The Wild Germanium are making an appearance in the ditches and woods. Geranium is derived from the Greek word geranos, meaning crane. Though this name seems curious, it actually refers to the shape of the seed pod, not the flower. The papery seed capsules, which split lengthwise into five long peels, resemble a crane or stork. Cranesbill and Storksbill are two common names for Wild Geranium describing this likeness.
One of the most surprising and beautiful aspects of Wild Geranium is the color of its pollen. Unlike most wildflowers with traditionally yellow, orange, or white pollen, when viewed under a microscope Wild Geranium’s pollen is bright blue. This attracts a variety of insects, including the digger wasp, which come to pollinate the flower.
The recent winds blew most of the apple blossoms off the tree leaving a sea of white on the ground. The apple tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists. The only apples native to North America are crab apples, which were once called “common apples”.
Apple varieties brought as seed from Europe were spread along Native American trade routes, as well as being cultivated on Colonial farms. An 1845 United States apples nursery catalog sold 350 of the “best” varieties, showing the proliferation of new North American varieties by the early 19th century. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples now.
The blooming lilacs are finally filling the air when their wonderful fragrance. There are over two thousand lilac cultivars through the world and they come in white, violet, blue, lilac, pink, magenta and purple. No matter what color, it is just good to see them after a long winter.
A group of turtles is called a ‘bale of turtles’. And I rather a bale of painted turtles than a bale of snapping turtles. This Western Painted Turtle spend most of its time in shallow streams, lakes and rivers. They can also be found in prairie sloughs, cattle tanks, and farm ponds. Water that is slow-moving with a soft, muddy bottom with vegetation and submerged logs is ideal habitat for painted turtles. Painted turtles are mainly carnivorous, but as they mature they eat more vegetation. They forage for insects, crayfish, small mollusks, worms, minnows, and aquatic plants.
They are called painted turtles because their lower shell is brightly colored in red with yellow and olive designs. Turtles shed their shell as they’re growing; this skin resembles a burnt leaf. Painted turtles are basking turtles, which means they spend as much time as they can in the sun to warm themselves after a long swim or a chilly night.They bask on a log or rock with their necks and legs stretched out and their toes spread wide apart to catch as much of the sun’s warmth as possible. Basking also allows their body to produce vitamins and helps to kill fungi. The sex of the painted turtle is determined by the temperature during development.
April showers bring May flowers, but this year it was April and May snows that eventually retreated that allowed some May flowers in a compress time so different varieties were blooming at the same time when normally they wouldn’t be. Now the wood violet is adding color amongst the white wood anemones and sometimes you can find a cluster of color.
A dear friend recently told me that ‘family does not have to be blood, sometimes they are just different flowers growing in the same garden’. Even if these violets are the same species, each is slightly different in size, color or flaws from insect damage but their uniqueness, like in people, create a beautiful garden.
A red barn against the white snow presents a striking scene, but I think I prefer the green with the red look instead. And I like the old barns which time has shaped and given them interesting characteristics.
It sounds like a contradiction in terms to have a ‘yellow’ violet, but finding the non ‘violet’ violet adds the yellow color to the springtime ground that isn’t a dandelion. There several varieties of the yellow violets, and this bright yellow flower may be the Downy Yellow Violet and it provides some color to the rainy, grey days.
Jack-in the-pulpits are an odd looking wildflower and what appears to be the flower, the pulpit, is not the flower. The flowers are actually hidden inside the ‘flower’. The Jack-in the-pulpits are also unusual in that each plant has a particular sex instead of having both female and male parts. If you looked inside the pulpit, you would see either yellowish brown anthers if a male or a cluster of tiny green berries if a female.
What is also strange about this wildflower, is that the plant will change sex from year to year. Since the female has the harder job of making the seeds and getting the seeds ready for the birds to disperse them, if the year was not a good one for storing food to the corm, the plant in the fall will make a bud for a male flower and one leaf. If it had been a good year and the corm is packed with nutrients, the plant produces a bud for female flowers and, usually, for two leaves, to make more sugars by photosynthesis.
So like the many of the birds, the female Jack-in the-pulpits has most of the work and since she does the work, I don’t think it should be called ‘Jack’ in the pulpit but guys do get most of the credit!
The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history, requiring the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
On May 5, 1862, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day until Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees.
Memorial Day marks the start of summer vacations but hopefully people still remember the real reason of Memorial Day and not just think of it as a three day weekend; that they remember the sacrifices of those fallen in service to our country. Their names may have faded from the headstone, but don’t let their sacrifice fade from our memories.
The Trillium also known as Trinity Flower and since today is Trinity Sunday, the Great White Trillium is the perfect picture for today. While St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity, others have used the Trillium since every part was threefold. The leaves are three, the petals are three, and the sepals are three.
