From My Nature Journal: The Ephemerals Part 2

Some time ago, I wrote of an encounter with early spring wildflowers we had never seen before in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Though we had arrived to open our little cabin in the woods at the normal Memorial Weekend timing, winter had conspired that year to hang on for dear life, so that ice-out on the lake did not take place until the second week in May, the ground held its winter frost abnormally, and the normal early wildflower ephemerals we had typically missed were quite late in blooming. We saw for the first time Trout Lily and Hepatica, Wintercress and, my favorite, Dutchman’s Breeches, along with the more familiar-for-the-date Skunk Cabbage, Marsh Marigolds, Trillium and Spring Beauties. 

This year is the first since our move to Western Washington several years ago that we have been able to enjoy a long spring without needing to be away from our Whidbey Island digs. As a result, we have been able to enjoy a brief but lovely season enjoying this habitat’s ephemerals. Of particular delight are the Coastal Rhododendrons, Washington’s state flower, that bloom almost absurdly pink, huge and showy in the dark and wet coniferous forests (about which I have also written earlier). But of additional delight are also the rarer prairie plants at a unique historic prairie remnant quite near to our Coupeville home. On property owned by Pacific Rim Institute, a Christian faith-based environmental organization, it’s just down the road from us on land that formerly housed of all things the Washington State Pheasant Hatchery. Somehow a small backset tract of five acres here have avoided the plow over the last 170 years on this intensely but carefully farmed stretch of twelve thousand or so acres of natural prairie on central Whidbey, a habitat very rare to western Washington. It’s that same immediately-plowable prairie that brought permanent European settlers to the area in 1850, one of the earliest non-native settlements in the Oregon Territory in spite of it being an island. But back to the unique remnant: as a result of it never being tilled, this small parcel contains native prairie plants long stewarded by first nations peoples, and one of PRI’s tasks has been restoring area prairie habitat by protecting native blooms and collecting seeds, propagating them for replanting in other places. 

Breathtaking are the huge but short-lived spring stands of the bluish-purple Camas Lily, a plant not currently threatened but still surprisingly rare compared to its former profusion. Native Americans dug camas tubers soon after their flowers dried, and ate them raw, roasted like potatoes, or dried and ground to make bread. (Such were ‘enjoyed’ by the Lewis and Clark expedition, though its final impact upon its Anglo members was recalled as less than pleasant!) Another spring beauty is the intensely yellow Spring Gold, aka Foothill Desert Parsley. Closely related to the almost-always-nearby Barestem

Biscuitroot, a bloom that for all the worls  world looks to me like exploding fireworks, both are members of the biscuitroot genus, which also gives indication of their indigenous use. A special favorite of Gail and mine (we’ll leave you to guess why) is the Chocolate Lily, a species in the state’s sensitive category, with its unusual brownish-purplish petals. How often do you see a flower with brown petals?! And no, it doesn’t taste like chocolate, though like Camas it is edible. But the real spring showstopper on this prairie remnant is the rare and deeply-hued Golden Paintbrush, said to be growing naturally in only thirteen places in the world, nine of which are on Whidbey Island. This is the plant that Pacific Rim seems almost to be bringing back from extinction’s doorstep, so much so that it has been able to be downlisted from endangered to threatened status in the state. Gail and I always loved the prolific orange and red-orange paintbrush of Colorado’s high plains and foothills when we lived and hiked there, so this seems like coming across its rarer cousin, its ‘brother-from-a different-mother,’ or, in this case, its Creator!

(Above photos, in order: a camas patch; spring gold and camas; barestem biscuitroot; camas, spring gold and chocolate lily; golden paintbrush patch; paintbrush close-up)

Western Washington’s forest and prairie ephemerals seem to last somewhat longer than those we have found in the Midwest’s northwoods, but one still must be ready to get out there pretty quickly to enjoy them before they’re gone. And the very term ephemeral gives us a clue to this reality. As I mentioned in one of those earlier posts, ephemeral is from the Greek ephemeron, which means ‘liable to be cut short,’ a good descriptor for a bloom that might last in some cases only a few hours or days. Understandably, ephemeron is from the same root as the common Biblical word daily, the word we use in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” If I remember correctly, I think it is also the word used in Exodus 16 in the Septuagint (an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), when the Israelites are told to daily gather manna sufficient only for a single day, in other words, to trust God that God will continue to daily provide for them again the next day. Thinking about and meditating on this Biblical word has added a lovely meaning and deeper appreciation to our early spring wildflower-gazing and identification. Give us this day our daily blooms as well as all our daily needs.

And speaking of ephemerals:

As for people, their days are like grass. They flourish like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. (Psalm 103:15-18)

OR

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is here today and gone tomorrow… will he not much more care for you…? Therefore, do not be anxious… (Matthew 6:28-31, portions)

OR

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

May you and I be completely and ephemerally assured of the blessing of God’s daily care.

