Saturday, March 28, 2009

First spring flowers!

We're finally seeing some flowers around here! Lesser celandine (Чистяк весенний) was the first to start blooming.  I loved the literary references in the Wikipedia article.  C. S. Lewis mentioned this plant, and Wordworth loved it.  Here's part of a poem that he wrote about it:

There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine. . . .

Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the Thrush
Has a thought about its nest,
Thou wild come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless Prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.

. . . Spring is coming, Thou art come!

Here the lesser celandine actually started blooming a few weeks ago, at least in the places where there are hot water pipes under the ground.  I really wanted to get closer to take some photos and look at it, but the babushki are so protective of that area.  Some of the celandine has taken off by itself outside the flower bed, and I was thinking of trying to sneak one of those wild plants away.  Then Will solved my problem by buying me a beautiful bunch of it at the market.



So, today we studied the plant that we have.  We looked at its roots. . .


trimmed off the old blooms and potted it,


did some research in our books,


and, of course, drew it:


We've also seen a few more flowers!  Soon there will be too many to keep track of, but so far, it's easy.  The first was this celandine.  Then yesterday we found violets and a tiny, yellow, start-shaped wildflower.  I was so excited!  I especially love violets.  And today we saw the first few dandelion blooms.  Can anyone help us with identifying the yellow star flowers below?  That's a little bulb root, if you can't see it well.

9 comments:

Barb said...

What a pretty flower on the lesser celandine....I love that you were able to purchase some and pot it after taking some time to observe.

I know what you mean about all the flowers coming soon....for now, we will enjoy the ones we have.

Thanks for sharing your link.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Baba Julie said...

Beautiful! We are enjoying all the flowers of early Spring right now, as well! All the trees are beginning to bloom, but unfortunately, we have no sun right now!! This is the fourth day!! But, we need rain, too!! Love y'all!

Mike Icardi said...

I noticed Raia drawing left handed, are the other two right handed?

Julie said...

Is there an orange version of your yellow flower? I have seen something like that here. The leaves are kind of rounded like the yellow's and I would like to grow it this year if I could figure out what it is.

Phyllis said...

Raia's definitely left handed, and Jaan's right handed. I think Asya is tending toward right.

Julie, I don't know of any orange version. It is a Ranunculus, and you really liked some of them, didn't you?

Julie said...

Yeah, I have some ranunculus bulbs that I want to try to grow this year. I saw the orange flowers on my way to class last year. The leaves were kind of round. I figured out what they were at some point. I will have to track that down again. Happy April Showers to you. :o)

Mrs said...

Loved catching up on your blog!

We LOVE owl pellets, but we've yet to find our own (we get them from Tobin's Lab). We had TWO skulls once!

So glad the weather is allowing such explorations for all of you.

Maya said...

are these mat'-i'macheha? And what a great idea to have your kids draw what they see. I never thought of that!

Phyllis said...

Mrs, I'm glad to see you back online! :-) We had two skulls in EACH owl pellet!

Нет, не мать и матчиха, а чистяк весенний. Рисовать что мы видим на улице - это тоже от Шарлотта Масона. Ты мне писала о ней. :-)