Ephemerals Emerge!

OK, first, I would like to state that the weather is officially weird.  We came home from the Green Schools conference in Pittsburgh (note: 2 degrees latitude, and therefore about 2 weeks ahead, phenologically, of home) on Saturday.  That afternoon was cold, and the weather switched about every five minutes, from snowing -- almost white-out conditions -- to sunny and back again and back again.  The only consistent thing was extreme wind, which presumably was moving the rest of it along.  

Sunday dawned cold -- 26 degrees -- and topped out at 71 degrees.  This swing of 45 degrees is the 13th highest single-day warm-up in Chicago history.  (It was also... you guessed it... windy.)  And overnight, the cold came back.  Today's projected high is only 36!  Notably, it's breezy but not crazy windy, at least!

We were able to wander around my parents' yard  (about 10-15 miles south) during this brief mild period yesterday and saw... spring beauties:

and hepatica!!!

Seriously, isn't that a nice, healthy, beautiful bunch of hepatica?  Wow!

Spring Has Sprung

Illinois is the Prairie State, but if you're lucky enough to have access to a wooded area, this is the perfect week to explore it.  Spring ephemerals are in their prime, and, as their name implies, their beauty is short-lived....

Hepatica

Hepatica is in full bloom right now.  I love this wildflower especially, not just because it's an early treat, but because they come in so many colors -- white and pink and purple and blue -- sometimes all right next to each other.  Bloodroot is also in full bloom in the woodlands, its large white flowers standing out against the brown of last year's leaves and green of emerging leaves.   It's leaves -- themselves an interesting shape -- are still curled around the stems; the stems show the red liquid inside that gives the plants their name. 

Bloodroot

Just starting to bloom are trout lilies -- their splotchy, trout-skin leaves are all over -- spring beauties, and anenomes.  

May apples and trilliums have not yet flowered, but their unique foliage is popping up.  

If you only have access to prairies, there are some early flowers there, too.  Pasqueflower is in full bloom right now, with its purple flowers and fuzzy stems.  This is always one to which I look forward; Leopold's quotations makes it seem significant to me.  I know I quote him each year at this time, but I'll still remind you of this passage from ASCA: "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."

Prairie Smoke is also starting to bloom!

Also... the first tick of the season was seen a week and a half ago, but they're out in full force now.  I pulled several off kids today.

Spring Beauty

trout lily

Pasqueflower

Anenome

In My Yard...

Bloodroot is blooming. I am pleased -- there are 7 flowers in 3 bunches, all doing very well despite the aggressive campaign being waged against them by creeping charlie.

Now, normally I wouldn't put a photo of what I just sketched. Besides being redundant, it only serves to highlight the inaccuracies in my drawing. Especially this sketch... I had to sit farther away than I prefer from the plant -- I like to be able to touch it, move my head around to different angles, etc. But I didn't want to crush a bunch of other stuff, like baby mayapples or uvularia or wild ginger or trout lilies, or even the Dutchman's breeches foliage that I found in 3 places in the yard but none with any hope of flowering this year. Anyway, to get to the point... a bee landed on the flower while I was sketching, and I got a picture of it, so I included it. Also the same bee landed on a clump of hepatica.

Also blooming in my yard...

spring beauties and Greek anenomes. A lot of fiddleheads are poking up, too... I tried to sketch the spring beauties, but only proved what I've known for a while and re-discovered yesterday. I can only do one sketch a day. Or at least without a significant break. I don't know what gets tires, my brain or my hands, or what, but the second one is always terrible. And usually incomplete. So, it's not here.

NOT yet blooming in my yard are marsh marigold or bluebells.

Ephemerals

Ephemeral. Fleeting. Our spring weather has been ephemeral this. Thursday, after snow and rain, we had a lovely spring day... to be followed by a cold and wet Friday. Today was, again, lovely, but by Monday we're supposed to be back to three days of chilly rain.

Today we walked at the gardens. The spring ephemerals were in full bloom. (Being 20 miles south, they are a couple of days ahead of us. Being professional horticulturists, they are probably another couple of days ahead of us.) As proof of point, I can't even get Dutchman's breeches (sketched above) to grow at my house. There it grows in huge clumps of feathery leaves.

Their bloodroot was actually on it's way out...

Trout lily.

Anenome.

Spring beauty.

Trillium.

Bluebells, just starting to bloom.

Marsh marigold.

This magnolia is from the exact tree I sketched last year on April 1 last year. It is, perhaps, a little further along in its lifecycle. But not much.

Prairie smoke. (OK, those last aren't ephemerals, but whatever.)

Today

"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.

"Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question of whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech..."

Pasqueflowers always make me think of Aldo Leopold. They secured an honored place in the second paragraph of the forward to ASCA... probably the most important and influential phenological document ever, not to mention one of the 2 most "impactful" environmental works ever written (and written over 60 years ago, so it's amazing how current its themes still seem. The other impactful book, by the way, is Silent Spring, this according to the American Nature Study Society). And so to me they have special significance. With their early bloom, they remind me that spring really will win over winter. Their rarity drives home the message of Leopold's book. Their diminutive size, almost hidden among last year's litter, tells us that beauty and wonder can come in small packages.

So, yea!! My pasqueflowers are blooming. I have no idea why they are so terribly pale, but I am thrilled that they came back. I've had a terrible time with them, never getting one to come back more than once. That includes this one, as we just put it in last year. Perhaps they only live for two years, though that doesn't seem right... And they're so hard to find, this is my last effort!

Other good news: my ephemerals did, indeed, come back. At least most of them. Shown below are bloodroot, mayapple, and a trillium, all behind last year's pace but there nonetheless. Shooting stars are also well along, and wild geraniums, and spring beauties, and wild ginger, and marsh marigold (one) and bluebells. The only things that didn't return to my yard are my red baneberry and my Dutchman's breeches.

These hepatica are in my mom's yard. They are a lot happier than mine. (Actually, my one that bloomed the other day isn't looking good at all. I suspect that was it's final attempt at productivity before expiring. I have two others that look like they'll be more like this, but they haven't bloomed yet at all.) My mom also has a Dutchman's breeches about 1.5 inches tall.

Oh, and we are having a major creeping charlie problem, which we may have to fight using drastic measures or we risk losing most of the aforementioned wildflowers.

Last Day of Freedom

Tomorrow we return to school after an all-too-short break. Short as it was, though, we're going back in a world that seems entirely new. Spring flowers blooming, colors bright and subtle dotting the landscape. Most larger trees are still bare-branched, but shrubs and smaller trees, like crab apples and willows, are tinged with the green of small leaves, and when you look across fields, there's a green haze in the hedgerows... hardly a color at all. An aura. A message whispered in the wind... "It won't be long now..."

Here's what's popped up most recently:

Spring beauties, with their pale striped petals.

The daily bloodroot update.

Trout lily leaves.

Anenomes (these ones Canada) are among the plants that look like balls of green low to the ground. Others, not pictured, include Virginia waterleaf, Jacob's ladder, golden Alexander...
And here, marsh marigold buds (in case I forget to check them when they actually bloom).