Notes on Wildflowers

 

My Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region, has a copyright date of 1979, and no doubt I purchased it in that year. I know that it came from Leelanau Books in Leland, back when Prudy Meade had the shop she herself had established, and I remember that Prudy died in the summer of 1993, the first year of my bookstore in Northport. She had been very supportive earlier that year when I was starting out in bookselling, and I will never forget her or all the time David and I spent in her Leland shop.

I pulled the wildflower guide from the shelf on Tuesday to refamiliarize myself with the blossoms of baneberry, blooming now in a wild edge off to the side of my mowed yard, in company with false Solomon’s seal and wild ginger. As I have always done with field guides, as I turned the pages I looked at other photographs and wildflower names, not only what I went to the guide looking for. Such a practice often allows me to identify wildflowers (or birds, similarly) for the first time when encountering them outdoors. This time nodding ladies’ tresses caught my eye, and when I turned to the later pages in the book to read a description of this lovely orchid I found my own notation there in ballpoint pen: “Eagle River, Keweenaw Co., 8/20/92.” That would have been my first summer back in Leelanau following the second time the Artist and I married each other (Paris, Illinois, April 14), and obviously we had made an August trip to the U.P.

The description, habitat, and flowering dates for the nodding ladies’ tresses are on page 662 of the 1979 Audubon edition. A few pages back, on page 653, next to the showy lady’s slipper description, I found a notation reading “Lonesome Point, G.M. [Grand Marais], 6/9/92,” which tells me that we had made an earlier trip to the U.P. in June of that same summer, and a memory came back of the Artist improvising on harmonica while driving at the slowest possible pace on an unpaved northwoods road, the two of us hardly able to believe we were together again in the beloved territory of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Fox River, for which Hemingway used the name of another river.

There is a later notation on that same page that reads: “Johnson Rd., 6/24/96,” and on the opposite page, next to yellow lady’s slipper, I see “Between Hessel and Cedarville, 6/11/92.” So I know, as surely as if reading a diary entry, that we went east from the Mackinac Bridge, along the top of Lake Huron, before circling back to the west along Lake Superior. 

Beginning in 1993, we made our annual pilgrimages in September.

What I have always remembered from that summer of 1992 was how cold and rainy it was. I was without paid employment that summer, for the only time between 1965 and today, and there was hardly a beach day all summer. Instead it was jacket weather, my feet were always wet and cold in my shoes, and the Artist and I spent a lot of time in the car, idly cruising, but I still recall vividly that our happiness that summer knew no bounds.

Old notes: earth star found in Kalamazoo, only identified years later

Ubiquitous

In June, the color green is ubiquitous. June is as green as January is white, with the difference that flowers, not just road signs, add bright color accents.

My last post featured one greenish-yellow “flower” and several white blossoms. Today, now that we’ve got the other colors out of the way, let’s look at another limited palette, yellow and green. The top photo today shows one of the showiest June wildflowers, the yellow flags clustered in and around the many small creeks of Leelanau County. Some of are creeks are so small you might miss them if not for white posts by the side of the road, one on each side, and a narrow, meandering northern Michigan jungle of cattails and red-twig dogwood. The wild iris flagging this stream, however, cannot help but attract a human eye.

Another yellow flower that thrives near creeks but also seems happy in cool fields is the happy little buttercup, one of my favorite June blooms. If you have a sharp eye, you might even see it on a shady roadside. The reflective cells on their petals make them shine like lacquer. 

What do you see when you drive or bike or walk along our county roads? Does the modest goat’s-beard flower catch your eye? Have you ever read of people eating salsify? Who knew goat's-beard and salsify were one and the same? I didn't.

How about quiet colonies of leafy spurge (sadly, another invasive alien)?

Or still quieter and more modest wild sedum at the edge of the road? Our old yard in Leland had huge patches of sedum that had outcompeted the grass, but I never minded. It was green and more interesting than grass. Undemanding, too. Loves poor soil. And we’ve got that here in northern Michigan.

Wildflowers of Wisconsin in the new book section at Dog Ears Books has been cruelly overlooked by customers, considering that the subtitle is and the Great Lakes Region. The only parts of this book not pertinent to Michigan are the distribution maps. And how many wildflower guides don’t have distribution maps at all? In every other way, Wildflowers of Wisconsin works quite well for Michigan. Of course, we have Michigan wildflowers guides, as well – I’m just pointing to one you might not otherwise have considered, a book easily overlooked, like those inconspicuous greenish-yellow roadside flowers.

Flower books, garden books – impossible not to love them! Practical, they are at the same time dream volumes.

The discerning eye will have noticed earlier in this post that my poppies and some of my iris are struggling for survival (quite successfully) in space now overgrown with grass. In my own defense, however, I must protest that I have gotten back on the job this year and have reclaimed half of my original backyard vegetable garden, so if only the rabbits will leave some greens for us, we’ll be all set. They don’t bother the rhubarb at all. Why is that? Can’t they see I have rhubarb to spare?