Swamp Treasures

Yesterday I visited the Marsh-Marigolds (Caltha palustris). They belong to the radiant family of Buttercups. A goldfinch crossed my path moments after I left the flowers, and by comparison, the bird seemed almost drab. 
I feasted on a plate of fiddleheads today, fresh from Goulais Bay. Mmmm … Thanks, Jack!

The most alive is the wildest. - Thoreau

Tip-Toeing in Good Luck

Back again.
The yard of this old house is famous for its four-leaf clovers. Yesterday, the little boy next door (who is quite nearly nine) sleuthed out a dozen. All have been duly pressed in a telephone book with a brick on top.

Holly Winterberry

Holly Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) glowing rosy under newly fallen snow.

Blue Flag Iris

Swamps are exquisitely beautiful places. It is where the wild blue flag iris blooms. Irises photosynthesize on both sides of their leaves.

Seed Pods

A drawing done for practise of the dried seed pods of Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), still attached to the crisp stalk on which they had bloomed. There were still a few cinnamon-brown seeds tucked inside like a delightful postscript at the end of a long, scrumptious letter.

Great Mullein

Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) has woolly leaves and many common names. The funniest I've heard is "Tarzan's Toilet Paper."

Virginia Creeper Berries …

… resemble ball & stick molecular models from chemistry class.

Poison Ivy Berries

Swamp-green and grinchy poison ivy berries. Just before snapping the shutter, out of habit I muttered "smile." Cold and grim and bereft of leaves, they cling to their stems all Winter. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers eat them, as do migrating birds. Many plants remind me of architecture. This could be a communications tower bedecked with mirrored metallic glass office spheres in Toronto. 

Highbush Cranberry

Highbush cranberries (Viburnum trilobum, trilobum meaning "three-lobed" leaf, not "three-bummed") are face-twistingly tart. Only after mellowed by frosts do I collected them, toss them in a pot, and simmer them into a sauce, flinging in sugar and straining out the flat hard seeds at the end. Highbush cranberry sauce is a scrumptious concoction. It's rich in vitamin C which prevents scurvy, the scourge of pirates. HAPPY SWASHBUCKLING THANKSGIVING!

Devil's Paintbrush

Devil's Paintbrush is also called Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum). On sun-warmed afternoons, accompanied by crickets, they are the smell of Summer. It has long irked me to find this wonderful plant described in books as a weed. One book describes Devil's Paintbrush as "a beautiful but pernicious pest," which is something I've long aspired to being. In Spring I saw shelves bulging with pots of them at the Canadian Tire greenhouse. They were tagged at $3 each. I smiled. Conspiratorially.