After last night's steady spring showers, the ephemeral wildflowers have started to leap up out of the leaves, ready to lavish us with their blossoms. My goal this year is to catalog them here, each day as they bloom, and also post the moth pictures I take this spring and summer to add to my growing photo collection of Lepidoptera pictures.
So today two of my faithful spring heralds greeted me in my walk around the yard and gardens. Now I believe that Spring is truly here at last. The first bloom I saw was my dearly loved Common Hepatica. Hepatica nobilis var. acuta
http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/hepatica_nobilis.shtml
I just found a poem that made my heart sing almost as much as seeing the return of these gentle beauties.
Hepatica by: John Burroughs |
When April's in her genial mood,
|
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/b/hepatica.html#so6LqDygA7H47Bzt.99
My second sunny greeting of the day was this lowly but lovely solitary Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) bloom. Tusilago farfara rolls off the tongue so nicely. Taking time to savor these words because for some reason that is a latin name I did not assimilate over myriads of years of wildflowering.
So perfectly unassuming, and leaves do not come until after it blooms. But tenacious as they get, blooming often in sunny patches right through the snow.
Did I mention how much I adore Spring and all of it's Wonders?