Pussytoes and Cat's Feet

Pussytoes

No fog this morning

as we stand at the at the edge of the curve 

like a harbor, protecting a crescent of

abundant blossoms

sitting in the morning silence 

like little cat's feet 

(by Nellie Howard with apologies to Carl Sandburg)

A morning like this is made for poetry.  Flowers flow out of our earth like syllables flow from my tongue when inspiration is right.

Once we have identified the pussytoes, we move on to find more.

Our beloved native trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, blooms next to despised mustard garlic, Alliaria petiolata, an invasive species native to Europe.  While teams of evironmentalists work diligently to destroy this invader, I, in my ignorance, take delight in its petite flower atop a slender stalk, riged, unbending among the natives. The simplistic large blooms of the giant white trillium share the hillside with the complicated blossom of squirrel corn, a wild member of the bleeding heart family.

In this area, squirrel corn grows side-by-side with dutchmen's britches, both spring ephemerals pollinated either by bumblebees who pry open their petals or by honeybees who drill a hole straight into the blossom to retrieve hidden nectar. Neither plant will make the effort to support leaves through the summer, choosing, instead, to put all their energy into an early bloom which will disappear with its leaves by the time these fiddleheads fulfill their promise of full-fronded ferns. (If "fronded" is not a word then it should be.)