Summer Breezes, Perfumes, Sights and Sounds and Possibilities

An individual blossom from a basswood tree (it’s a kind of linden) doesn’t look like much, and the blossoms are not much more impressive in their clusters on the tree. Two readily observable features of linden blossoms are worthy of notice. First is their perfume. It fills the air, so that passing by a linden you breathe more deeply and ask, “What is that delicious scent?” The next thing you may notice, if all is proceeding as it should be in Nature, is that the blossoming basswood tree is humming, vibrating, alive with sound. Almost as many bees as flowers will sometimes fill the leafy branches. 

I have written about the basswood flowers and the bees before, but their blooming time has come again, and again it claims my delighted attention. – But what is this? Where were the bees yesterday morning? I understand why they would stay home this morning, in rainy wind, but where were they yesterday? I’m starting to worry.

An old verb-form for bloom or blossom is ‘blow,’ lingering in the adjective ‘full-blown.’ Another name for service berry (or Saskatoon berry, if you want to sound fancy) was ‘shadblow,’ because the shrub blossomed at the same time of year that the shad were running. Old garden books speak of the time such-and-such a plant will ‘blow.’ It makes me think that the linden perfume is “blowing in the wind.”

"Blooming, buzzing confusion"? – isn’t it delightful? Lilies and daisies, harebells and that smaller, more delicate relative of hollyhock, malva. Our neighbor has put in countless hours of work on her aunt’s old garden, to beautiful effect.

Mystery Poet has struck again. Latest offering, in my p.o. box on Monday morning, had the usual complement of interesting postage stamps. 

Inside were four short lines:

summer says I can

winter says I will

fall says I do

spring says you too

Can I? There is so much to do!!!