Posts Tagged ‘field’
garden escapes: mallow
Mallow was one of the first flowers I had in my garden back in 1980 when we started our own home. Musk mallow (Malva moschata) has deeply divided leaves, papery pink or white petals and a pleasant scent. I loved it so much, I included it in my bridesmaid’s bouquet when I was married.
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Mallow often escapes the garden to live in ditches and in fields. In his Flora of New Brunswick, Hal Hinds says vervain mallow (Malva alcea) has escaped to the borders of fields in the Woodstock area of New Brunswick. So, I was on the lookout for the flower when we drove west of Woodstock to look at abandoned properties. And mallow was one of the first plants we found, growing in the ditch.
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We also found mallow growing at the edge of cultivated fields.
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mallow
Malva moschata
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wind-blown and paper
petals transparent
veined, flutter
in wind
the leaves
frayed and notched
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petals, perfumed in musk
pale pink and white
roadside edged
in field-flowers, bedstraw
day-lilies, yarrow and vetch
and musk mallow, garden escape
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to the edge of the field
to the edge of the road
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Stay home,
wear your mask.
You don’t have to escape.
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All my best
Jane
a moment of beautiful – Blue-eyed Grass
the space: the meadow above the lake
the beautiful: a bright blue flower – Blue-eyed Grass
All grass is not grass. In spring, some of those green blades reveal their true identity. You look down, and a blue eye stares back at you. You have found Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium montanum Greene.
Blue-eyed grass is not a grass at all, but a member of the iris family. It inhabits moist, open ground in fields and meadows, and blooms in late spring and early summer. The plant is low and slender, with a deep blue flower and a bright yellow center, borne at the top of a straight, usually unbranched, stem. The stem is two-edged, flattened on the margins. The flowers are borne in the axil of a sharp, upheld bract called a spathe. In French, the plant is called Bermudienne. Montanum means ‘of the mountains’.
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Blue-eyed Grass
Sisyrinchium montanum Greene
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I walk in grass,
but it isn’t grass –
Sisyrinchium
it winks at me
with azure eyes,
and I blink brown at them
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Blue-eyed Grass
stands straight and still,
staunch Bermudienne
simple maid
with a watchful eye,
and a sword above her head
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© Jane Tims 2012
