WEDDING OF ROADSIDE FLOWERS

      April showers bring April and May flowers, including along country roadsides in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania during those springtime months.  I know a 200 yard stretch of rural roadside in this county that cuts through a successional, bottomland woods.  The roadside shoulders are, at least, annually mowed about ten feet back from the blacktop to the woodland edge on both sides of the road, keeping those sun-filled edges clear of young trees and shrubbery.  Those sunny, roadside edges, therefore, are full of tall grasses and sedges, and several kinds of flowering plants that bloom during April and May.  Those edges host a wedding of woodland, lawn and farmland blooming plants, making a wonderful, colorful wild bouquet of lovely blossoms in the high grass and sunshine. 

     Each time I visited those sunny roadsides, there was a different combination of flowers than the week before because each species of plant has its own time of blooming.  Every week these sunny strips of tall grass and flowering vegetation jungles was interesting to see.

     Some adaptable, woodland floor plants survived those sun-filled roadsides of grass, sedges and flowers through several years.  Several skunk cabbage plants with their flower hoods in February and large leaves during April are one of those plants.  May-apples' umbrella-like leaves develop in April and the single, white bloom of each plant blooms beautifully by early May.  Golden, buttercup-like flowers bloom on carpets of lesser celandines during much of April.  Lesser celandines are endemic to shaded floodplains.  The pink flowers of spring beauty plants bloom by early April, and the violet flowers of blue violets and the tiny, white ones of sweet Sicily bloom by mid-April.  The yellow blossoms of moist-ground-loving golden ragworts flower by the middle of May.   

     Several kinds of lawn plants bloom in April and May along these sunny strips of roadsides in a woods.  These plants, which are ground-hugging and aliens from Eurasia, do have pretty flowers, however.  Some of that alien vegetation includes chickweed, garlic mustard and white clover with white blossoms, Veronicas that have blue blooms, dandelions and Indian strawberries with yellow flowers, purple dead nettles with pink blooms and ground ivy that have purple flowers.  

     Dandelions are good food for a variety of wildlife, including cottontail rabbits and wood chucks who eat the leaves and flowers of this prolific, beautiful plant.  And mice, and a variety of pretty, seed-eating, small birds ingest many dandelion seeds, making their fluffy parachutes fly away on the wind.

     The innumerable blooms of white clovers provide sugary nectar to worker honey bees, bumble bees  and a variety of other pollinating kinds of insects.  The bees' special stomachs turn the nectar into honey, with which they feed larvae, the queen and drone bees. 

     Several kinds of field plants also live along these two strips of roadsides in he woods, including innumerable buttercups with their golden blooms, evening lynchis and daisy fleabane that have white flowers, red clover with pink blossoms, and tall field mustard plants that have small, yellow blossoms.  Although from Eurasia, this flowering vegetation among fields make farmland more colorful and interesting.      

     Beauty is wherever it is, including along a couple of country road shoulders where adaptable, flowering plants are numerous, and beautiful.  Nature heals the hurts we put on it, and comes out lovely and intriguing after all.  Thankfully, nature is wonderfully resilient.  


  

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