{"id":2360,"date":"2018-03-12T04:16:18","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T12:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2018-03-12T04:16:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T12:16:18","slug":"book-review-spring-wildflowers-of-the-northeast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/book-review-spring-wildflowers-of-the-northeast\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I made my first forays into wild plant identification as a child and teenager, a handy field guide always lurked somewhere nearby.\u00a0 My trusty and well-used Peterson\u2019s Guide\u2014actually Peterson Field Guides: Wildflowers<\/em>\u2014still sits on my office shelf.\u00a0 Some of the plants have been reclassified and renamed since it was published, but its arrangement, descriptions and helpful line drawings and color photographs still enlighten me many times a year.\u00a0 It is also small enough to put in a backpack or tote bag.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are now plenty of websites and apps that do the same job.\u00a0 EflowersNA for Apple devices is one of them.\u00a0 The apps are terrific, but antique lover that I am; I stick to my faithful field guide.<\/p>\n

Carol Gracie\u2019s Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History<\/em>, is not a field guide.\u00a0 It is just as practical, but infinitely more complex and beautiful.\u00a0 Gracie, a naturalist and botanist, used to work for the New York Botanical Garden.\u00a0 Now she writes and botanizes.\u00a0 Spring Wildflowers<\/em> is the result of those efforts and came about after years of careful observation, travel and research.\u00a0 The photos, for which Gracie is also responsible, are works of art, depicting all the above- and below-ground parts of each wildflower, along with its pollinators, predators and, sometimes, companion plants.\u00a0 The close-up of a miterwort flower, for example, would not be out of place in New York\u2019s Guggenheim Museum.<\/p>\n

The book combines botany, natural history, ethnobotany, entomology, etymology, plant morphology, history, ecology and probably a few other \u201cologies\u201d as well.\u00a0 Despite that, it is extremely accessible.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to know the Latin name of a common wildflower, like the lady\u2019s slipper orchid, to find it in the book or understand Gracie\u2019s plant portrait.<\/p>\n

Each plant holds center stage in a carefully constructed botanical drama with a story line that includes its plant family and the supporting cast that comprises its ecosystem.\u00a0 The historical information is fascinating.\u00a0 The section on violets, for example, details the many symbolic and romantic links between the \u201cshy\u201d flower and the towering ego of the Emperor Napoleon.\u00a0 The Emperor is long gone, but the violet remains, which is a wonderful object lesson for those who can appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Natural history is ultimately about the ways in which species adapt in order to flourish in specific circumstances.\u00a0 Gracie revels in the complex relationships between plants and their pollinators and how various adaptations have sealed those relationships.\u00a0 A close-up of a wasp sipping nectar from a Claytonia flower shows exactly how the insect\u2019s long proboscis facilitates that big drink.<\/p>\n

The details of plant sex, also integral to natural history, make you appreciate the fact that Nature\u2019s permutations are endless.\u00a0 Gracie introduces us to plants that are male, female, male and female, or able to change sex quite freely.\u00a0 Pollen flies around with wild abandon, with or without the help of pollinators.\u00a0 A romance novelist writing about plants would have enough imaginative scope for scores of good bodice\u2014or perhaps foliage–rippers.\u00a0 The truth of plant reproduction really is stranger than most fiction.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of Spring Wildflowers<\/em> is that the flowers are under constant threat from pollution, development, environmental degradation and predators.\u00a0 The author makes specific reference to the largest and best known of those predators\u2014the white-tailed deer, scourge of rural and suburban landscapes.\u00a0 Less well known, but also destructive is the alien earthworm, which changes the nature of woodland ecosystems by \u201cconsum[ing] leaf litter, organic matter, and microbes in the soil at a rapid rate, causing a reduction in humus depth and a redistribution of soil components.\u201d\u00a0 This worm action uproots tender seedlings and forces other seeds so far down into the soil that they cannot germinate.<\/p>\n

While not an herbal, Gracie\u2019s book also details some of the traditional medicinal and practical uses of the wild plants.\u00a0 She is careful to point out plants and plant parts that may be poisonous to either humans or animals, including helpful information on the chemical compounds that make them toxic.\u00a0 At a time when an ever-decreasing number of us are familiar with the natural world, this kind of knowledge is much needed.<\/p>\n

Spring Wildflowers<\/em> gives readers a rare view into the inner lives of plants that are often ephemeral–flowering, setting seed and dying back, all before summer\u2019s heat sets in.\u00a0 It reminds us that even in the face of competition and depredation, beautiful species like mayappple, trillium and bloodroot survive.\u00a0 If increased knowledge of these plants \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0inspires human appreciation, perhaps it will also inspire efforts to increase wildflower survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I made my first forays into wild plant identification as a child and teenager, a handy field guide always lurked somewhere nearby.\u00a0 My trusty and well-used Peterson\u2019s Guide\u2014actually Peterson Field Guides: Wildflowers\u2014still sits on my office shelf.\u00a0 Some of the plants have been reclassified and renamed since it was published, but its arrangement, descriptions … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1830,448,1832,1763,673,1831,147],"class_list":["post-2360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-carol-gracie","tag-native-plants","tag-nature","tag-spring-ephemerals","tag-spring-flowers","tag-wild-gardening","tag-wildflowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2361,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}