“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long……revel in your time.” Dr. Eldon Tyrell
They get a nudge when March snows retreat and a watery April sun warm. Picky and specific about their woody hoods. Lots of leaf litter, black earth below, nestled up against the trunk of a sugar maple or red oak.
Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) is her name and who would argue her title. She, well, she has to be a she doesn’t she?, even though strictly speaking hermaphroditic. Ephemeral, fleeting, passing, evanescent; she never outstays her welcome, like a spring breeze and gone.
The wakeup call gets put through. She’s dozy in her cormish home when the heat reaches down. Root tendrils get started drinking and eating to nourish two unsheathed green lances. They push the dirt and last fall’s duff out of their way. That’s hard and I always wish sound could be slowed to hear the soil grains shifting or the oak leaves rustling.
Anyway, in the end the stem is in the wind and the flower unfurls into a candy cane bonnet. A mighty crown, about the size of a thumbnail.
As a single they might go unnoticed but they like to be in flocks and their drifts in the semi-shade of a spring wood lot, well, are just simply….” hi, we’re back and things will get easier now”.
Shouldn’t spend a lot of time admiring themselves. Time for the hurry-up offence … the semi-shade is darkening quickly from the leafy growth of trees above. Get the seeds out, feed early spring insects, get next year’s corm ready... the sunny days are scattered and erratic.
It’ll get done, it’s always a bit hectic, but by the arrival of the flower moon the cycle is complete. Let the petals drop, the leaves droop, turn out the lights, sleep.
I am always sad to see April go.
Brian Grubert
Trustee
Image by Brian Grubert