Elderberry

Elderberry...reminds me of a couple movies; there's the scene in Arsenic and Old Lace where the two crazy aunts are trying to get the old man to drink the elderberry wine - "elderberry wine? Why, I haven't had elderberry wine since I was a boy!" And of course, there are the insult-hurling french guards from The Holy Grail ("...and your father smelt of elderberries!") But seriously, elderberries have a place in cultural heritage for their use in cordials, preserves, medicine, and wine.

Anyway, red elderberry - Sambucus racemosa var. racemosa (formerly S. Callicarpus) is the elderberry species native to our region. Last I heard, Elderberry were in the honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae), but rumor has it genetic information has put it into the Axodaceae family.

Here's a fairly large, sprawling elderberry bush in Rockport.

That guy cruising down Highway 1 was doing some serious trekking - with all his belongings in one of those fancy baby-strollers. He seemed intent on making it to Westport that evening - and it was already 4:30 in the evening. "La Naturaleza, " he commented, as he passed me taking a photo, and then proceeded to inquire if there was a restaurant in Westport and if there was any thing sooner...10 miles on foot to the next meal. That's earning one's dinner.

PS: The Trillium petals are just beginning to turn pink.

February Bloomers

Narcissus comes in a couple of forms around here: the paper whites, and a few varieties of yellow daffodil. Both are some of the earliest blooms - if not the first, probably the first noticed. They grow in clusters near inhabited, or at least once-inhabited places, where bulbs were planted long ago but now grow untended and wild.

The paper whites above were photographed on February 5, outside an abandoned house on Manchester State Park property.

This past weekend coast dwellers marveled to see that a dusting of snow had fallen in the wee hours and, to our astonishment, stuck around well into the next day. These daffodils bent over under the weight of the snow, but looked fresh and beautiful nonetheless.

And yes, Narcissus and the word narcissist do indeed have a shared history. (Here's where I regurgitate Wikipedia, and it won't be the last time!) Narcissus was a handsome chap told of in Greek myths who was madly in love with his own reflection, a condition imposed on him by the Gods as a punishment for his pride and vanity. He became so infatuated with himself, he simply wasted away in distraction - or from drowning, depending on the version. These flowers got their name either from the man himself - from whose remains it is believed daffodils sprang - or from the meaning of his name, which apparently derives from greek word meaning "to grow numb,"a reference to the narcotic properties of the plant.

Daffodils come from Europe, Asia and north Africa, but travel well, apparently. They made their way through space and time to the present, and have established their place among the other botanical migrants that for better or for worse call California home. They must have been popular with the early settlers of this county, because every old country homestead has a patch of them, and sometimes, they're all that's left. You can't help but imagine the women and children planting the bulbs along the fence while their husbands and fathers felled giant redwoods in the forest.