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Yesterday, a warm day in early April, I found the blooms of Hepatica and Shadblow. Now the forward movement of the flowering time of the year is inexorable. Spring, for which I have longed, is here no matter that the temperature may plunge and cold wind sweep in. Flowering of the earth will gain momentum and plants will bloom; I won’t have time to welcome them 3ll.
The pale lilac flowers of Hepatica spangled the forest floor with color. The flowers, no more than an inch across, clustered above last year’s brown oak leaves. They looked fragile and vulnerable. The appearance is an illusion; early spring wild flowers are tough and hardy, ready to stand up against, threats of winter’s withdrawal.
Hepatica blooms look to have five petals; another illusion. The color resides in the sepals, outer parts of the floral envelope which protect the sexual parts of the flower, until nature’s clock tells them to open for passing early bees and butterflies. Hepatica has no petals but its sepals range in color from white through blue to purple.
I scrabbled among the dry oak leaves for the source of this flower’s odd and medical-sounding name, Hepatica. The leaves, buried under the remains of October’s leaf fall, are three lobed and purplish — like the liver. Hepatic: in shape and color like the liver.
My discovery led me to think about the common names of wild flowers which, on the surface, make no sense at all. What does one.make of Spiderwort, Birthwort and Mitrewort? If the plant at all resembled anything the first settlers knew from England, that is what they called the New World version. Consequently we have Virginia Bluebells, the glory of wet spring woods in Virginia. Our bluebell resembles the common plant in English woodlands only in the color
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