Archive for Wildflowers: Blue
August 31, 2020 at 3:51 pm · Filed under Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: Green, Wildflowers: Orange, Wildflowers: Pink, Wildflowers: Purple, Wildflowers: White, Wildflowers: Yellow ·Tagged Harvest, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Wildflowers, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
August Harvest . . .
A summer salad of Asiatic dayflower, Galinsoga, and Lady’s Thumb.
(NYC 08 31 2020)
Family and friends have begun to share photos, and salads, from their gardens as the month of August comes to a close. The wild patches of Manhattan’s west side have also reached their peak of productivity.
A morning walk, or a stroll to watch the evening sun set behind the Hudson, will also be accompanied by a diverse harvest of native and immigrant wildflowers in full bloom and fruit. This salad bar of sorts includes:
American Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana
(NYC 08 17 2020)
Bittersweet Nightshade, Solanum dulcamara
(NYC 08 31 2020)
Broadleaf Plantain, Plantago major
(NYC 08 31 2020)
Butter and Eggs, Linaria vulgaris
(08 08 2020)
Chicory, Cichorium intybus
(NYC 08 2020)
Common Black Nightshade, Solanum nigrum
(NYC 08 17 2020)
Common Mallow, Malva neglecta
(NYC 08 17 2020)
Galinsoga, Galinsoga parviflora
(NYC 08 17 2020)
Lady’s Thumb, Persicaria maculosa
(NYC 08 17 2020)
Marestail, Conyza canadensis
(NYC 08 31 2020)
There is quite a selection to see. August’s harvest is here.
— rPs 08 31 2020
Permalink
July 31, 2020 at 10:11 pm · Filed under Wildflowers: Blue ·Tagged Asiatic Dayflower, Blue, Chicory, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
July Sky Blues . . .
July Blue Sky
(NYC 07 28 2020)
Summer treads light during the long days of July. The sun hangs overhead as a white hot ball set in a deep blue sky.
Thriving on that light and reflecting back up a similar pure blue hue, the blooming of chicory and dayflower make a match of the heavens and the earth.
Chicory, Cichorium intybus
(NYC 2020)
Asiatic Dayflower, Commelina communis
(NYC 07 2020)
— rPs 07 31 2020
Permalink
April 22, 2020 at 11:07 am · Filed under Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: Purple ·Tagged Central Park, Earth Day, Earth Day 50, Manhattan, New York City Wildflowers, Upper West Side, West Village, Wild Violet, Wildflowers
Earth Day 50 . . .
The Globe by Kim Brandell on Earth Day 50 Morning.
(NYC 04 22 2020)
Ten years ago on Earth Day 40 I walked in Central Park and wrote of the lovely clear spring day it was and how nature and the city seemed to be in ecological balance.
Ten years later we find New York City like the rest of the world locked down in the midst of a global pandemic. The weather is the same, even more intensely clear and crisp, but the human activity is mostly absent.
My everyday life has me fall under the category of “essential (healthcare) worker” who also happens to work the night shift. My morning commute home, a healthy walk rather than a horrid subway ride, today took me through Central Park to revisit the view of a decade ago, which remains the same except for the spikes of several new supertall condominum towers stretched along the width of Central Park South.
Viola sororia, bi-colored form, claims a crack near Columbus Circle.
(NYC 04 2020)
My strongest impression is that the high blue sky clear of jet vapor trails and streets devoid of the numbing hum of peak vehicular traffic have given the city, in fact the entire planet, a pause to catch its natural breath. It’s as if the Earth is itself a meta unicellular creature exclaiming: “Thank you for ceasing to stress me with all that bad gas. Here is a perfect spring day as a reward.”
Earth Day 50: ironically the most beautiful Earth Day I have so far witnessed. May it not be the last.
The Lake in Central Park.
(NYC 04 22 2020)
— rPs 04 22 2020
Postscript: Time Does Fly. Read about Earth Day 40 here: https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/04/22/earth-day-40-on-the-fly/
Permalink
March 22, 2020 at 3:04 pm · Filed under Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue ·Tagged Manhattan, New York City Wildflowers, Siberian Squill, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
10th Anniversary . . .
Inspiration: The springtime view of Scilla siberica in bloom that began Wildflowers of the West Village.
(NYC 03 22 2010)
Ten years ago today I took some time to write a few paragraphs after a walk in Hudson River Park. The subject, one that had interested me since childhood, the wildflowers one encounters along the way.
“Wildflowers of the West Village will be an ongoing document, beginning with the 2010 growing season . . .”
A decade since spent exploring New York City’s wild flora, both native and immigrant (NOT invasive, imho), has given me monthly material enough even when internal inspiration may have been lacking. The walks and runs I have taken have at times rejuvenated my body and mind and imtroduced me to fellow like-minded lovers of nature. WWV has even received a bit of media notice from the likes of West View and The New York Times.
I have long described my love of creative writing as exploring the infinity found within the fixed space of the page, and likewise, so I have found the seasonal variety of wild plants established along the Hudson River side of Manhattan.
And as no writing enjoys life without readers, may I thank you all for taking the time to visit. I have endeavored to create an ongoing lasting document and resource for anyone interested in what has and what comtinues to grow wild along the margins of this great city of New York.
Here’s to ten (10!) more years of Wildflowers of the West Village.
Continuation: Scilla siberica
(NYC 03 17 2020)
— rPs 03 22 2020
Postscript: Read the post that started it all here: https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/03/22/welcome/
Permalink
August 28, 2019 at 8:47 pm · Filed under Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: Pink, Wildflowers: Purple, Wildflowers: White ·Tagged Manhattan, New York City, New York City Wildflowers, West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
Through the Fence . . .
