Physocarpus monogynus As charming as this flowering shrub is, you’d think I would have learned its name long ago, but I didn’t look it up until last year. “Ninebark” comes from the belief that the shrub’s shredding bark consisted of nine layers. Near the house, they are low bushes under the pines, but I’ve seen…
My field guide gives the common name as “Common Harebell,” but in my opinion there’s nothing common about them (okay, other than that they’re common (as in frequently seen, particularly this summer)). Pretty, pretty, pretty: And this year, more than I’ve ever noticed before, growing in dense clumps… …with more to come. Campanula rotundifolia
Another one of those large flower groups that prove troublesome to those of us who haven’t learned to key out plants. These are some of the first flowers we see in spring, but like so many of the native plants, they know how to take advantage of precipitation; our May and early June snowstorms encouraged…
Linum lewisii
Talking to me about his business junket in late September, my husband described watching helplessly as one of his traveling companions, tripped up by someone’s luggage in an airport corridor, executed one of those multi-step forward stagger maneuvers. The fellow fought to regain his balance, throwing his legs out over and again, finally catching himself…
In a bit of a change of pace, I’ll refer you today to a piece titled “Change in the Air” that I wrote for Writers on the Range, an Op-Ed syndication service of the publication High Country News (this link is for the column’s appearance in the Summit Daily). The US Army base at Fort…