Learning #phenology

The daylilies behind the garage have developed long stems and the beginnings of buds. Blossoms in three or four weeks, perhaps? Photos from years past suggest July is the peak time locally. What's Doin' the Bloomin'? lists daylilies in the "Signs of Autumn" section; Midwest Foraging lists early July into August; and The Forager's Harvest doesn't include daylilies. What's ... Bloomin'? also notes that daylilies do not have the spots on their flowers that distinguish Tiger Lilys. That's something I hadn't known or thought of since I associate spots with leopards, not tigers.

early July daylilies

Photo by J. Harrington

Identification of flora and fauna can often be challenging. Yesterday's nesting birds were finally judged to be chimney swifts. This came only after much discussion, checking of field guides and on-line photos and some inexplicable difficulty in locating "swifts" in our three volume Audubon guide. I sometimes wonder if learning nature is like acquiring language skills, easier -- by far -- when we're young than as we become older and more calcified by knowing what we already know.

Learning the Trees

By Howard Nemerov

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn

The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,

Out of a book, which now you think of it

Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,

You might be in a foreign land of terms

Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,

Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—

Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—

And their venation—palmate and parallel—

And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may now

Go forth to the forests and the shady streets

To see how the chaos of experience

Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree

May differ among themselves more than they do

From other species, so you have to find,

All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”

Example, the catalpa in the book

Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three

Around the stem; the one in front of you

But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.

It may be weeks before you see an elm

Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,

A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtim as Lucretius says,

Little by little, you do start to learn;

And learn as well, maybe, what language does

And how it does it, cutting across the world

Not always at the joints, competing with

Experience while cooperating with

Experience, and keeping an obstinate

Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret will

Pretending obedience to Nature, but

Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,

Dividing up the world to conquer it,

And think also how funny knowledge is:

You may succeed in learning many trees

And calling off their names as you go by,

But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

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