Wildflowers on Wednesday

The other day, I commented to Elizabeth at Welsh Hills Again that I loved her wonderful groupings, in her expansive garden, of naturalized daffodils, but that this appreciation was in contrast to my growing fatigue with the far-too-cheery, harshly yellow, great big daffodils that seem to be jammed into too many urban gardens every March. I much prefer the many smaller varieties in their more delicate shades of yellow and cream.

Even better, what about these native plants, growing in the remnants of a Garry Oak meadow, growing as they have been for countless generations. When Wordsworth was wandering lonely as a cloud, and discovering his crowd, his host, of golden daffodils, these Erythronium oregonum (hmm, plural, so Erythronia oregona??) were blooming at the edge of another continent. . . .

and a couple of hundred years later, while I wandered alone, if not particularly lonely, I happened upon this multitude of what are commonly called White Fawn Lilies

Photos all taken with my iPhone camera — I did add a filter for one of these and you can probably spot it quite easily.

 Aren’t they delightful, though, growing wild, requiring nothing but to be left alone to send up foliage, then to grace the earth for several weeks with their white flowers nodding prettily from curved coral stems. A few weeks after that, nutrients stored back underground toward next spring, the leaves and flowers will fade into dormancy, invisible, forgotten until they come back to repeat the show in a year’s time.

I think of the lines from the King James Bible, “Consider  the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  

 Truly.

I hope these pretty images cheered you, as the walk through this flowery field perked me up. Are there wildflowers growing somewhere near you? Are they treasured as much as these White Fawn Lilies are? I suspect we love these particular native plants because they know their place so well, staying only where they’re welcome, dropping out of sight when they’re done blooming. If their behaviour were more agressive, perhaps it would be a different story. . .

18 Comments

  1. Duchesse
    1 April 2015 / 2:42 pm

    When I encounter wildflowers- even a stand of cat tails, I feel I've received a gift, a grace note. These are so tender and delicate.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:42 pm

      Exactly, they are Grace personified (or florified??)
      I love cattails!

  2. Madame Là-bas
    1 April 2015 / 3:46 pm

    You have perked me up as my brother leaves tomorrow, I move today and the future seems uncertain. I will be looked after just as the lilies are looked after and I don't need to worry. We saw little red flowers growing in the rocks of the archeological monuments yesterday.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:43 pm

      Imagine, then, those little red flowers have probably been growing between those rocks for centuries!

  3. Pondside
    1 April 2015 / 6:37 pm

    I like to walk at Andeeson Hill Park where lilies and small wild orchids are plentiful. There is something other-worldly about these delicate and beautiful wild flowers. I always fel as though I've been let in on a secret when I come upon them.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:44 pm

      Let's do that walk someday before too long. It's interesting that we would use words like "other-worldly" of something that is very much part of how the world used to be, the world that we've obscured. . .

  4. Marie
    1 April 2015 / 7:53 pm

    I've been cheered not only by the photos of the lovely flowers, but by your enchanting prose and the poetry fragments.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:47 pm

      Aw, you're sweet Marie. Thanks!

  5. LPC
    1 April 2015 / 10:11 pm

    Beautiful. I do live a timid flower.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:47 pm

      That typo makes for an absolutely hilarious claim, completely in-credible! 😉

  6. Lorrie
    2 April 2015 / 2:14 am

    What a lovely array of White Fawn Lilies – such abundance! I love the shy flowers of the woods.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:49 pm

      Me too! And we have such a wealth of them nearby, don't we?!

  7. Annie Cholewa
    2 April 2015 / 8:10 am

    We have wild primroses in the verges along the lanes just now … such pretty little flowers.

    I've been so slow catching up with everyone I haven't congratulated you yet on your newest arrival. How wonderful to welcome another little one into the world. My own first grandbaby is due in a few weeks, I can't wait to share how you've beeen feeling.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:51 pm

      Are they the pale, pale butter-yellow primroses? love those!
      These last few waiting weeks, anticipating such a magical transformation in everyone's lives, such a miraculous border. . . Can't wait to hear your news.

  8. Eleonore
    2 April 2015 / 11:37 am

    I absolutely agree with you: it is lovely finding wild flowers in unexpected places. During my excursion I crossed several woods where I saw a few late snowbells, hosts of blue Scilla siberica, the first white flowers of Anemone nemerosa, yellow Eranthis hyemalis and a few violets in some spots that were protected from the wind. (I'm not pretending to know those Latin names, I had to look them up. But at least I could name the flowers in German).
    My garden consists of two flower boxes and two big pots at the moment, filled with primroses, daisies, (tiny) daffodils and horned violets (viola cornuta) which I very much prefer to the bigger pansies you see everywhere.

    • materfamilias
      2 April 2015 / 7:55 pm

      I'm impressed — Latin is so handy for allowing cross-language horticultural chat. I know the Eranthis hyemalis as winter aconite. My mom used to love it, thinking its yellow flower looked like a clown's ruffed collar against the leaf supporting it. I had them in my garden for a while, but they never settled in and I haven't seen them for years.
      Hosts of scilla siberica carpeting the woods — wonderful!
      Your flower boxes and pots sound delightfully spring-like. Enjoy!

  9. Mardel
    8 April 2015 / 5:09 pm

    Wildflowers always seem like such a gift to me, and especially the quiet shy ones, which seem to bring with them a precious joy far greater than their diminutive stature would seem to imply.

  10. materfamilias
    9 April 2015 / 7:43 pm

    Oh, so beautifully said. . .

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