Spring Ephemerals

My mother gave me this slim volume when I was a teenager, perhaps when my Biology teacher, Mr. Garvelli, assigned a flower collection project in the tenth grade. It's small - only five inches by three inches, likely designed to fit into a  pack or pocket. It was her mother's, she explained, and I should appreciate it. 

Already losing some of its pages due to its worn, deteriorating binding, I dismissed the gift with a teen's disdain though I was wise enough to understand I should keep it.

It disappeared for many years, and turning up recently in the bottom of a liquor store box with papers from the 1970s. It had long since been replaced with newer wildflower guides as my children completed their flower projects in Biology class. But in the 21st Century, we've come to rely on a smart phone app to give us the answers.

On an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon last week, the woods beckoned and we set off on a familiar path - the Commissioner Trail at the foot of Denton Hill. 

Spring Beauties at first caught my eye close to the path.  But on the rocky hillside, their new green sprouts pushed through last year's leaves and the leaves of the years before, their delicate flowers a pale pink blush in all that brown and gray. And far above, the promise of this year's leaves in the trees.

Then I remembered, Spring Beauties were the first  flower I identified from my grandmother's little wildflower book.  That page is one that has been lost from her book. But the page with this flower is still there.

Ill Scented Wake Robin?

Dog-Toothed Violet
Yellow Adder's Tongue
Trout Lily
Fawn Lilly

Perhaps the Downy Yellow Violet
"prefers for its habitat dry, hilly woods, often by the side of rushing brooks,
but not usually where the soil is moist."

Common Dandelion
"Although an immigrant to our land, it has extended its range from
the Atlantic to the Pacific and is as well, or better known,
as any other wild flower that we have. As everyone knows, its green,
jagged leaves form a staple article of food and can be purchased in
markets in spring at so much per peck. "

And here is more food from the forest floor - wild leeks!

"the various species belong to this genus (allium)
are very strongly scented, pungent herbs
growing from a coated bulb."

Though my mother isn't up to a hike on the Commissioner just now, I shared with her my delight of the spring woods as we drove along a country road so she could enjoy the coming of spring from the car.

"Do you still have the wildflower book that was Mother's?" she asked.

"I do ... and I even know where it is," I answered.

"Good, that was precious to her," she said after a moment. 

Silver Carols

My grandfather often wrote of his childhood, especially in his later years. Here's one from 1960.

"When I was a school youngster we used to sing a skating song. The words of the chorus come to mind:

"Off, off to the ice we go, on, on with our skates so bright. 

Off, off to the ice we go, so merry, so happy and light."

There was a song, too, for the springtime and it started with the words:

"Spring is on the mountain, Verdure on the hill;

Springing from the fountain, runs the silver rill.

Modest flowers are blooming on the velvet mead'

All the air perfuming – brother, sow the seed."

The tunes come to mind. Maybe it is good I cannot vocalize through these words.

Well one good result of those songs was learning of two new words – verdure and mead!

For summer there was a seasonal ditty that went:

"Our boat is trimmed with sail and oar, and all prepared to leave the shore;

How pleasantly we'll sail along and listen to the boatman's song.

There may have been an autumn song but if so my memory is faulty and it does not come to mind. We do remember song book title was "Silver Carols.

Kinda wish we had a copy of that old song book. I would take it to Golly's Folly and when alone in the wilds, I might turn loose my vocal organs to make the welkin ring in the picturesque Nine Mile Valley, with only chipmunks to make up the audience."

Though it's 63 years too late and the old man has been gone for nearly 54 of those years, I found a copy of Silver Carols in its entirety in a place he could never imagine in his wildest dreams - this man who began life shortly after the Civil War and lived to see man land on the moon.