NY Wildflowers Gallery

Photo of Grass Orchid
Orchidaceae. Native. Wetland margins, bogs. Throughout region. Napeague, Long Island, 2018.

Thank you for visiting my gallery of New York’s wildflowers. Most of the photos are my own, but I wish to thank Alex Roukis for his contribution, particularly of hard-to-find wetland wildflowers. He’s on Flickr, and his album of New York State plants can be accessed here. You can also visit my Flickr pages where you can browse my album of New York Wildflowers.

I’ve been photographing the wild plants I observe in the field for over a decade with the intention of keeping a record of sightings. Hopefully, this gallery will help you to identify a plant, as well as to appreciate the diversity and beauty of our wildflowers. This gallery is not intended as a comprehensive guide to all the wild flora of New York. Please see my New York Wild Flora page for a list of print and digital resources and guides.

Wildflowers include flowering vines, shrubs and small trees, and grasses. Plants are arranged by habitat, and within each habitat, by color group, and within each color group, alphabetically by family. Colors can vary, so check a similar color group. Also, some plants may appear in more than one habitat. I give the common name followed by the Latin name, using the nomenclature in The Catalogue of Vascular Plants of New York by David Werier (The Torrey Botanical Society, 2017), which is updated on the New York Flora Association Plant Atlas website. It’s an excellent resource for identifying wild flora, but its photo database is limited. For an excellent image database, I go to the website of the New England Wildflower Society. Even though their focus excludes New York, it’s a very useful resource.

Using print and online guides, I make every effort to accurately identify the plants, but it can be a tricky business. Different species of plants can look similar, they can hybridize, and they can evolve local variants or even subspecies. I welcome any corrections from you botanists out there. Just email me. Thanks!

–Betsy McCully, updated August 2023

Note: Click on the picture to view the caption and an enlarged image in Lightbox; mobile users click twice.

Wetland Wildflowers:

marshes, swamps, bogs, streams and ponds

Blue-violet wetland wildflowers

Pink-purple wetland wildflowers

Red-orange wetland wildflowers

Yellow wetland wildflowers

Green-brown wetland wildflowers

White wetland wildflowers

Coastal Wildflowers

Blueviolet coastal wildflowers

Pink coastal wildflowers

Redorange coastal wildflowers

Yellow coastal wildflowers

White coastal wildflowers

Browngreen coastal wildflowers

Grassland Wildflowers

Blue-violet grassland wildflowers

Pink-purple grassland wildflowers

Redorange grassland wildflowers

Yellow grassland wildflowers

Browngreen grassland wildflowers

White grassland wildflowers

Woodland Wildflowers

Blue woodland wildflowers

Pink woodland wildflowers

Red-orange woodland wildflowers

Yellow woodland wildflowers

White woodland wildflowers

c. Betsy McCully 2018-2023