwort; but what is this one? So how do you find out what this plant is?

There are many ways to find the identity of the plants you see in the wild. Many people just try to remember what the flower looks like then flip through illustrated guides and look at the pictures for a match. This is tedious but it can work well for very distinct, showy plants. Others take field guides into the field. The technique sounds appropriate but I find that one can spend hours on a single plant and then often not positively identify it. Making some notes and a quick sketch takes only a few moments. Then one can move on to find other flowers and take back a permanent record of the plants to use later to identify them. Bringing home notes and then reviewing them with reference books in hand is a great way to prolong the enjoyment of an outdoor experience and it gives you unlimited time to make an identification.

Very localized plants may not appear in general guides. I have had plants in my notes for years before discovering their identity. Who knows, you may find an unknown species or a rare variant. That is a good reason to include the exact date, time, habitat and location in your notes. Remember that many plants are only above ground for a brief period and some only bloom at a certain time of day or for only a few days.

First - we need to make sure that we remember what it looks like. You can dig one up (only if there are a lot there); You can photograph it; You can draw it and write down the description of the plant; or you can look at all parts of the plant so that you can get a good identification. Also, learn what each part is called.

Then, we can look it up in a good field guide. Try:

1) Peterson's Field Guide to Wildflowers: Northeastern and North Central North America.

2) Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. (This one is very good and simple at identifying flowering plants)

3) A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America.

4) Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants.

5) National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers.

If you don’t have or can’t find a field guide, find someone in your area that is knowledgeable on wild flowers, like a Garden club, Naturalist, Botanist from a local college, or State Department of Natural Resources personnel. You could also Search the internet for sites on plant identification.

To make identification easier, learn to key out a plant.

This is the plant you found. Check next month to find out what it is.

By the way this plant has the following characteristics according to the key chart at http://2bnthewild.com/phvsixsc.htm:

1) Yellow flowers with

2) 6 Regular Parts

3) Basal Leaves Only

4) Entire