Asiatic Dayflower:
Commelina communis
(NYC 08 26 2019)
Property shaped by fences is a reality in the developed and redeveloping city. A fence, though, not be just used to keep some thing or some one out. A fence can aso keep things contained in a sustained, unmolested zone of wild flowering green.
Bittersweet Nightshade:
Solanum dulcamara
(NYC 08 27 2019)
A blooming even so in August, the late last of the growing season, when the sun still hangs high over the region’s annual dry season.
Canada Thistle:
Cirsium arvense
(NYC 08 27 2019)
Sun, followed by a late afternoon shower that keeps the city parks in formal, and informal, flower.
Phytolacca americana
(NYC 08 28 2019)
This time of year it is pleasant to peek through the fence if on the other side there are wildflowers.
— rPs 08 28 2019
Permalink
June 16, 2019 at 2:34 pm · Filed under Wildflower Books, Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: Pink, Wildflowers: Purple, Wildflowers: Red, Wildflowers: White, Wildflowers: Yellow ·Tagged Bloomsday, James Joyce, Manhattan, New York City Wildflowers, Red Clover, Ulysses, West Village, Wildflowers
Bloomsday 2019 . . .
Trifolium pratense
Bloomsday on a Father’s Day Sunday, 2019 celebrates quite a packed, stacked, and weighty day for the wildflowers situated in sutu within a peak perlod of . . . bloom:
Chicorium
Chicory
(NYC 06 2019)
Malva
Mallow
(NYC 06 2019)
Brassica
Wild Mustard
(NYC 06 2019)
Solanum
Bittersweet Nightshade
(NYC 06 2019)
Circium
Canada Thistle
(NYC 06 2019)
ReJoyce and Enjoy!
(NYC 06 16 2019)
— rPs 06 16 2019
Postscript: Read WWV’s original Joycean odyssey here:
https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/06/16/bloomsday/
Permalink
September 30, 2018 at 5:17 pm · Filed under Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: White ·Tagged American Pokeweed, Asiatic Dayflower, Asters, New York City Trees, Upper West Side, West Village, White Snakeroot, Wildflowers
September Contrast . . .
Rainy Day Salad: Dayflower, Lady’s Thumb, Pokeweed
(09 2018)
September, full of promise, and fast going.
The ninth month in New York City is often a gray and green temperate deluge, or else a sun, golden, set in a bluebird bright sky, high and dry.
One natural extreme, or the other, contrast with very little, an almost imperceptible, transition time if you get some sleep overnight.
Late-Summer Whites: Asters & Snakeroot
(09 2018)
— rPs 09 30 2018
Permalink
April 22, 2018 at 4:48 pm · Filed under Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue, Wildflowers: White, Wildflowers: Yellow ·Tagged Earth Day, New York City, New York City Wildflowers, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
Earth Day 48 . . .
A Good Sign
(NYC 04 22 2018)
Earth Day 48 in New York, New York: bright sun under a bluebird sky, air still chill, trees just in the mood to flower.
The open ground has begun to be graced, laced with a scattering of new blooms, some wild:
Blue
Scilla siberica
Gold
Ranunculaceae
Spring has certainly “felt late” this 2018. Clouded rain has dominated, interspersed by days, like today’s Earth Day, as bright as can be.
Bittercress Brassicaceae Bathed In Brightness
Happy Earth Day 48!
– rPs 04 22 2018
Permalink
July 18, 2017 at 3:02 pm · Filed under Wildflowers: Blue ·Tagged Asiatic Dayflower, Chicory, Coffee, Manhattan, New York City, New York City Wildflowers, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
A Midsummer Day’s Blues . . .
Blue Flower Bathed in White Sun
(NYC 07 2017)
I continue to contend the sun as a star may have shifted more to the white, so strong is its midsummer light; it’s that bright.
Light, the favorite food of the perennial Plant, capital P, fills one fan found now on open lawns and streetsides as urban as the hyperdeveloping West Village. This immigrant citizen is the blue daisy of summer days: Chicory.
This blue Asteraceae, Cichorium intybus, had been in Europe a wildflower used for a bitter green and, later, its roots roasted and ground as a complement or addition to coffee once that sweetbitter bean had been introduced conversely through colonization.
Find chicory today, in bloom now, sometimes see it sprinkled like pale nonpareils on a lawn.
Chicory Nonpareils
(NYC 07 2017)
Chicory bathes in full sun as the summer’s other signature blue petals open in the shade, each one for just a day, and given the hot intensity of the seemingly white sunlight, sometimes just for a morning; a bright one, but a good one.
Commelina communis – Asiatic dayflower
Dayflower With Visitor
(NYC 07 2017)
A midsummer day’s blues are in full bloom about the west side of Manhattan.
— rPs 07 18 2017
Permalink
October 21, 2016 at 3:48 pm · Filed under Wildflower Related, Wildflowers: Blue ·Tagged Asiatic Dayflower, Autumn, Manhattan, New York City Wildflowers, Upper West Side, West Village, Wildflowers
Top to Bottom . . .
October: Rainy Dayflower Impressionism
(NYC 10 2016)
Clouds deliver rainwater to Manhattan today. Urban Autumn scenes inspire peculiar poetry. An asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis) reminds all of the blues of The Fall. Lines influenced still by the Wildflowers of the West Village . . .
The mountaintop,
Being a tip,
Sits lonely.
One who there sits,
Gets it in,
Obviously.
The plateau,
So wide,
So preferred;
Has lost its head,
Lopped off,
Clean cut, carved.
So,
Where is
The tip?
Is it lost,
Did it go,
Did it slip?
With masses
Beyond glasses
Glued to all them,
Here we are,
Not so far,
Near the bottom.
End
– rPs 10 21 2016
Permalink
Wildflowers of the West Village 