Central New York–
The wildflowers in Central New York this year are more sparse than in most summers and often stunted. Drought in late June and early July put a damper on normal development. Even the stalwart Queen Anne’s lace is shorter and the frilly parasol-like flowerheads are smaller. In the roadside drainage ditches there are few cattails and no jewel weed. The natural landscape is impoverished.
I especially miss the magenta flowers of perennial sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius). It has naturalized itself around here on the sloping berms that separate the fields from the road shoulders. In good years, I see hundreds of them on my hour-long morning walks. This year there are only small, scattered patches.
Ordinary people would describe the flowers as “pea-like,” resembling many other legume family blossoms in general, and those of annual sweet peas and edible garden peas in particular. Poets would liken them to small orchids. I side with the poets.
Around here, the vast majority are magenta, with an occasional plant bearing white or shell-pink blooms. The long, segmented, vining stems can scramble or climb to six feet.
Sad to say, the flowers do not have the sweet-spicy fragrance of their annual kin. As if to compensate, the perennial sweet pea blooms just when many garden flowers are either finished for the year or right in the middle of their summer siestas. In August the trade-off is worth it.
Like so many “wild” flowers, perennial sweet peas did not originate in North America. However, they have been rooting (and fixing nitrogen) in our soil now for several centuries. They make a bright addition to the horticultural picture.