It's Valentine's Day! Look for "flowers" soon! #phenology

Happy Valentine's Day!

Photo by J. Harrington

The sun is shining. Temperatures have climbed enough to warm even our black Irish heart. Gravel roadsides are lined with mud and ditches are developing puddles. Not Spring in our North Country, but close to it. Faux Spring perhaps? At least we're closer to the end of Winter than its midpoint. Only two weeks now until the start of meteorological Spring.

British soldier lichen, end of February

Photo by J. Harrington

Although far too early in the season to begin looking for them yet, over the past several years we've found a number of locations where we can enjoy wildflowers such as trillium and trout lilies. It occurred to us today that, if we sketched a map and marked it with wildflower glens or glades or whatever, other than a prairie, one calls a place where native wildflowers grow wild, we might begin to feel more at home in our adopted bioregion. We'll give that some more thought.

skunk cabbage, end of March

Photo by J. Harrington

As we get increasing numbers of above-freezing days, and the snow cover shrinks, we can start looking for early signs of life returning. British soldier lichen have been seen to emerge while there are still patches on snow-covered ground. Since snowdrops aren't wildflowers, we'll look for British soldiers as an early indicator. We think they (the lichen) even show up before skunk cabbage has emerged, but that's something we can try to confirm this season. It obviously didn't take much warmer weather for us to start to get excited about coming attractions. This year we even know where to look locally for prairie smoke, although we're still searching for somewhere that pasque flowers grow.

                     Springtime in the Rockies, Lichen

By Lew Welch

All these years I overlooked them in the

racket of the rest, this

symbiotic splash of plant and fungus feeding

on rock, on sun, a little moisture, air —

tiny acid-factories dissolving

salt from living rocks and

eating them.

Here they are, blooming!

Trail rock, talus and scree, all dusted with it:

rust, ivory, brilliant yellow-green, and

cliffs like murals!

Huge panels streaked and patched, quietly

with shooting-stars and lupine at the base.

Closer, with the glass, a city of cups!

Clumps of mushrooms and where do the

plants begin? Why are they doing this?

In this big sky and all around me peaks &

the melting glaciers, why am I made to

kneel and peer at Tiny?

These are the stamps of the final envelope.

How can the poisons reach them?

In such thin air, how can they care for the

loss of a million breaths?

What, possibly, could make their ground more bare?

Let it all die.

The hushed globe will wait and wait for

what is now so small and slow to

open it again.

As now, indeed, it opens it again, this

scentless velvet,

crumbler-of-the-rocks,

this Lichen!

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