in drought-stricken lawns

in drought-stricken lawns

untouched by mowers, hardy 

wildflowers blossom

Here in Iowa the high heat index warnings and drought continue, the worst since 1988. Field corn is starting to dry from the ground up, bad news for farmers.
          Grass has turned brown and brittle, so folks who routinely scalp their lawns every week have stopped mowing. Ironically, this has given hardy wildflowers like Queen Anne's Lace, bird's foot trefoil and cornflower a chance to spring up in places where they would usually be cut down. Looking like stars winking on at twilight, they blossom in profusion despite the lack of moisture.
          I'm playing a rain raga every day and turning over my Peruvian cactus rain stick to make that lovely sound of falling rain, but so far we've only gotten a tantalizing sprinkle, just enough to make splotches on the dusty cars.

yellow ray flowers

yellow ray flowers

on gray-headed coneflowers droop

by nature not heat

The Compositae are having their annual family reunion in the deer meadow. It's hot and parched in this patch of prairie grass, but the cousins are out in droves, hobnobbing in the slight breeze. The Compositae are composite flowers, so-called because each flower includes two different types of flowers called florets. Many tiny florets gathered together in the center of the flower head make up the disc. On a black-eyed Susan, the dark center of the flower head is actually a cluster of small disc florets. Yellow coneflower is sometimes called gray-headed coneflower because the disc flowers are gray until the florets open and change to brown. The disc flowers of purple coneflower are bigger than those of other coneflowers. What appear to be long petals surrounding the disc are actually ray flowers, each one attached to a pistil and thus considered an individual flower. Each of the florets of a composite has the ability to produce a seed. The composite cousins are similar, yet different. Yellow coneflower's rays droop and are longer and thinner than those of black-eyed Susan, while purple coneflower's rays are larger and pinkish purple rather than yellow. Nowadays, people are familiar with purple coneflower as echinacea, widely used for its anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties. Many summer wildflowers take to the meadows in order to bask in the sunlight otherwise blocked in the woods by leaf canopies. They have adapted to the drying effects of sun and wind by having thin leaves, thick stems and deep roots to reach moisture. Even so, the ray flowers of all the composites are beginning to wither in this continuing heat and drought.

a cave of blue snow

a cave of blue snow

shelters remains of wildflowers –

rabbit tracks pass by

A soft, light snow fell in the night, cloaking the ice shields, deepening the drifts, filling up the gullies, and blurring the tracks of animals, yet the dried stalks of wildflowers still hold up their heads.