An American bittersweet fruiting along the trail at the Campbell County Environmental Education Center. In northern Kentucky, our native species is far less common than its invasive Asian cousin.
There are several species of knotweeds in my area, and I saw at least two along the overgrown edges of the roadside in Talyor Mill's Tower Park. I was trying to get photographs of pollinators visiting this one, and was impressed by the red glands visible on the flowering stalk and outsides of the flowers.
This is Pensylvania Smartweed. The glands are a key trait, but the ocrea (sheaths at the nodes) without hairs along their upper edges, the three or more racemes of flowers forming at the stem tip, the erect habit, and the dry habitat all also fit. This was a young plant but already about 2 feet tall.
Identified from C. speciosa via its odor. Found at Burnet Woods on a forested trail.
never seen this plant here, BONAP lists it as a rare species in clermont county
In woods, in a valley, on an elevated bench of land