Sweet Vernal Grass: Lilacs

from Walt Whitman

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle......and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.

Sweet Vernal Grass

Sometime around May 15th many of the dandelions have set seed and their blowpuffs are ready to be, well, blowpuffed.

This is a time when the surrounding area is white with apple and honeysuckle. this is the season of the lilac, which turns any garden into something that smells sweet. This is the time of the next season, still in the astronomer's spring, the season called Sweet Vernal Grass.

Let's review the REAL seasons while thumbing our nose at astronomy.

Season Begins when Ends when
1. Amelanchier Skunk Cabbage blooms 3.26
2. Taraxacum Dandelions bloom 4.21
3. Sweet Vernal Grass Dandelions fruit 5.15

Taraxacum: Chartreuse

The development of new leaves on the trees in the season Taraxacum mean that the period from about May 1 to May 15 is a time when the world is chartreuse.

To see four RGB colors named chartreuse, go to the following website.

http://www.livjm.ac.uk/cwis/colors/Chartreuse.htm


The name of the color is derive from the color of a liqueur. The following is copied from a website about the color chartreuse.

Chartreuse is an herbal liqueur made by the Carthusian Monks near Grenoble, France. According to the tale, the formula for chartruese was invented by a 16th century alchemist as an attempt to create aqua vitae (the waters of life.) Aqua vitae was believed to restore youth to the aged, endow animation to the dead, and be a key ingredient in the creation of the philosophers stone. Though this attempt at its creation seems to fall somewhat short of the legendary effects, it was promoted as a heal-all tonic by the descendant of the alchemist, and was bequeathed to the Carthusian Order upon his death. This formula of 130 herbs has been secret for nearly 400 years. Today, only three brothers of that monestary know how to make chartreuse.

Taraxacum: Great Weed #2

A bit after the garlic mustard blooms, the second great weed blooms--and it's a far prettier sight both during blooming and after than Alliaria. Great Weed # 2 is the Barbarea vulgaris, the yellow rocket. At this spot and throughout mid May in this region, fields are yellow with this member of the mustard family.

Taraxacum: Great Weed #1

Throughout this diary I will be naming the Great Weeds. A Great Weed is 1) one that is truly present in its time, and 2) strikes my botanical fancy.

Great Weed #1 is Alliaria petiolata, the garlic mustard. It is found in field and forest here and dominates. One really great thing about it is that gardeners and landscape freaks hate it, a sure sign of its worth--and it really does get ugly after a while, brown and big and ugly. That's part of it's greatness.

Other names for it are: hedge garlic, sauce-alone, jack-by-the-hedge, poor man's mustard, jack-in-the-bush, garlic root, garlicwort, mustard root

For those of you who are wondering why dandelions or creeping charlies or dooryard violets (Violoa sororia) are not Great Weeds, it's because my instincts tell me they're not.

Taraxacum: Flowering Trees

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the season Taraxacum is the blooming of trees. In Amalanchier most blooming takes place before leaves, whereas in Taraxacum trees put out leaves and flowers simultaneously. Apples, which are wild thoughout this area because of its agricultural history, cherries, and other species bloom during this season. Here I am standing in front of a crab apple. Note: when making any kind of apple jellies you do not need pectins to gel the liquids. This tree goes nuts every other year, and every other year I make crab apple jelly. My most famous batch was "Gabe up a Tree," made in 2003.

Taraxacum: Morning Storm

Enough said. Courtesy Elka Rostal

Taraxacum: Clock Dude

For those of you who thought my reference to clocks and longitude was the result of drugs long past or a science historian's wet dream, the man's name was John Harrison. He developed a clock that was accurate to 3 mintues after a passage from London to Jamaica. Here is his story.

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.355/viewPage/1

Taraxacum

In the days when people where trying to find out how to determine longitude, everyone knew you needed some kind of universal clock that was constant everwhere. That way you could determine noon in London no matter where you were, even at sea. By comparing your noon to London's noon you could calculate longitude and not run your ship into various islands or continents and have to come back to London looking like a dork. For a while people tried to use the regularity of the motion of moons around Jupiter as proposed by Galileo, but try to find them when your ship is going up and down, or in the day. Finally some dude invented a good clock and got to go on London's Greatest Inventors--The Reality Show.

I digress. Taraxacum is the second season of the year. The whole first paragraph means: You can compare YOUR season Taraxacum with MY season because I have found the universal clock--the day that dandelions bloom, and they bloom EVERYWHERE, unless you live on the ocean like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.

It begins when Taraxacum vulgare and Glechoma heteracea bloom. This year that date was May 3. Last year that date was 4.15. It was a long cold April. The season ends when the last dandelion fruits have blown away.

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Dandelion.html

http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/glehe.htm

Amelanchier 2

I consider the beginning of Amelanchier to be on or about March 26. That is the day the two species bloom here, neither on this land but I consider them the beginning of the season. The first is Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage)

http://www.wschowa.com/abrimaal/araceum/symplocarpus/foetidus.htm

and the second is Corylus americana (American hazelnut).

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=208

The end of the season Amelanchier occurs when the Glechoma (ground ivy) and Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) bloom.

5.3.07

Amelanchier
Saying summer, fall, winter, spring is fine if you are a Howdy Doody fan or an astronomer; to a mentally healthy person (an amateur naturalist) they are gross. They are too long in time and not expressive of the natural world. Being of sound mind, I have named the first part of spring Amelanchier.

From March 26, when the Crocus cvijicii (crocus) may bloom (this year they waited until April 21) until ground ivy blooms is a time of son-before-flower; those plants bloom whose chief strategy is to produce flowers prior to leaves. Included in this season are its namesake Amelanchier canadensis (shadbush), Tussilago farfara (coltsfoot), and Acer rubrum (red maple). Most of our oaks, aspen, and willows are part of the season of Amelanchier.

http://www.naturehills.com/new/product/productdetails.aspx?proname=Serviceberry

This is a cold area in winter and many people here weaken emotionally in March. But to leave the Taconics for warm weather any time between March 26th and the blooming of Glecoma heteracea (ground ivy) indicates mental illness.

Stand in the wind on a hill facing southeast on the first really warm day of Amelanchier. It's insurance against being taken off to the nuthouse screaming about illegal wars and unfaithful women.

Amelanchier is just a season of health--and anyone in any temperate zone north or south knows what I mean. And even naming this season has risks; when this diary rolls around to next Feburary we will see that all the signs are there of the growing explosion of this time.

Remember to email me at dhfranck@gmail.com for an Excel document showing a full list of all species and first blooming dates (and photographs) of all species in 42.31, -72.55.