The Season To Be a Botanist

I tramp through the woods every day, sometimes both dogs with me and sometimes Rex only; then he acts like a little kid running up and down the path (I imagine happily) till he settles down for the walk.  He is very loyal and can be trusted off the leash, the complete opposite of his doggy sister.
It is the season when I wish I were a botanist, even an amateur one.  So many things have come into bloom along the trail, seemingly overnight and I would like to be able to put a name to them.  I know I found names for some before but have forgotten.

A pity I took this picture before they became very plentiful.  It is Wild Columbine and I love how delicate and droopy the flower is.  You have to get up close to see just how beautiful its parts are.  I now notice them everywhere as the reds seem to have darkened and capture more attention.  I tried to grow columbine in a front flower bed, but only managed to get a few half-hearted sprigs to bloom.

This one is a little easier to identify, surely it is a member of the violet family.  I've been encountering them for several weeks now and admiring their colours...many hues from pale violet to deeper blue and all shades in between.  Though there are over a hundred woodland violets, a very common one is the Dog Violet which I'm supposing this is.  All of mine are five petaled and have a heart shaped leaf just as the book describes the Dog Violet.  What a pretty flower to grow so abundantly in the wild! It makes for the most beautiful carpet under and around the trees. 

This is a very simply shaped flower, blooming close to the ground and there are copious numbers of them all over our woods.  It is Yellow Wood Sorrel and I read that the flower closes up at night (I probably will never be in the woods at night to test out that theory).  The bright yellow colour is consistent throughout the groups and is very cheery.