It Started With Sanicula

Day 241: Earlier this year while hiking in Rimrock County Park, I found some odd foliage I couldn't identify. I referred it to my two tame experts, Arnie and David Giblin at the Burke Herbarium. They both identified it as Sanicula crassicaulis, and left it to me to determine the subspecies (var. crassicaulis). David said, "And be sure you get pictures of the flowers when it blooms." That was my project for yesterday: find a bloomin' Sanicula. I think David must have been having a quiet little chuckle, knowing what was ahead of me. I hadn't gone far up the trail when I spotted the familiar leaf. A few tall stems rose above the foliage, terminating in what I took to be seed capsules. As I continued on, I was kicking myself for not having made the trip in late May, thinking that the petals had already dropped, but then noticed a tiny fleck of yellow on another inflorescence. "Hang on a mo'," I said aloud. "Is that the freakin' flower?" What I'd seen earlier were buds. A hand lens would have been nice to have at this particular juncture, but no one had warned me. I put my eye right down on the yellow bits and discovered that yes indeed, the Sanicle panicle displays a number of tiny corymbs, all in a space no larger than the pink of your thumbnail. I'm trying to work that into a poem to drop on David as my revenge.