Sarah Wright.
Some of us are drawn to fleeting beauty. We relish the softened light beams of the golden hour. We resonate with the Romantic poets, who sought to remind us of our essential bonds with nature. And few things bring us as much joy as rediscovering our old but transient friends, the spring ephemeral wildflowers of southern Wisconsin woodlands.
I like to imagine that the Romantic poets may have been inspired by the life cycles of the spring ephemerals, empathizing with the conundrums they face. Unfurl leaves too soon, and these beauties risk freezing their leaves. But wait too long, and they may run short of time to stockpile enough sugar to fuel flowering before the emerging canopy closes in on them. And yet these jaunty perennials manage to make the most of their short window of glory, year after year. Walking in the woods when the branches are still bare enough to allow light to reach the forest floor and illuminate these hardy little flowers, is among my greatest pleasures. Maybe it’s because these short-lived blooms remind me to pay attention, to remember that I’m alive. As easy as it is to forget in the modern world, I’m an organism within an ecosystem.
Lucky for me, my family loves to nerd out with me about plants. For us, the spring ephemeral season begins in mid- to late March, with a trip to the Skunk Cabbage Wetlands in the UW Arboretum. Stroll to the edge of Wingra Woods, and you’ll encounter a boardwalk that leads right through the skunk cabbages. You may smell them before you see them; after all, their Latin name, Symplocarpus foetidus, denotes the foul smell that attracts flies for pollination. But it’s well worth enduring the swampy odor to get a close look at these strange charmers, whose whimsical flowers might remind you of a fairy house, or the curled up shoes of the Wicked Witch sticking out from under a house. The skunk cabbage also has the curious habit of flowering and fruiting before leafing out. They’ll open up their massive leaves as the days get longer, photosynthesize like crazy, and tuck all that glucose away into their underground rhizomes to get them through the winter and support next year’s growth. They call to mind the grandparents in Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, who label a jar of their homebrew for each day of summer and cache it in their cellar, effectively harvesting sunlight and saving it up to help them get through the harshest nights of Midwest winter.
As April arrives, one of our favorite viewing spots for the next of the spring ephemerals is Governor’s Island — a peninsula, really, as my son loves to point out — that juts into Lake Mendota from the grounds of the Mendota Mental Health Institute. Get the timing just right, and you’ll be treated to carpets of Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) as you enter the trail from the parking lot. As their name suggests, the flowers look like upside-down pantaloons.
Continue along, hugging the western edge of the peninsula, and just as you approach the water you’ll likely find clumps of trout lily (Erythronium americanum), their trumpet-shaped flowers seeming to nod to acknowledge your presence. Its name is in honor of its mottled leaves, whose patterns resemble a brook trout if you are in the right frame of mind.
Keep going and you’ll notice a distinct change as you round the bend: it’s warmer and calmer, and you’ve suddenly entered a new microclimate on the leeward side of the prevailing winds. You’ll pass an old, hollow snag — one where we’ve taken photographs of my son since he was a toddler. He’s 11 now and still fits inside — but for how long?
There are a couple of spots where you can clamber down to stand atop a sandy cliff overlooking the lake. Many moons ago, early in our courtship, my husband and I shared a picnic on one of these outcroppings. These are the spots where I conjure the opening strains of the Electric Light Orchestra’s “Living Thing,” the swirling violins melding with the early spring breezes, as I feel the sun on my winter-pale skin. “In this moment, there is life and food for future years,” wrote my favorite Romantic poet, William Wordsworth. All I care about at this moment is right here with me, and yet I know I’ll draw strength from this very memory in dark December. For now, I allow my senses to take over and stop thinking for once.
As April gives way to May, I’m acutely aware of time passing, of the spring ephemeral season drawing to an end. Some of the last spring ephemerals of the year will debut in a lovely chunk of woodland across from the school where I teach. My students will marvel at the blankets of white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), with their sets of three heart-shaped leaves and three gleaming petals. We’ll tip our hats to the droopy flowers of the bellworts (Uvularia sessilifolia) to try to cheer them up. Are they feeling melancholy about the end of their cycle? I can relate; although the end of the school year will be cause for celebration very soon, it will be bittersweet. Another year of moments big and small coming to a close; another year closer, for these kids and for mine, to the end of childhood. This is as it should be if all goes well, and yet I miss it already. “Don't be maudlin,” the trilliums seem to say. “Just enjoy it while it lasts.”
Perhaps this is the power of the spring ephemerals. They are beautiful little bundles of paradox, delicate and resilient, that implore us to both seize the day and plan for the future. They remind me that I could never be happy in a milder climate, that aside from growing up here, I have quite deliberately chosen to make the Midwest my home. Spring feels so glorious because we have earned it! The trout lily and the Dutchman’s breeches speak to my Midwestern sensibilities, a reminder to be content with what we have, to wait your turn, to keep in mind that spinach sweetens by enduring frost. When I’m wistful in May as the last trilliums wither for the year, I remember that they’ll be back, that seeing them is special precisely because their time aboveground is short.
The ephemerals remind me too that I am not alone in my feelings. The Japanese even have a name for the bittersweet pleasure that comes with admiring the momentary beauty of something like cherry blossoms: mono no aware. Just like the skunk cabbages, connected to each other through vast underground networks, we are all in this together, even when it’s not apparent on the surface.
Sarah Wright teaches science and does phenology with her family in Fitchburg.
