Perhaps it is because we've been without flowers in the field for so long that the first blooms of the season seem so beautiful. They offer reassurance that winter's grimness is giving way, once again, to new life and color.
The exotic, orange-red columbine erupts from barren and rocky outcrops while the coltsfoot and dandelions poke their golden heads up in fields, lawns and meadows. Even the tiny blossoms tucked in the folds of the notorious skunk cabbage are a welcome sight after so much blandness.
The flowers of early spring are often small and understated, like the light pink whispers of spring-beauty, but against a backdrop of brown mud their effect is magnified many times. California's '49ers called the spring-beauty "miners' lettuce," as its tasty leaves saved many of them from scurvy.
"Early spring is the windy season, when nature sweeps away the cold and snow, and awakens long-sleeping roots with gusts of warmer air," writes Jack Sanders in The Secrets of Wildflowers. "In my neighborhood, among the first plants to stir under these beckoning blasts is the appropriately named 'windflower.'
"Also known as the wood anemone, this plant and its closely related cousin, the rue-anemone, seem too small and delicate to force their way through the recently thawed earth and survive this chilly season. Yet on inspection, the wood anemone is ideally designed to bear the brunt of the strongest spring winds."
Anemones have roots that spread horizontally across the surface soil, anchoring it in place, and its stem is slender and pliant, able to bend but not break in the stiffest gale. As the spring winds blow, its white flowers let loose their pollen, fertilizing nearby blossoms at a time when few insects are around to assist their reproduction.
Sanders' text is a welcome reference to the wildflowers of spring, as well as summer and fall. The natural and cultural history of more than one hundred species of these wild plants is detailed along with odd facts and folklore. The marsh marigold, for instance, has been called "friend of the farmer" because its yellow flowers announce that the growing season has arrived. It's also been called mollyblobs, water dragon, cowbloom, soldier buttons, great bitterflower, meadowbouts, crazy bet, gools and even drunkards.
"Drunkards, an old Devonshire name, stems from a belief, especially among children, that the scent of the flower encouraged drunkenness because the wetland-loving plant seems to drink so much water," Sanders explains.
The first flower of spring, though, is still the skunk cabbage. It emerges as early as December in some places, and by March its tiny blossoms are emitting a scent that resembles either rotting meat or fresh dung. There are two good reasons for the stench -- to ward off grazing animals and attract pollinating flies.
Another stinky spring wildflower is the trillium, especially the red trillium found mostly on the east side of the Mississippi which is said to emit the "odor of raw beefsteak of uncertain age." The pink and white flowers of the western trillium are not so obnoxious, but you wouldn't want to stick your nose up to them.
More appreciated by those not obsessed with perfectly green lawns are the delicate speedwells, little puffs of pussytoes and bright yellow buttercups that creep across unpoisoned yards.
Spring also brings forth blossoms of celandine and marsh marigolds and wild irises. Look past the cultivated gardens bursting with tulips and daffodils and daylilies and you may spot some long-tailed wild ginger beneath a woodlands canopy or saxifrage on the mountain slopes. There are moccasin flowers blooming somewhere along with wild daisies and geraniums.
These early-season wildflowers sustain insects and birds and animals at a time when few other food sources are available. They break open and condition the soil for other plants to follow, and they provide tonics and nutrition important to human health. But most obvious of all, the wild blossoms of March and April are a stroke of bright color on a dark canvas, symbols of rebirth and renewal at a time when such symbols
are needed most.