Wildflowers

I seem to do a lot of thinking when I am on a jaunt with the dogs. Especially when I am hiking in the foothills. Saturday was a tough day, one of those day when I was flooded by emotion and sorrow at the death of my friend. My eyes were certainly leaking.

It was a good time to distract myself, so I focused on yet some different flowers in bloom. These were different than others I have been seeing throughout the spring and into this summer. Some delicate yellow blooms with grouped petals, on a sort of tail, then very delicate yellow flowers with petals like daisies.

I am obviously a toad when it comes to naming flowers or plants. I know some by name and even recognize some, but most are pretty flowers or plants to me. One of my hiking partners is a master gardener, with a passion for wildflowers, she will tell me the name of things and I’ll forget them just that fast. The thing I do appreciate is how different plants have a season when they present themselves. We are noticing many more flowering plants this year because of the good rain we had in June. I love too when my friend will bring up a curious fact or trait of certain plants, or even odd things brought up on NPR on one of the nature podcasts. Plant pods too give a plant a whole different look. The stages of growth, from new green stems and leaves, buds, open blooms, seed pods. The way plants have adapted to season and terrain, sun or shade. Some plants bloom at night, some in the heat of summer—some have an underground network group connection. They attract different insects or birds for pollination in an intricate dance orchestrated by mother nature.