Saturday, March 12, 2011

Harbinger of Spring

At my neighbor's house yesterday, when I had finally quit looking for one, I saw my first Harbinger of Spring of 2011.  I'm not referring here to harbingers in the general sense of the word, but to a tiny plant, the first wildflower I see every spring, the one labeled in the wildflower books by that name.  I looked for this flower early in the spring for years before I realized that the pictures in the books were magnified about 8 times and they had been right under my nose all along.  The flowers are quite diminutive; each petal about 1/16".  Their stems can grow to about 6 inches; the one pictured here is 3 inches tall.