A LARGE PATCH OF SWEET CICELY
SWEET SCENTED FLOWERS
A FIELD OF COREOPSISMonday, 7:30 AM. 60 degrees, wind NW, calm. The channel is glassy. The sky is partly cloudy and the barometer predicts more of the same. It is another lovely day.
Yesterday afternoon we put the top down and drove about looking at roadside flowers. A large patch of sweet Cicely, Osmorhiza chilensis (a plant noted by Fassett as quite specific to Bayfield in Wisconsin) is growing along with lupines on Hwy 13 south of the Sioux River. Native Americans evidently used sweet Cicely root much as one would mint. I did not dig up a root to taste it but nibbled some flowers and leaves, which were not very good. P.S., don’t taste anything in the parsley family unless you know definitely what it is, as many species are very poisonous. Sweet Cicely has a very delicate, sweet scent, and the air was permeated with it.
Tickseed, Coreopsis tinctoria, is blooming in profligate abundance in the orchard country along Hwy J. Whether these are truly native populations or escaped from the flower farms is hard to say, but they are a beautiful sight. This plant is used in dyeing, thus it’s species name. The common name comes from the appearance of the seeds.
While driving along Townsend Road a young bear, maybe 150 pounds, ran across the road in front of us, but there was no opportunity for a photo.
No comments:
Post a Comment