Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is a native of Europe that has escaped from cultivation. Its pink or white flowers have been a June feature in the Toronto area landscape since the 1880’s.
Other flowers from this morning:
Other botany:
The ground under large-toothed Aspen trees is covered with cotton-looking fallen flowers:
Park scenes on this 12 degree and partly cloudy morning:
Species list: mallard, pileated woodpecker, great crested flycatcher, eastern pewee, barn swallow, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, house wren, American robin, blue-gray gnatcatcher, cedar waxwing, warbling vireo, red-eyed vireo, yellow warbler, pine warbler, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, Baltimore oriole, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, song sparrow. (21 species)
This morning’s group:
NATURE POETRY
Spring Pools
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods –
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday. – Robert Frost
Miles Hearn