~~ RGM, May 26 2022

POTM...*: The Ephemerals

(*Photos of the Month)

OK, I decided a photo of the month would be timely for my first blog of June, breaking from the norm of sharing from my nature journal as my first entry of the new month. This is simply because we just took these images these last several days, and I’d like to get them up in context! So let me give a bit of that context before I share the photos.

Gail and I are away from Colorado right now, enjoying an early spring (after a very long winter) in the Northwoods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Early spring? In June? I explain. Though we have often been here by Memorial Day weekend, this winter was unusual here, with cold temps and late, heavy snows well into the first six weeks of spring. Take this for example: last year in 2012, ice-out on our lake took place the first week of March; this year it didn’t go out until May 8, a record in anyone’s memory. That is crazy! And to make matters worse, the depth of that late snow and the resulting delay of the frost going out has produced an unusually high water table, extending what is known here as ‘mud season’ by several weeks. Our driveway is impassable, creeks and lakes are high, some gravel roads are still closed having been washed out with freshets, and water is running in the woods in places we have never seen it run before.

Another thing it has done, however, to our great delight, is delay the first blooms of the season until late May; as a result, we are seeing flowers we have never had the pleasure of seeing here before either. Typically, early blooms come to flower before tree leaf-out blocks direct sunlight to the forest floor.  Some of these early bloomers are called ‘ephemerals,’ blooms that may last as short as a single day. Among them are some shown below. Thankfully, though a patch of them might be ‘here today and gone tomorrow,’ varying ground conditions (shadows, moisture, rocks, incline, etc.) may allow another patch to pop out in another place the next day, or the next. So it has been fun to walk or drive up and down the road, or walk in the woods each day, and see unusual and short-lived blooms along the way. Most early season flowers are white or mostly white.

The word is from the Greek ephemeron,

which means liable to be cut short,

a good word for a bloom that

might only last a few hours.

Ephemerals, as it relates to flowers, was a new descriptor to us. We found it in several places as we looked up these unknown blooms in our field guides. The word is from the Greek ephemeron, which means liable to be cut short, a good word for a bloom that might only last a few hours. Then I thought that Greek word even sounded familiar, and sure enough, it is from the same root as the common Biblical word daily. If I remember correctly, it is the word that we use in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” I think it is also the word used in the Septuagint (an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) in Exodus 16, when the Israelites are told to gather manna sufficient only for the day, in other words, to trust God that God will daily provide for them again the next day. Thinking about and meditating on this Biblical word has added a lovely meaning and deeper appreciation to our early spring flower-gazing and identification.

Here are the photos...

Hepatica – ¾-inch single blooms. A true ephemeral, it can be pale blue, lavender, pink or white. Also called liverleaf for its liver-shaped basal (lowest) leaf, early herbalists assumed it must then be good for liver ailments – it wasn’t.

Trillium – 2-3 inch tri-petaled blooms, with a three-lobed leaf and three-sectioned sepals. It is no wonder it is called trillium. It is also a protected species, one of our favorites, and the white flowers turn light pink with age; seeds are eventually disbursed by ants who carry them underground.

Wintercress – ¼-inch blooms in bunches, one of the first plants to green in the spring, even while snow is on the ground, thus its name. The leaves are often the first green food of the season for hungry deer.

Spring Beauties – ½-inch single blooms, can be white or pink, with pink veins that guide small insects to the nectar spot. Sometimes producing a veritable carpet of blooms, we have also seen these in the spring on the tops of mountains in Colorado.

Trout Lily – 1 inch single blooms, takes up to seven years to mature to flower; can also be white. It is also called adder’s tongue, with both flower and leaf disappearing by early summer.

Marsh Marigolds – 1½ inch blooms, not a marigold at all but in the buttercup family. The showiest and longest-lasting of the early risers, it is also known as cowslip, as cows would slip on them when coming down to the water in early spring.

Dutchman’s Breeches – 1 inch blooms, one to four on a stalk, another true ephemeral. Certainly the winner in the ‘coolest name category,’ its flowers resemble, upside-down, the pants worn in the Netherlands in earlier times. It is a favorite of spring bees due to its ample nectar.

Skunk Cabbage – tiny flowers on a one-inch pineapple-shaped spike, wrapped in a strange floral sheath, with leaves eventually up to a yard wide. Coming in a close second in the ‘coolest name category,’ it soundly beats all comers in the ‘weird category.’ This ephemeral produces so much heat that, if it has to, it thaws the ground and melts the snow in a circle around it as it pushes up from the ground. As its name implies, it stinks.

And speaking of ephemerals:

As for man, his days are like grass.

   he flourishes like a flower of the field,

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

            and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him,

            And his righteousness to children’s children,

To those who keep his covenant

            And remember to do his commandments. (Psalm 103:15-18)

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field… will he not much more clothe you…? Therefore, do not be anxious… (Matthew 6:28-31, portions)

The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

May you be completely assured today of the blessing of God’s daily care.

~~RGM, June 1, 2013

 P.S. Up next week? Back to my nature journal…