Beautiful Girl!

 

My Home Welcomes Me

 

Outdoors

Indoors

I can't stay out of the woods in May!

The woods are magical at this time of year before the canopy fills in, sunlight dappled and the ground thick with wild leeks and spring ephemerals. Notice the love affair of trillium and bellwort, loving woodland companions.

Trillium blooms are at their peak this week, the beautiful grandiflora species especially bountiful. A few weeks ago I was puzzled by something mysterious. What is this strange flower?

The mystery was revealed when I spied a trillium clearly infected with a parasitic mycoplasma or phytoplasma (latter is the newer nomenclature). Compare the photo below to the one above with its flower sporting bacterial green.

As for other wildflowers, Dutchman's breeches are just about finished blooming, with Solomon's seal yet to come. Violets are flowering both in the woods and the garden both, deep purple ones around my house and the lovely little yellow downy violets in the woods. But we never tire of trillium, do we? Its season is all too brief.

Look up through the tops of the trees, too, and see how much light comes in before the canopy fills with summer leaves. 

Back on the ground are beauties other than flowers, such as this charming group of mossy rocks hidden deep among the trees. 

And oh, those lovely, luscious ferns!

Wednesday Morning Light

 

May 6, 2026

The morning light on budding trees against a dark, cloudy sky looked almost like autumn. No, please no!

The Moment, Seized

 

Spring a Dozen Ways

 

To make it a baker's dozen (13), see my April "Books Read" list here. 

Before the Fruits, Flowers

 

This Is What I Came Home To --

 

A Mysterious and Terrible Thing Happened!

You are not leaving without me!

 

How it happened I cannot explain (will have to have my computer gurus investigate), but a day or two before leaving our winter ghost town digs to return to Michigan, I lost an entire list of books that I’d been compiling for months – starting before we even left Michigan in early November! That precious list encompassed familiar titles I’d need to restock, new titles by beloved Michigan authors, and a miscellany of new titles on a variety of subjects added as I read reviews over the winter. There is no way I can ever reconstruct the entire list, so I’m back to the starting line, beginning with the obvious – and obviously I won’t get everything on the first order of the season as I’d hoped to do. 

 

On the other hand (the happy note), books were our #1 priority when we packed the car to trek back to the Midwest, so while the new-new might take a little longer, we’ll be starting out with lots of new-to-you, and that will happen very, very soon....

Packing car begins with book boxes

Note to curious: Do I not save my work? I do indeed! Fanatically! There was some dread force of evil at work on this particular document (saved as a draft e-mail) that suddenly one morning caused it to shrink and shrink and shrink! Every time I re-opened it, the list was shorter, until finally the document was completely blank. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen!” my computer-savvy son remarked in astonishment. Back to paper and pen, we agreed! Often, old ways are best.

Spring in Michigan

Don't Look for Ocotillo Here Today

A friend back in Michigan asked me what is blooming right now in Arizona. Soon there will be some big, fantastic flowers along the highway, but prickly poppy seems to be taking its time this year, and I don't have a new photograph of the showy Western wallflower, so I thought we could just tour scruffy mesquite country and take a closer look at what there is to see.

There are so many yellow composite blooms in the Southwest that some people call them all, in exasperation, DYCs -- for damned yellow composites. I will never learn them all, but they are as cheery as Michigan dandelions when they first appear.

in sun

The image above shows a globemallow blossom. Globemallow was one of the first Western blooms I learned to identify, drawn to it by its spectacular color, but I don't know which species this one is. Even the field guide (Audubon) admits that members of the Sphaeralcea genus can be "difficult to identify," and before the flowers appear, the plant is weedy and somewhat unattractive. But then comes that salmon-orange blossom, and I forgive completely! Here is a second photo of globemallow, just to show that I hold no grudges and do, really, appreciate having it around. 

in shade

While we're on the subject of weedy plants, we might as well address also the question of Western peppergrass, Lepidium montanum, a member of the mustard family (Brassicaceae). Like so many of the mustards, peppergrass lacks large, showy blossom size, but it makes up for that in abundance.

And a closer looks shows that the flower is attractive, in its own quiet way.

Another small, inconspicuous but abundant plant flowering now in mid-April has sweet, tiny faces that remind me of little flowers I saw dotting the grass in the parks of Paris, France, in the month of May (on my first, long-ago visit). See how they look pink when closed and then open to show white rays around a yellow center, like miniature daisies?

My field guide tells me this plant is spreading fleabane (Erigeron divergens), not the most appealing name for such a darling little flower, while the pâquerette I came to know and love in Paris is Bellis perennis. Oh, the mystery of botanical nomenclature, how two plants can look so similar and be only distantly related! Another mystery to me was why the translation given for pâquerette is 'daisy,' while I always new daisy as 'marguerite.' Anyone interested in the difference between large daisies and the little Easter daisy (hint: latter grows in the grass) can find information -- in French -- here. 

Here is one more easily overlooked high desert April bloom. Phacelia doesn't even have a common name, which tells you how much attention is paid to it, but when the dusty, lavender-grey blooms are at their fullest, the air around this ground-hugging plant buzzes with active pollinators. 

I said this post would not have very showy flowers, but my last one for today is showy indeed. Here in Dos Cabezas we don't have it carpeting entire acres, but a little patch of Mexican poppies shouts with joy, and anyone seeing it has to smile in response. 

And there you have it -- another lesson in looking carefully at the world, so as not to miss any of the gifts, however small, that are all around us.