Native Plants - Photo Gallery

The first flowers I remember were formal. Roses. Ranunculus. Carnations. All serious sounding names, the colors deep soft pinks and reds. When you put them in a vase, they stood straight up. Then there were daisies. Bright yellow and gleaming white. Irritatingly cheerful. And the name: daisy. So casual. They smelled sharp and pungent, flopped out of the vase, hung down the sides. They were not my favorite flowers.

But in my early botany classes, I learned about Asteraceae. Under the dissecting scope I saw a new world; hundreds of tiny individual flowers. The Latin was wonderful. Senecios, Erigerons, Cirsiums. I enjoyed the common names too, like groundsel and pussy-toes because they rolled on my tongue like marbles. Or fleabane daisy because it made me feel like I was in the middle ages. I mostly liked the fleabane part though. Daisy was still too simple.

Then one evening I was reading Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. In the chapter on how English has changed over time I stumbled over "...daisy was originally day's eye." I thought about how dark our world used to be, how everything was lit by candles, and fire. And how, even on gray days the yellows and whites of composites would glow. Pale circles in a darker ground. It was the perfect name. Day's eye.

In the field I saw composites, especially the natives, with new
appreciation. Many were shrubs, like artemisa and baccharis. The classic Wyethia mollis, the Latin a complete mouthful; the common name of mule's ears easy to remember once I saw the tall furry leaves. Beautiful Balsamorhiza sagittata, blooming generous and golden among desert peach and bitter brush. I discovered that certain arnica leaves had a scent that was indescribably delicious. Once we found an arnica whose flower smelled like chocolate. I was entranced. I saw Blepharipappus scaber, the small white and purple flowers so thick that when I waded through them, I felt like I was crossing some dancing, light-catching river.

Now when I see composites I think of the earth as the sky, and the flowers as stars. All those eyes of the day, the brilliant colors and symmetrical shape scattered over the sides of hills, the sides of roads, along arroyos and gullies, every inflorescence a reflection of light, a small reminder of the sun.