If summer’s heat “hammers” you as it does me, we might want to change our nature observing treks. Our semirural areas of the Times News region have hundreds of miles secondary roads. These rural roads traverse through farm fields, meadows, forests, wetlands and mountainsides. The shoulders of these routes in July sport a variety of colors. They are nature’s presentation of a wonderful variety of species reaching their summer blooming peaks.

While you are driving you can easily identify some of the most common bloomers without really taking your eyes off the road. Early to mid-July offers some of the showiest wildflowers, and this may be the best time to see them. Shortly, the shoulders will be mowed, or worse, possibly sprayed with herbicides, dulling our shoulders until fall offers a new group of “bloomers.”

Probably the showiest of these flowers are the garden escapees, the orange day lilies. Sometimes the guide rails are smothered in these beautiful blooms for 20, 30, 40 feet or more. As you read this column they may be just past their prime. But, soon following the day lilies, look for patches of black-eyed Susans beginning to bloom in late July. A number of Mahoning Valley roads are good places to enjoy their beauty.

Not as showy, but present from July through fall is a common flower, chicory. Its light blue flowers alternate on the tough green stem. Not as large as either the lilies or “ Susans” they seem to be everywhere along the roads. They often re-sprout after mowing and help brighten a mowed shoulder. (Chicory can occasionally produce a white flower as well)

Some common white flowers large enough to be distinguished clearly are Queen Anne’s lace and yarrow. Queen Anne’s lace (also called the wild carrot) has a flat umbel supported by a single stalk. Yarrow, with featherlike leaves, also has a flower head of small white flowers, but they are supported by a number of flower stalks. (These, of course, can’t be distinguished as you drive, but they both grow 2 to 3 feet and add variety to nature’s show.)

A flowering, and unfortunately less common shrub today, is the common elder. The elder has a flower head similar to the “wild carrot” and is blooming though much of July. The elder berries ripening later were favorite fruits for many of our farmer ancestors in making elderberry jelly and wine. Elders were once common in fence rows between fields and they still are “holding on” along roadways not sprayed.

If a “back road” is close by, take advantage of your social distancing morning walks and look for these yellow, white and blue beauties to help brighten your day.

Test Your Knowledge: True or false, Queen Anne’s lace has one single purple floret in the flower center.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: It is true that entomologists, in order to prove to where the monarchs migrated, devised an extremely lightweight “tag” to help them locate them in Mexico.

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.