Shy Hepatica in All Her Subtle Glory, and her Sunny Friend Tussilago

April 15, 2015

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, And leafy smells are in the wood, In sunny nook, by bank or brook, Behold this lovely sisterhood.  A spirit sleeping in the mould, And tucked about by leafage old, Opens an eye blue as the sky, And trusting takes the sun or cold.  Before a leaf is on the tree, Or booms the roving bumblebee, She hears a voice, "Arise, rejoice!" In furry vestments cometh she.  Before the oven-bird has sung, Or thrush or chewink found a tongue, She ventures out and looks about, And once again the world is young.  Sometimes she stands in white array, Sometimes as pink as dawning day, Or every shade of azure made, And oft with breath as sweet as May.  Sometimes she bideth all alone, And lifts her face beside a stone,-- A child at play along the way, When all her happy mates have flown.  Again in bands she beams around, And brightens all the littered ground, And holds the gaze in leafless ways-- A concert sweet without a sound.  Like robin's song or bluebird's wing, Or throats that make the marshes ring, Her beaming face and winsome grace Are greetings from the heart of spring

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?