OT: spring springing

[Silvan]

I know the calendar says it's January, but the forest says it's officially spring!

I rooted around in the leaf litter today, and lo, I found a solitary hepatica in *bloom*. I never did find another one that was even thinking about sending up a flower stalk, but it won't be long.

First the hepatica, then the bloodroot, then myriad things will hit at once in a mad race to bloom and copulate before the canopy overhead blocks out the light. Then the leaves will unfurl, the trees will bloom, and the world will be *green* again.

Wonderful days ahead!

[Charlie Self]

You wish. It has been warm here, too, in the high 60s yesterday, low 60s supposedly due today. Damned new grass (patch that was re-seeded after all the fire debris was hauled out of the house and dumped before removal) has grown almost 2" since last cutting in early November. Weird. But reports for later in the week are calling for 30 degree highs, or lower.

Best get my time in my (unheated) garage shop today!

Charlie Self "I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house." Zsa Zsa Gabor

[Andy Dingley]

What's a hepatica ? The only hepatica I know is the beefsteak fungus, the bracket fungus that gives us brown oak.

[Silvan]

It's all a state of mind for me. I go through this every year. You should have heard my kid's teacher when she was teaching seasons and he kept telling her "Mrs. [name] it's spring! Daddy says it's spring!" :)

Anyway, I'm stoked. Usually this little tantalizing prelude to spring proper hits about mid-February or so. That's when I snap out of my winter funk. This is hitting about six weeks early.

This leaves me hopeful that winter might not be as bad as I feared. Hepatica blooming is a damn good sign to my eyes.

Doesn't matter how cold it gets. It's spring, dammit! :)

[Silvan]

It's an ephemeral wildflower native to many parts. Actually, several closely-related species, and it seems after a cursory search that they're all native to North America east of the Mississippi.

The flower actually blooming was one of this flavor here:

also have these:

these

in abundance. The irridescent pastel bluish/purplish ones are the first to bloom. They're also the most difficult to photograph. They're something you need to see first-hand to appreciate. Some site I just stumbled over (but did not bookmark) explains how these flowers reflect so much UV and IR with different parts of their structure that they're virtually impossible to capture on film. That explains why all my attempts to photograph these have met with poor results.

[Swingman]

I can always tell by the pecan trees when spring is sprunging ... they're pretty hard to fool down here. I've yet to see a pecan tree put out leaves until all threat of a freeze is well past.

There is, however, something strange going on. The trees in the neighborhood, of all varieties, _just_ dropped the majority of their leaves in the last two weeks. You usually see folks raking leaves long before now.

[Andy Dingley]

Doh ! Liverwort of course

You do find them in some parts of the UK, but I've never heard of them obviously flowering before. We don't see flowers until the snowdrops appear.

[Silvan]

Oh yeah, liverwort. I forgot that name.

We don't have snowdrops here unless they're cultivated (and I don't have any in my garden.) I would guess these generally flower around the same time as, or slightly before snowdrops though. It's not uncommon to see the flowers poking up out of the snow, if the snow cover is light enough to permit it.

[Greg G.]

A native wildflower, in the family of Buttercups (Ranunculaceae). Often one of the first flowers of spring - the leaves usually stay green all winter - storing energy for that early spring bloom.

See one here:

Greg G.

[Greg G.]

It's been abnormally warm here as well - 68 degrees for the last couple of days, and nights in the upper 50s. Just cleaned out the pond for the winter - and it's January! I hope this warm spell isn't a cruel teaser before the 20 degree weather shows - it's sure confusing all of our plants.

I'm with Silvan on this one - I'm ready for spring!

Greg G.

[Dave Balderstone]

You suck.

Here it's currently -29C (-21F for the Murricans) with a windchill warning (with windchill it's -42C (-46F for the Murricans)).

djb

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 13:53:32 +0000, Andy Dingley brought forth from the murky depths:

Good question.

Purty purkle flower. I LIKE IT!

Google for tons of other liverwort plants.

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[Silvan]

That's always the down side. I have a hydrangea that's only barely hardy here, and it always gets confused by these little spells, then gets nipped hard. I expect this will be a particularly bad year, since we're having our spring tease so early.

Yeah bayyyybe! Think spring!

It has been pretty weird, I must say. I just forked out $160 for a propane heater for my shop, and most of the week it has been so warm with all my insulation and the blanket over the doors that I have been wishing I had A/C out there. It got up to 80 in the shop today, and I was sweating like a hog in my long johns.

Unfortunately, it's not going to last. Highs in the low 30s by mid-week.

:(

[Silvan]

Gack! If we ever saw a temperature that low, it's likely that several people would die.

Where do you live? I forgot. You're not the Yukon guy are you? (I think that's Luigi...)

Saskatoon?

It's hard to keep all you Canukistanis straight.

[Dave Balderstone]

Ayup.

If the gummint follows through on the pot decrim bill, that'll be true up here too!

djb

[Silvan]

Purkle... Interesting. Purple. Sparkly. Purkle. Yeah, I like it too.

I guess you have good taste after all, Larry.

I guess.

[Silvan]

Damn I'm good. :)

Just don't ask me to tell you where Saskatoon is on a map. ;)

Heh... You'll be the ones dealing with a wave of illegals coming north of the border... :)

[Charlie Self]

Larry Jaques responds:

Yeah. Little bit of that here in the back yard, masses of it down in VA in the back acre or so and a bit off to the eastern side.

Charlie Self "I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house." Zsa Zsa Gabor

[Dave Balderstone]

52 degrees 10 minutes north, 106 degrees 43 minutes west, of course.

Or, straight north of Montana about 3.5 hours.

djb

[Silvan]

Yeah, like I thought. Out yonder somewhere, and up a bit.