Jack's Pulpit

Yesterday I led a quick guest tour of the property, including Waterfall #1, Waterfall #5, and "the beach." Sloshing our way up a rill to Waterfall 5, the mud nearly pulled the boots off our feet. I've posted photos and video of our waterfalls, but never a Jack-in-the-pulpit because the last time I was in the right place at the right time to see this awesome dramatic springtime wildflower, I didn't have a smartphone, so we are talking before the year 2008.

Jack-in-the-pulpits are in fact rare plants.

 

Every spring since then I have hoped to see one. While the guest photographed the waterfall, I knelt in the soggy loam to photograph the Jack-in-the-pulpit. At home, after a shower, I looked my photos over. None were razor-sharp; none expressed the Jack's imperial presence.

So today after a morning's work I suited up in bad clothes and trudged back. Rain had fallen overnight so the mud was muddier. I didn't see the Jack. Was it one of those flowers that last only one day? I sat by the rill and let the view settle around me and in five minutes found the Arisaema triphyllum. All by itself. There wasn't another.

Determined to get an expressive photo (the majesty of the thing!) I took pictures of it for half an hour. The flap over its top meant getting the camera down so I could shoot upward. I sat down in the mud. Then lay down in the mud. Mom always said I was determined. And I wasn't about to let you down.

Bluebells by the Acre

Did you want to see bluebells growing in their native sort-of-swampy habitat, during the peak of blooming? Me too. Today I took happy advantage of the creek-side path I personally cut through the woods in fall and winter. The farther I walked, the more bluebells (Mertensia virginica) there were, to the left, right, ahead, behind. Golly!

Dogwood is Dagwood

Dogwood, seen here near the wilderness end of our lane, has no connection with dogs. Its original name is "Dagwood" and you won't believe why: The wood is tough -- legend says Jesus was crucified on a dogwood cross -- and the wood was used to make dagger handles and such, and so it was called "dagwood," and now we know where both the names "Dogwood" and "Dagwood" come from. Proves that life teaches you something new every day.

And those aren't white "petals," either. They are leaves called "bracts," and the corn-colored puff in the center of the bract is the actual flower, and don't that beat all. Photo taken about 7:00 p.m. on my new favorite day of the year: April 27.

July 1

Always a special day in the middle of the calendar year, very early summer, delicious, paradise, dreamed about all year, and not yet so hot or droughty that it makes us lax or gives us headaches or the cicadas keep us up all night. So with appreciation, here's the creek and its creekbed wildflowers, Queen Anne's Lace and phlox and junk lily, and also an Allium head that's past peak but still beautiful, like so many people we know.

Just Add Watcher

As I walked along the road, fleabane--a favorite perennial wildflower from the aster family, which doesn't ban fleas--bloomed, here in white, there in pink and in between, with shadings. Attempts to conclude or prove that the pink tinge indicates particularly alkaline soil in that specific spot kind of fell apart, so it's a surmise, but I observed that all flowered at the road's edge and within a few yards of each other, which I wouldn't have noticed from a car.

Clover, also appearing in shades of pink, is more definite: It's one or the other, except in cases that look (and probably taste) like strawberry sundaes, especially to tiny bugs:

Surprise

It's March 14 but tell that to this prickly pear cactus that's already blossoming in a very special rocky spot just to the side of the pumphouse on a south-facing slope. This tiny area about 3 feet by 3, lined with interesting rocks I've found, and discarded pieces of concrete birdbath, is a micro-climate. The property has several, on southern slopes where the soil is sandy, in glades I've kept clear of cedars. Micro-climates of other types also exist along a nearby road that has a shady, wet side and a stony cliff on the other. I've never seen a local cactus get going quite this early.

Just Making Sure

"What are these pretty red bushes at the roadside?"

"Sumac."

"Oh, no! If I touch it, will I get a rash? Are those berries poisonous?"

"You're thinking of poison sumac, which grows in swamps and has white berries. You'll probably never see poison sumac in Missouri. But if you're allergic to cashews or mangoes, stay away from all sumac; sumac is related to them."

"Can I eat the berries?"

"Some people make sumac lemonade by steeping the berries, but these berries are dried out. You have to pick sumac berries in the summer to make the lemonade."

"Is it pronounced soo-mac or shoo-mack?"

"Shoo-mack."

"Why? There's no 'H'. There aren't any other words in English like that."

"Don't be so sure."*

*Joke credited to Mark Twain.

Back Roads in July

If on the first of July you're not dazzled by wildflowers and a pond

when you walk down your street or open up your back cabin door, pack a picnic and get a move on and head for a Missouri back road. A limited number of July 1sts remain -- grab one while they're still available. Free of charge!

Day One

Yesterday played catch-up with all the mail and errands and bills after being away, and apologized to the birds miffed that I left them on their own without fresh seed and suet daily. They forgive easily; just give 'em free food. Today I prepared for my daily walk about noon. Not far from the door, beneath an oak, on a slope facing south, were the year's first crocuses abloom. This is always Day One of my personal year, the day with promise of a rich green future for us all here in rugged rural Missouri.

