SWEET WOODRUFF IS BLOOMING

SWEET WOODRUFF, A MAT-LIKE GROUND COVER WITH WHORLED LEAVES...

...BLOOMING IN MID-SPRING...

...IT HAS UMBELS OF FRAGRANT, SMALL, FOUR-PETALLED FLOWERS,

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  Wind variable, calm with very light gusts.  There is dense fog over the Islands and the water, which has crept up the bluffs and envelops most everything.  The humidity is 97% and there is another 20" of rain in the rain gage.  The barometer is more-or-less steady, now standing at 29.86"
   The hummingbird that has claimed the feeder and the hanging baskets as his domain now has a rival, so the fight is on.  A female has injected herself into the fray, and is probably waiting to proffer her affections to the winner.  Does she have any preference as to whom will be victorious?  I am reluctant to be sexist, but I doubt it.  I suppose there is more than a hint of anthropomorphism in my commentary, but I can't help but attribute human motives and desires to wild things, at least in their baser emotions and activities.  They are too much like ourselves to ignore the similarities.
   Sweet woodruff,  Galium oderatum,  formerly Asperula oderata, in the family Rubiaceaea, is a common garden perennial,  native to much of Eurasia, much used as a ground cover.   I find it a delightful plant, very fragrant, especially when dried.  It is traditionally used to make May wine, an old-world tradition.  A few sprigs of flowering sweet woodruff, picked fresh and steeped for a week or so in almost any white wine, makes a refreshing and somewhat different drink.  I think it is pretty good, but Joan doesn't care for it.  The plant has interesting whorled leaves and umbels of minute white flowers. It has another common name, sweet bedstraw, denoting its use  in Medieval times.
     Sweet Woodruff  spreads from rhizomes as well as seeds, and I find it grows particularly well under and around pine trees where not much else will grow because of  acid soil, shade and root competition.