Halcyon Days!

How rare and wonderful when two days of warm, peaceful weather occur on a weekend in March! First, here’s a more cheery look at Erigenia bulbosa to replace the dark and brooding shot I posted earlier.




Veronica hederifolia (=V. hederaefolia), Ivy-Leaved Speedwell, was flowering away on a south-facing slope (degraded lawn), near the edge of the parking lot at an abandoned K-Mart in South Bend, Indiana. I’ve found this plant at 7 sites in northern Indiana and southern Michigan, and it is always growing densely and in profusion far and wide. Though attractive, it seems to have the potential of becoming a troublesome weed in natural areas. The setaceous hairs are so numerous that the colonies take on a grey-green appearance from a distance.

Populus tremuloides, Quaking Aspen, along the Norfolk Railroad in Starke County, Indiana.

Hepatica americana, Round-Lobed Hepatica, flowering abundantly on the summit of a west-facing slope above the Yellow River in Starke County, Indiana.

"Shall not a man have his spring as well as the plants?" Henry David Thoreau, journal, June, 1850.