Viper's Bugloss

This spectacular non-native but common Ozark wildflower also called Blueweed (Echium vulgare) is typically found in "disturbed ground" and gravel bars. On a Huzzah River gravel bar almost a whole field of these grew three feet tall, their flowers inhabited by bees and butterflies. It looked like a city of apartment buildings with tenants flying from room to room. The seed supposedly looks like a viper's head. (A simile is like a metaphor.) Handling this plant might give you a rash.

Blue Sage

Blue Sage, salvia azurea, belongs to the mint family and also, says the wonderful Ozark Wildflowers manual by Don Kurz, belongs to the western third of the Ozarks, but this is the eastern third and I am so glad it's here, in a meadow that had a path mown into it that allowed convenient closeness for a photo. Wild Blue Sage's hooded flowers -- like the flowers of the "tame" garden sage -- are loved by bumblebees.

When Lilacs at Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

 Called my neighbor Sherri and asked, "Would you like some lilacs?"

They're on the cliff edge facing the road and grow nowhere else on the property. Have to sidle out onto the cliff top, very carefully, because it's sandstone and eroding. If I'm going there I thought I might as well clip enough for two, because they are too fragrant not to share. And because every one of our Moms had some lilac something. Because we see them for only a week per year.
      So I wrapped them in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and delivered lilac branches to Sherri. And while we chatted I admired her two raised garden boxes, one with lettuce growing, and several kale plants with small tender leaves. I love to eat kale, but my yard is unfenced, and when I was allowed to plant them, bunnies ate them down to a nub before I could. Sherri invited me to just clip the kale plants and take them, to make room to plant summer vegetables. So I scored some baby kale! I call that a fair trade!

With A Love Like That. . .

...you know you should be glad.

The Most Secret Secret Place

1. When I was 10 my mom called from work and told me to cook the steak for dinner. I didn't know how. The heat was too high and I burnt it black. Scared, before Mom got home I took the pan outside and dumped the charred steak - BEHIND THE GARAGE!

Behind the Divine garage

2. Grownups hated it when kids climbed their fences and sneaked through backyards, but we did it anyway. This route down our block began in the bushes BEHIND OUR GARAGE!

3. If my little friends and I wanted to play with matches or plant dollar bills to grow money trees, we went BEHIND THE GARAGE!

4. The previous residents of our house really liked the neighbors who lived in back of us, and had left a gap in the hedge and two flagstone steps leading into the neighbors' backyard. When no grownups were looking, we kids used this as our shortcut to Carter Street! These steps were located ______________.

5. When I grew up, my husband threw what I didn't want inside the garage BEHIND THE GARAGE!

6. In 2002 I rescued pink Missouri granite bricks from the gateposts destroyed when the state widened Highway F. I had no place to put them except BEHIND THE GARAGE and they are still there!

7. To get rid of 2x9 planks full of nails I can't pry out, I drag and dump them BEHIND THE GARAGE!

8. The only place on the property that Dutchman's Breeches (pictured) ever grow is in the woodsy, north-facing incline _______________!

Happy Spring Equinox y'all!

Love Medicine

Meet the Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica). It is an autumn flower, uncommon but of course we have it here, growing over a small stream (see photo of its environment below right; the lobelia likes "seepy areas"). The wildflower ID book I rely on reveals its old-time uses:

"The Mesquakies used great blue lobelia in love medicines. The roots were finely chopped and mixed into the food of a quarrelsome couple without their knowledge. This, they believed, would avert divorce and make the couple love each other again. Other tribes used root tea for syphilis..."

The book: Kurz, Don. Ozark Wildflowers: a Field Guide to Common Ozark Wildflowers. Helena, MT: Falcon, 1999. ISBN 1-56044-730-3.

October Can Be Okay, I Guess

We've had the most gorgeous fall weather for weeks on end, days between 70 and 80 degrees, and no frost yet. I go to bed late these days, from working, and rise as late as 9 a.m. when the sun is shining full and clear. My reward is something like this, a photo taken in the meadow this morning. The insignificant white item behind the scarlet leaves is my house.

Wildflower Week: May 10

Have you ever seen a more open and innocent face? Miss May 10 might be a buttercup except it's too early in the year for buttercups, and it doesn't form a cup. In fact, it is a Common Cinquefoil, Latin Potentilla simplex. It was positively identified as such via the sawtoothed leaves.

How Life Gets Around

I love thinking that the tiniest corners of the world vibrate with life, whether we see it or care or not, or get a photo, or laugh, or sigh at how much this looks like a loving and familiar kiss. And in August, with summer in its highest gear, everything not only vibrates, it hums.

Something Blue

I favor blue flowers, and today I saw this, for the first time, over by the bluebird box, and looked it up. It's a Wild Hyacinth (Camassia scilloides -- there's a mouthful). "Common," says the handbook, Ozark Wildflowers, "in dolomite glades, open rocky slopes, open woodlands, and prairies, found throughout the Ozarks." That's a perfect description of the land I and my neighbors live on; it has all those faces. The handbook also said Indians ate this, but that it's better not to.

Missouri Redbuds

Picture of the road next up from mine. No rhyme or reason to these; they're along the roadsides, not in clusters, scattered, but there is nothing like Missouri redbuds this time of year, making pink glory out of the life we've got. I heard that I could strip the flowers off the branches and eatum, that they taste good, but I'm not quite that hungry, thank you. I admire too the city's fine magnolias and weeping-cherry trees, but wild flowering trees like redbud and dogwood have my vote for most romantic.