There is great power in a tiny flower. The common bluet, Houstonia caerulea, triumphs over drought, frost, neglect and active persecution. It's a member of the Rubiaceae, a very cool family that includes partridgeberry (Mitchella repens), quinine (Cinchona), gardenia (!) and coffee (!!) Oh my!
How all those plants fit in one family beats me--tiny wildflowers and economically important shrubs that dictate land use all over Latin America.
There is a barren hillside on Rte. 821 not far from our house that blooms in early spring with blue. Misty blue, running down like water.
It's barren because the man who lives in the house above it takes a weedwhacker to the wildflowers that try to grow there. He has weedwhacked the Trillium grandiflorum and Solomon's seal into extinction. I see him, balancing on the rocks, whacking away, and I want so badly to stop and talk to him, but I don't. I think it wouldn't go so well. Besides, I find it interesting that someone would object to bluets. I'd rather watch than intervene, because the bluets are winning.
He prefers daffodils and variegated hostas, his close-mown lawn, to bluets. These rocky steep dry ledges are no doubt his despair. He can't get the grass to take on them, no matter how he cuts and whacks.
But the bluets don't mind. They don't listen to him and his machines. They go on growing there anyway.
You see, by eliminating everything else that once grew there, he's creating a monoculture of bluets. And they like that just fine.
And though I mourn the trillium, I like it, too. It's a little victory. He can't kill the bluets. They're too little to bother with. They bend their slender necks and let him have at it. They sing of life and springtime.
Take that! And thank you for your help, Sir!
Ta-DAAAAA!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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