The Jester's Cap and Bells

Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) 

The delightfully complex shape of columbines always reminds me of a harlequin's chapeau or a medieval court jester's cap. The architecture is splendid stuff, and there is a blithely capering choreography to the columbine's dancing "to and fro" movement on gracefully arching and swaying stems. With sunlight shining through them, the petals and sepals of the flower seem to be made of stained glass.

The stained glass analogy is apt, for the flowers dwell in woodland cathedrals of flickering sunlight and deep green shadows. The ceilings of the structures are way up in the sky, and the soaring green arches disappear into the clouds. The leafy chapels seem to go on and on forever, and the clerestories, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses would make any architect proud. Such places hum with enchantment.

As I often do at this time of the year, I am reading (again) John Crowley's fabulous Little, Big, and a sentence about the forest at the heart of the book comes to mind: “The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”

Columbines often seem to be wearing at least one spider web, along with bits of fluff from nearby cottonwood trees and slender filaments of milkweed silk. I am always astonished by what my macro lens "sees" and records in its ramblings. At times, its loving eye seems to linger and caress everything it encounters, and that is particularly so when columbines are in bloom.

November Woods

Small Wonders

On a fine morning in late August, a weathered cedar stump along the trail into the deep woods sports a colony of haircap moss (Polytrichum commune), also called common haircap, golden maidenhair and great goldilocks.

The delicate wonders emerging from the thatch are dancing sporophytes, fragile strands topped by seed capsules wearing raindrops and filaments of spider silk. Just beyond the right edge of the photo, a crab spider waits for a fly or other insect to put in an appearance, one fraught with peril.

How often does one wander along a trail and not notice such wonders? I suspect the answer is, most of the time, for this old hen anyway. My moss colony is a miniature jeweled world, complete within itself, its glistening raindrops holding the whole sunlit forest in their depths, upside down of course.

For the life of me, I can't come up with the right words to describe it. A tiny cosmos in the sunny woods, teeming with life. Its own history. Its own mythology. Its own stories. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Radiant. Perfect.

Little Wonders in the Woods

On a fine morning in late August, a weathered cedar stump by the trail into the deep woods wears a carpet of haircap moss (Polytrichum commune). The delicate wonders emerging from the thatch are dancing sporophytes, fragile strands topped by seed capsules wearing raindrops and filaments of spider silk. Just beyond the photo, a crab spider waits for a fly to put in an appearance, one fraught with peril.

How often does one wander along a trail and not notice such wonders? I suspect the answer is, most of the time, for this old hen anyway.

My moss colony was a miniature jeweled world, complete within itself, its glistening raindrops holding the whole sunlit forest in their depths, upside down of course. For the life of me, I can't come up with the right words to describe it. A tiny cosmos, teeming with life. Its own history. Its own traditions. Its own stories. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Radiant. Perfect.

Lily of the Woods

Trout Lily, Adder's tongue or Dogtooth violet

(Erythronium americanum)

White Empress in Bloom

Great White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Small Wonder

Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis)

November Woods

By Butternut Hill

Small Wonders and Worlds Within

On a fine morning in late August, a weathered cedar stump along the trail into the deep woods wears a carpet of haircap moss (Polytrichum commune).  The delicate wonders emerging from the thatch are dancing sporophytes, fragile strands topped by seed capsules wearing raindrops and filaments of spider silk. Just beyond the photo, a crab spider waits for a fly to put in an appearance, one fraught with peril.

How often does one wander along a trail and not notice such wonders? I suspect the answer is, most of the time, for this old hen anyway.

My moss colony was a miniature jeweled world, complete within itself, its glistening raindrops holding the whole sunlit forest in their depths, upside down of course. For the life of me, I can't come up with the right words to describe it. A tiny cosmos, teeming with life. Its own history. Its own traditions. Its own stories. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Radiant. Perfect.

Oh, Those Golden Slippers

Large Yellow Lady's Slipper

(Cypripedium parviflorum var pubescens)

It's a time of the year when one signs in in the morning, looks at her photographic efforts from the last few days, utters a silent "meh" and decides to say as little as possible in print.  The photos express everything wonderfully without her help, and the best thing she can do is be silent for the most part, let the orchids speak or sing in their own voices, in all their green, gold and rusty perfection.

I doesn't matter a whit that she has been looking at wild orchids for years and capturing them with her lens whenever she encounters them. Every year, they are simply magnificent and beyond expression.  They are absolutely perfect, beyond perfect, and her little net of words is woefully inadequate. She will just sit here and look at them with her mouth open. Like WOW...

Lilies of the Woodland

Trout Lily, Adder's tongue or Dogtooth violet

(Erythronium americanum)

Golden Lily of the Woods

Trout lily or Dogtooth violet 
(Erythronium americanum)