Spring ephemera

hepatics

Spring ephemerals are blooming all around my cabin this week.  Out! They all popped all at once. They are such tiny and dainty little things.

I have to look for them, watching underfoot so I don’t accidentally step on one.  Friends who aren’t flower people tell me when they see my photos, “I’ve never seen anything like that.”  I think it’s because they expect the flowers to be large and showy, as sometimes the close-up photos make them appear. These are not your mother’s tulips. These are half-inch jewels that are easily overlooked, despite their colors.  Many of them close up at night and only reopen when the sun wakes them up again, and in a week or two they are gone, gone for another year.

They aren’t always easy to see or easy to find.  That’s part of what makes them so special and so spectacular in their own tiny little way.

Coltsfoot