September's Flower

Day 323: A glad, good September Morn to you, dear readers. For those of you new to my posts, today is significant to me personally because it opens the "beautiful month" when mountain meadows put on their fall colours and the Bog Gentians take the blue skies of summer into their hearts to guard it through the coming winter. Of all the flowers of the field, rare or otherwise, Gentiana calycosa holds a top spot on my list of favourites. It is the last flower to come into bloom in the subalpine zone, and obviously one of the most showy. A white variant exists (not a separate species), which sometimes carries a note of grey not often seen in nature. Perhaps that's it's gentle way of reminding us that grey days are coming, to take September and live it to the fullest: hiking, roaming the hills, exploring one last rocky peak for the year. The grey also speaks of frost, soon to deliver its bracing note to our early morning wanderings. There's nothing quite like that early chill to move you along to the next point on your route. So do this, my friends: let September take you to the high country. Go, before the snows fly.