I don’t remember much that I learned in my tenth grade biology class. I wouldn’t have any idea how to classify anything, I almost got sick dissecting a frog and I never could see a thing under a microscope. But early every spring, I joyfully retrace a path I first took when my teacher assigned our groaning class a wildflower collection.
In the years since, my mom and I have spent countless blissful hours trekking over hills and up hollows, scrambling over steep bluffs and rocky outcrops to see the spring wildflowers It is a ritual for us, anticipated impatiently through the dreary months of January and February. Our discussions begin in early March. “Reckon anything’s up yet?” we ask each other. “When was it we saw the trout-lilies last year?” We always go looking too soon, hoping for early bloomers. And sometimes we are rewarded by a few eager trillium or a precocious bloodroot.
Of course, the flowers had always been there. We just hadn’t particularly noticed them before my assignment. Now I had to find them – twenty-five if I wanted an A. Not only did I have to collect them, I had to identify and preserve them. So, armed with a pocket field guide and accompanied by my mon and the dogs, I set out on a journey that has never ended.
We discovered toothwort, lacy saxifrage and petite bluets, all right under our noses. Shooting-star grew on a steep path overlooking the river, and Virginia bluebells flowed down a hillside like a blue waterfall. The fragile blooms of rue anemone danced in the spring breeze among the rocks and trees, and shy yellow violets hid in last year’s rotting leaves.
As the years passed, we met other new friends – dainty yellow trout lilies with their mottled leaves, stately Jack-in-the-pulpit almost unnoticed against the leaves, wild hyacinths and the curious walking fern. We have traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains in April to enjoy the parade of wildflowers there and sought nature trails along the Natchez Trace. And we have haunted secret spots closer to home, marveling at showy orchids and lady’s slippers. Each new discovery brought just as much excitement as did that first trillium long ago.
The next logical step was to transplant some of our favorites. There is something satisfying in reproducing the growing conditions of our specimens and seeing them thrive and multiply. Mom soon had a well-established colony of bluebells, rue anemone, bloodroot and larkspur. Later, plants from her garden helped start my own plot, which has been expanded with roots from other collectors and from wildflower nurseries.
As time has passed, a few favorites have diminished or disappeared from our woods. The shooting star is all but gone from its rocky perch, victim of occasional floods and foraging cattle. But a thriving clump blooms every spring in Mom’s garden. The Jacks seem to have disappeared too, suddenly one winter as if they folded up their striped canopies and stole away into an unknown land. But a whole family has established residence next door to the shooting star and an offspring began a large family in my own garden. So we became conservationists of a sort, in a small way.
My biology teacher is gone now. Before she moved to her retirement home, she gave me her collection of wildflower books, which I will treasure always. I’m sure her students remember her well. I expect many of them remember more facts than I do. Some of those students may have gone on to become doctors or scientists because of something she taught them. Their work is important; but just as important to me is the sight of the shiny white blooms of bloodroot or the whimsical pantaloons of the Dutchman’s breeches. She gave me a legacy of beauty – a great gift. Thank you, Mrs. Carothers.
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