SHINLEAF

SHINLEAF, LEAVES AND FLOWERS...

...DITTO

Friday, 7:45 AM.  56 % F at the ferry dock, 53 on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm, the humidity 77%.  The sky is crystal clear, the barometer falling gradually, now at 30.15".  Today is a "perfect ten," and it looks like the long weekend will be that also. 
   We sleep with the windows open in the bedroom, and it got cold enough last night I had to get up and put an extra cover on the bed.  That, after a conversation earlier with a visitor on the beach, who was wearing a down jacket and giving me a lecture on Global Warming.  He said the temperature of the lake water had risen 5 degrees in the last ten years.  Where do people get these statistics from?  "Yes," I said, "In another ten years Lake Superior will be one giant fish boil."  I think he believed that, too.

   Shinleaf, the common name for species of the genus Pyrola, has several representatives in Wisconsin; one, P. minor, is an endangered species of sphagnum bogs.  The species pictured is rotundifolia, whose Wisconsin habitat is various to bogs, pine barrens, and northern forests of different types.  Pyrolas are  members of the Heath Family, the Ericaceae.

   All the Pyrola species have been used medicinally for the treatment of rheumatism and dermatalogical problems.  This species follows Canada may flower, Maianthemum canadense, in bloom, and the plants pictured were found in association with it on a shaded roadside in Bayfield.

   Bayfield strawberries are ripe and bearing heavily.  Sweet cherries will not be ripe until several days after the 4th.  Blueberries are still flowering.  Blackberries are still flowering.  Wild raspberries and thimbleberries are setting fruit.