In Wild Profusion

Swamp Butterfly Weed (also called Swamp Milkweed,
Rose Milkweed and White Indian Hemp)
 (Asclepias incarnata )

On a walk this past weekend in the Lanark Highlands, the species below were in bloom, not a shabby collection at all for just a brief walk in the woods and fields of the Two Hundred Acre Wood and along the verges of its beaver ponds. This has been an odd season weather wise and species which do not ordinarily bloom at the same time are blooming together this year. 

Anemone (Canada, Rue, Wood), Bird's-foot Trefoil, Black Mustard, Bladder Campion, Boneset, Brown-eyed Susan, Buttercup, Cardinal Flower, Catnip, Chicory, Clover (tall yellow and white, short  pink, white and purple), Cohosh (Blue and Black), Common Milkweed, Crown Vetch, Daisy Fleabane, Dandelion, Day Lily, Deptford Pink, Elderberry, Everlasting Pea, Fragrant Water Lily (white), Hawkweed (orange and yellow), Heal-All, Hedge Bindweed, Lambs Quarters, Leafy Spurge, Milkweed, Miterwort, Motherwort, Oxeye Daisy, Pickerelweed, Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot), Red Baneberry, Rose Mallow, Shrubby Cinquefoil, Sow Thistle, Snakeroot, Spatterdock, St. John's Wort, Swamp Butterfly Weed (Swamp Milkweed), Thimbleweed, Toadflax, Tufted Vetch, Turkish Mullein, Vipers Bugloss, Vervain, Virgin's Bower (Wild Clematis), Wild Basil, Wild Bergamot, Wild Cucumber, Wild Parsnip, Yarrow, Yellow Goatsbeard

The purpose of such naming exercises is never a simple laundry list of blooming fauna, but always an expression of the wild abundance on offer in northern summer, an appreciation of what the Old Wild Mother (Earth) holds out to us in her own good time and seasons - it's a powerful reminder of just what a special place this little blue planet is.

The stands of milkweed coming into bloom now are a plus for they bring Monarch butterflies and serve as nurseries for the eggs and caterpillars.  The waving stands of kindred Swamp Butterfly Weed in the beaver pond with their bright pink buds were a pleasant surprise though - this is the first year they have graced us with their presence.

As I drew near the pond this past weekend, the tall water grasses there were in ceaseless windy motion, a panoramic blur of dancing emerald green, and a family or three of raucous wood ducks detached themselves from the reeds and flew away protesting loudly - they splashed down again among the reeds in the center of the pond with much happy quacking, well beyond the ken of eyes and lens.  It's all good, even if the deer flies and mosquitoes were out and about in profusion.