how 'bout them mayapples!

One of the early signs of spring on the forest floor, Mayapples are opening their leaves and working on producing the single fruit they will bear in a season. Just don't eat it. Learn more about this common native plant here.


Interesting that Podophyllum peltatum takes its name from the Latin for "shield shaped." Which made me think about a poem (first two stanzas below):

The Shield of Achilles
W. H. Auden

---

She looked over his shoulder
       For vines and olive trees,
     Marble well-governed cities
       And ships upon untamed seas,
     But there on the shining metal
       His hands had put instead
     An artificial wilderness
       And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
   No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, 
   Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
   An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line, 
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

[read the entire poem here]

Today would be a perfect day, with the sun shining and the air warm, to grab a book of poems, or a pen and paper to write your own, and head out onto the trails.