“Conspicuous beauty” surrounds us in this
stage of spring. A soft green haze covers the tamarack swamps as their delicate
needles emerge. The cries of loons finding mates and defending territories echo
over glassy lakes. More subtle songs fill the forest every day as warblers
migrate through or set up territories. New flowers peek out from every habitat
and patch of sun.
Two of the wildflowers blooming now hold
special places in my heart, with two very different styles. The white clouds of
blossoms on serviceberry shrubs are the most spectacular. This member of the
Rose family blooms synchronously, with 90% of the flowers of a tree opening
within two to five days. As legend tells, this lovely bush earned its name
because it blooms when the ground has thawed enough so funeral services can be
held for unfortunate souls who died over the winter when the ground was too
hard to dig.
The synchronous bloom also creates a bonanza
for the small bees that pollinate it. Even though the nights are still chilly,
bees can shiver to warm up their flight muscles, and their fuzzy coat helps to
insulate them against frosty temperatures.
I first
discovered serviceberry in a botany class. We only learned to identify it to
genus – Amelanchier – because the
species are notoriously hard to tell apart.
Of the twenty species in the genus, nine of them live in Wisconsin! I
never learned it as a kid, because I grew up in the limestone bluffs of the
Driftless Area, and serviceberry is not tolerant of calcium carbonate. It
prefers higher acid soils like the sandy glacial outwash and igneous bedrock of
this region.
Trailing
arbutus, another favorite flower of mine, also likes acid soils and has white,
five-petaled flowers. Its scientific name, Epigaea
repens, which means “trailing upon the Earth” describes its growth habit
perfectly. Although the trumpet-shaped flowers look and smell wonderful, it can
be hard to find them among the thick mat of broad, oval, leathery evergreen
leaves. Without a trained eye, it may be mistaken for wintergreen, a close
cousin.
I first
discovered trailing arbutus on a portage trail in the Boundary Waters during an
early spring canoe trip. It cheered me up immensely after a few days of
traveling in wet snow and high winds. I
am not the first to appreciate its early spring beauty – as legend tells, it
was the first flower to cheer the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers after the
rigors of their first New England winter. This earned it the alternate common
name of Plymouth Mayflower, and the honor of being the Massachusetts State
Flower. One author described it as having “the fatal gift of conspicuous beauty”
that led to it being dug up and sold in eastern cities in the 1900s.
While many people love it, and
have tried to transplant it into gardens, trailing arbutus does not fare well
with disturbance. Like orchids and
blueberries, trailing arbutus has a mycorrhizal relationship with fungus on its
roots. The plant has almost no root-hairs, which in other species are key for
increasing the surface area available to absorb water and nutrients from the
soil. Fungal hyphae (fine root-like parts of a fungus) surround and
penetrate root cells, which allows for an exchange of water and nutrients from
the fungus, and sugars from photosynthesis in the plant. A study in the Harvard
Research Forest found that 91% of plant species there had similar fungal
friendships!
Spring is a wonderful time to
enjoy both the conspicuous and the inconspicuous beauty of nature’s awakening.
For over 44 years, the Museum has served as a
guide and mentor to generations of visitors and residents interested in
learning to better appreciate and care for the extraordinary natural resources
of the region. The Museum invites you to visit its facility in Cable at 13470
County Highway M. The new exhibit, STAR POWER: Energy from the Sun, opens in
May 2012. Find us on the web at www.cablemuseum.org to learn
more about our exhibits and programs. Also discover us on Facebook, or at our
blogspot, http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/
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