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.

September's Flower

Day 323: A glad, good September Morn to you, my readers! As many of you know, this is a special day for me, second only to Christmas and that, only because Christmas is the holiday recognized by the majority of my friends. September Morn heralds the season of colour, of cool nights and blithe days, of harvest; it opens "the beautiful month," my favourite time to be in the high country, and no plant is more symbolic of September than the Bog Gentian. These flowers are the last to bloom in the subalpine meadows, and they are so intensely blue that they seem to be drawing the sky into themselves, husbanding the summer's cloudless days, taking the azure vault of the heavens into their roots, there to hold it in care through the long winter. Sometimes a white form can be found, an errant cloud browsing through a sunny day like a wayward sheep. Ah, September! If we must give farewell to summer, you have consoled us with the glorious Bog Gentian.

Legendary Blue

Day 315: A modern story (~cough!) tells us that Gentians take their colour from the sky. How? Well, let me explain.

The deep cups of Mountain Bog Gentian (Gentiana calycosa) are particularly attractive to bumblebees, those great furry creatures who by all rights should be incapable of flight. But Bumblebee has a secret. His wings are a mosaic of sky fragments, so thin that they seem transparent, shimmering with summer sunlight. Bee moves through the air on his sky-wings but only with some effort due to his weight, so when he grows tired of propelling himself along, he often comes to rest in the cup of a Gentian.

Now Gentians don't care to have dew or rain fill their cups, so at night or when a cloud-shadow passes across them, their petals furl into a spiral, closing to form pointy minarets. That's their special magic. When a Bumblebee doesn't pay attention to the time of day or the weather, it may become trapped inside a Gentian blossom when it closes. Bumblebees are not known for their weather wisdom, so this is not an uncommon occurrence. When a Bee is caught in this manner, it cannot escape until the Gentian opens. It may buzz around inside, and in so doing, it transfers the blue sky-pigment from its wings to the flower. As you might imagine, this happens fairly often, but if you search carefully, you may still find white Gentians in the high country, unstained by the colour of the sky. They have not yet hosted a Bumblebee overnight.

The emergence of Gentians signifies the summer season drawing to a close. They are one of my favourite wildflowers. Yes, they really do close around hapless Bumblebees, and sometimes you will hear them buzzing, trying to escape a Gentian's grasp.

Blue Ribbon Winner

Day 282: As far as I am concerned, Mountain Bog Gentian (Gentiana calycosa) takes the prize for "blue." Normally emerging as one of the last flowers of the season, they are already appearing in the subalpine zone, dotting the meadows like bits of shattered sky. Bumblebees in particular are drawn to them. It's not uncommon for early-morning hikers to see fat, fuzzy bees emerging from the cups of the flowers after having had an unintentional "sleep-over" inside.

In this photo, you can see a furled flower at the one-o'clock position. The blossoms close at night or when the sky clouds over and rain threatens, and bees frequently find themselves trapped inside until the flower opens up again. A canny observer may hear buzzing among the buds when first light comes to the meadows and the bees begin struggling to throw off their "blankets," wanting to be out and about, collecting pollen. That said, I can't think of a better place for a Bumblebee to shelter from the rain than under a tightly furled sky-blue umbrella.

Gentiana Calycosa, Mountain Bog Gentian

Day 278: One of the highlights of yesterday's botanizing trip was finding Gentiana calycosa already in bloom. Normally this late bloomer heralds the end of the season, not emerging until September. Like so many other wildflowers this year...

"Wait a minute, Crow...isn't Gentian supposed to be blue?"

Ah, you caught that, did you? Indeed, your typical Mountain Bog Gentian is one of the bluest things you'll ever see, but occasionally, a white individual crops up. This is not a faded plant, as you will readily note if you observe the buds beside the open flowers. Nor is it a different species. It is an uncommon colour variation of the Gentian you know and love. Dusty rose-pink specimens occur even more rarely. Hikers in Gentian country are more likely to find the "bleached denim" variation, a washed-out blue.

Like so many other wildflowers this year, the Gentians are ahead of schedule by about six weeks. Already, wildflower season has passed its peak in Mount Rainier National Park. What will the meadows look like in late August? And what does this early season portend for the pollinators, many of which are species-specific? Will they die off? Or is it possible that our written history fails to show the broader picture, omitting observations of species in similar times of stress? Will they shift to another plant, or will only the hardiest survive? Each question we ask raises dozens more. This is a fascinating time to be a naturalist, for sure, but also an unsettling one.