Spring Wildflowers

by Barbara Tufty

Quiet please! Heads up! Curtain up! The drama of spring is starting. Each year this astonishing play begins anew, with the same surprising acts following each other in sequence—ever the same plot, yet always changing--–always the same antagonists, but always different players. Curtain time is now–-early spring. Backdrop is winter woods and riverbanks like those along our beloved Cacapon. Sound effects are returning birdsong. Lighting is the advancing sun, focusing like a spotlight through bare branches of trees onto the cool brown ground. Action is the springing alive of fragile spring wildflowers.

Like actors on a stage, each flower pops up from the ground on special timing, each species entering on cues of temperature, light, moisture. The settings of woods, meadows and wetlands may change from year to year, as trees are cut, roads paved, houses built; and sport vehicles leap down slopes and banks. Cues of temperature may vary, as winter winds may still rage across the stage. But the procession of wildflower actors remains the same--entering and then exiting the stage along our Cacapon River.

First to take a bow, in February, enters the skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), poking up its mottled purple hood from dark, cold wetlands. This hooded fellow generates enough warmth to melt a snow patch, attracting the first small flies of spring with its weird fetid odor.

Next on stage, in March, enters the lovely lavender or blue hepatica (Hepatica americana), accompanied with the translucent white bloodroot, (Sanguinaria canedensis) its leaves wrapped around the single blossom like a cupped hand. Star chickweed (Stellaria pubera) shines among the scattered tiny white faces of the common chickweed (Stellaria media), their tiny white blossoms so small and common-looking that you often tread on them without noticing. Spring beauty (Clatonia virginica) spreads its pale pink-striped petals among the brown fallen leaves of last autumn, and now the bluebells (Mertensia virginica) ring out along the riverbanks. If you walk in woods near north-facing rocks, you might see the pink trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens). Get on your hands and knees to breathe in its sweet odor.

Suddenly in a rush, the April wildflowers arrive from the ground—maroon-hued wild ginger (Asarum canadense), dutchman's breeches strung on an arched stem (Dicentra cucullaria), yellow greenish Solomon's seal (Polygonatum biflorum), the preacher Jack-in-the Pulpit (Arisaema atrorubens), and the rarely seen three-petaled trillium (Trillium  grandiflorum). Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) unfurls its green umbrella, and wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) nods its red and yellow head. Trout lily with its dappled leaves (Erythronium albidum), cutleaved toothwort (Dentaria laciniata), early saxifrage poking out from rocks (Saxifraga virginiensis).

Bright May brings golden ragwort (Senecio aureus), star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), the neon pink of Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria), the tiny yellow corydalis (Corydalis flavula). And now's the time to hike up the Cacapon mountain and gaze upon breathtaking patches of mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). In meadows the Queen Ann's lace (Daucus carota) is beginning to unfold.

Then by June for most spring flowers the play is over. Overhead, the unfolding leaves of trees are shutting out the sunlight from the woodland floor. Many spring blossoms, having spent their brief lives on stage, fade. The plants exit, returning underground, resting, memorizing their lines and cues until they are called on stage again next year.