SPIRAEA'S, TRUE AND FALSE

FALSE SPIRAEA SHRUBS IN FLOWER...

...MT. ASH-LIKE COMPOUND LEAVES

MEADOW SWEET SPIRAEA SHRUB AND FLOWER...

...FLOWER SPIKE

Monday, 8:00 AM.  68 degrees F at the ferry dock, 62 degrees on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm, with light gusts.  The sky is clear, the humidity 70%. The barometer is stead at 30,10". The chance of thunderstorms is predicted for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but this is a perfect ten morning.

   False Spiraea, Sorbaria sorbifolia, in the Rose Family, is an Asiatic shrub native to eastern Russia, China and Japan. It is a vigorous shrub with spiraea-like compound flower spikes.  It grows to perhaps four or five feet in height.  It is a useful landscape plant but has a tendency to take over an area and might be invasive.  The group pictured is growing along Hwy. 13 at the bridge over Pike's Creek.  It is an obvious escape from cultivation, or perhaps was planted there many years ago.

   Meadow sweet, Spiraea latifolia, also in the Rose Family,  is a shrub native to northeast North America.  it may grow up to six feet tall but the one pictured is only about three feet in height.  It is pretty in bloom and also fragrant, and makes a pleasant tea. Its habitat is sandy shores, swamps and wet meadows. A rather similar native within the same geographical range is hardhack, S. tomentosa, which has pink to rose colored blooms.  It's habitat is basically similar.

   An easy way to distinguish the false from the true spiraeas is that the former has pinnately compound leaves, similar in appearance to the mt. ash (Sorbus), and the later simple, toothed leaves.

  OFF THE CUFF

   Tragedy after tragedy, our society edges toward anarchy.  What we usually forget, or dismiss as a historical anachronism, is that the old scourge of the Anarchist movement, notorious for assassinations (including President McKinley in 1901), murders and bombings throughout the later half of the Nineteenth Century through the 1930's, never really disappeared.  We laugh at the cartoon character of the black clad and mustachioed Anarchist, holding a round bomb with a lit fuse.  It doesn't seem so funny at the moment.
    Anarchism came to life again in the violence of the 1960's and '70's, and in the Oklahoma bombing of 1995.  The writings of the notorious radical Saul Alinsky,  author of Rules For Radicals, has influenced many, including some current politicians and organizers,  to create anarchy to further the leftist agenda.  Anarchy has long been recognized as a tool of Communism, and a precursor to dictatorships of both the right and the left.
   The old Anarchist movement  is alive and well, at home and abroad.