Springing through the trees
For those who are just joining us, I’m sharing my recent exploration of the local woods. You can see the first images from the journey in Wednesday’s post.
Coming upon a surfaced portion of the spring was wonderfully exciting. I approached with my eye on the waxy green swamp plants, which are a type of skunk cabbage.
As I was leaning down to take pictures, my eyes feel on something even more exciting: the flowers. I am familiar with bright yellow flowers on the skunk cabbage in Washington, and this was an excellent new discovery!
In the fourth and fifth images you can clearly see the holes in the earth where the spring flows underground.
The spring itself is a crafty creature. It winds around and about, splits and joins, dips below ground and then resurfaces. As I wandered the woods, I began to realize that the spring itself is in fact a massive web of arteries weaving all throughout the area.
I don't know whether to call these one spring, or several springs, but they are all interconnected.
I imagine that the paths of the spring branches change with the seasons, resurfacing when full and flowing, redirecting around rocks and tree trunks, and receding in the warmer months to the cool depths of the earth.
Tomorrow: the trees in the grove, and the spring surprises me again!
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What a lovely picture blog!
ReplyDeleteIs that skunk cabbage the one we call 'jack in the Pulpit?'
Love the pictures!!!
Bonjour !
ReplyDeleteC’est toujours un énorme plaisir de suivre votre merveilleuse aventure.
Mes amitiés sincères.
Is skunk cabbage edible?
ReplyDeleteSam, thanks for visiting! I actually thought the same thing as these flowers share common features with the jack-in-the-pulpit flower... but they in fact are two different plants entirely.
ReplyDelete(Actually, until I looked it up, I thought these flowers were separate plants from the green leaves! I’ve never seen skunk cabbage without yellow flowers before!)
Manu, c’est toujours un plaisir d’avoir votre presence à mon blog! Merci, et bonsoir!
UltimateWriter, don’t go eating skunk cabbage now, it’s poisonous to mammals (including us)!!! :D
I go out of town for a few days and look at everything I miss!
ReplyDeleteThose purple skunk cabbage get me every time – I always think they're jack-in-the-pulpit when I see pictures. By the way, the yellow skunk cabbage are blooming like crazy around here.