Cliff Edge

Lilacs grow richly on the cliff edge -- and only on the cliff edge! -- and make quite a display for passersby on the highway below. During their brief springtime bloom, I get an armful or so for the house and porch and giveaways to the benighted who do not have lilacs. (How they got up here in a sand glade I don't know.) They rank with bluebirds and crocuses as one of my favorite things and one I will crawl onto a cliff edge for. Who wouldn't? As long as I can, I will, and I would grieve if I didn't.

This time the usual approach to the cliff edge was overgrown, already, with leafy understory junk shrubs and vines. Up a slope of tall grass with bits of sandstone gravel imploding under my treads, shouldering past an electrical pole, stepping over fallen logs and a patch of prickly pear cactus growing in a sandy microclimate one foot square -- never know what you'll find around here! -- keeping my balance, some lilacs were within my reach. The greater part of the display just swayed in the wind and laughed.

Lilacs are not Missouri native plants or even North American. They're from Eastern Europe and Asia. To whoever sneaked them over here, thank you, and I understand you completely.

Missouri's Only Native Pine

The Short-Leaf Pine tree is Missouri's only native pine, and the map says that the eastern edge of Missouri, the Ozark foothills where the soil is rocky/sandy, sunny and dry, is about as far north as you can find them. It's a tree of the American Southeast. Here it is growing ever taller on the property's southernmost southern-facing sandstone cliff. It's rocky/sandy, sunny and dry there all right. Before European settlement and the invasive cedar trees that accompanied the settlers, Missouri was covered with Short-Leaf Pines, the conservation department says.

I like their powdery-soft look. The needles, two or three inches long, are "bundled" in twos or threes, and the bark looks scaly. Male and female cones grow on the same tree (very handy for them), although it takes a few years for the tree to produce cones. The wood is great if the tree is mature. The trees pictured must have taken root in 2002 or later, after the cliff's original face was blasted off for road widening.

While cedars, alien invaders in Missouri, require at least an inch of soil, and I know that because I chop them down and rip them up trying to preserve the property's native oak-hickory forest, the Short-Leaf Pine (pinus echinaceus) is tougher. I have no idea how these Short-Leafs cling to the foot of a St. Peters sandstone cliff and find nourishment, unless they simply like life.

Valley View Glades in Spring

Valley View Glades Natural Area is the cathedral of glades around here, where on a perfect April day you can see Birdsfoot violets (Viola pedata) and, in yellow, a Hairy Buttercup (Ranunculus hispidus) (see the hair?) and the valley vistas. Glades are stony outcroppings on south-facing hillsides that have their own specialty ecosystem, with unique glade wildflowers and creatures in spring; and in summer, glades recarpet themselves in new wildflowers and creatures: precious native Missouri features fortunately preserved from development and cared for, mainly through the removal of red cedar trees, invasives that threaten glades. Valley View Glades Natural Area is on Highway B in Jefferson County near Morse Mill. The trail, a loop 2.6 miles long, leads the hiker through hill, dale, vistas, and over brooks. You'll enjoy peace and quiet, and feel at one with the universe.

Divine: Remember Me This Way

Should you, a long time from now, have occasion to remember me, this is the picture I want y'all to have in mind:, Divinebunbun among Missouri coneflowers on a June day. This was my happiness! Taken today on a return trip to Valley View Glades by my friend Maurice.

The Secret Glade

LaBarque Creek Conservation Area off Doc Sargent Road now has a well-marked, three-mile "primitive" "moderate to difficult" loop trail. That's putting it mildly. Be prepared for lots of uphill, carry a hiking staff, and bring water because the loop will take two solid hours. But halfway along the trail, high up, is this marvelous secret glade, and being there was worth all the slogging and sweat.

What's a glade? It's a rocky clearing or "outcropping" you'll find up in hills or mountains, home to spring wildflowers and water features like this basin. Because there's mostly rock and little soil, few trees grow in glades, so it's open to sunlight, and I even found a few prickly-pear cacti. A lake up in the mountains always seemed impossible to me, but this little one in the conservation area is a scale model of how it's done. The water runs from here into a pretty little LaBarque Creek tributary, arched over with trees, that forms one border of the conservation area.