The British band Talk Talk released an LP entitled ” The Colour of Spring” in 1986. The record was a favorite from my freshman year at university.
I’ve long thought the same title (Americanized) would eventually make for a great post on WWV, so this Vernal Equinox, 2022, it is.
Enjoy the colors.
Happy first day of Spring.
— rPs 03 20 2022
“Wildflowers of the West Village will be an ongoing document, beginning with the 2010 growing season” . . .
So began Wildflowers of the West Village on this date in 2010. Last year’s 10th anniversary was overshadowed by New York (and the rest of the world) locking down at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, that crisis still remains, but the outlook is much more positive, and today is a bright and sunny day in the city, the first full day of spring, full of new wildflower beauty that cannot be contained.
A short Sunday morning walk in the neighborhood reveals:
Bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta
Groundsel, Senecio vulgaris
Mouseear chickweed, Cerastium fontanum
Red deadnettle, Lamium purpureum
The diversity of species and range of shape and color punctuating the newly greening grass is affirming to behold, just one of the reasons a little blog about wildflowers in of all places, New York City, has lasted for over a decade, but who’s counting?
— rPs 03 22 2021
Postscript: Visit the post that started it all here: https://wildflowersofthewestvillage.com/2010/03/22/welcome/
Vernal Equinox 2018 . . .
Snowdrops on the First Day of Spring
(NYC 03 20 2018)
Crocus vernus
(NYC 03 20 2018)
— rPs 03 20 2018
Vernal Equinox 2017 . . .
A Thousand Words About 32 Degrees Fahrenheit.
(NYC 03 2017)
A photo can, at times, say more than words; it can almost give you a chill.
Spring is here.
Happy Vernal Equinox from the still snowy western shore of Manhattan!
– rPs 03 20 2017
Anniversary Spring . . .
Trio of Leaves: Symplocarpus
(NYC, 03 2016)
Six (6!) years ago the concept of “Wildflowers of the West Village” conceived in liberty an ongoing mission to serve History. The best is, as the rest, and seeks out to answer what untended wild exists on the western edge of Manhattan during the early twenty-first century.
Report as a journalist: craft, ethics, objectivity. Write as a poet within the standard prose traditions of Natural History. The fact the flora explorations offer exercise at whatever fitness level one desires has extended and sustained a silver lining to my distance running life for two score plus of years.
Spring Equinox 2016 gusted in near 12:30 a.m. EST with preparations readied for a citywide snow storm that arrived only as brief periods of spritzing sleet. The predominant weather pattern has remained bluebird skies, sun bright, almost white, the atmosphere blowing on strong sustained winds.
Some outings may be more of a hike than a run. Sometimes both are combined for various effects. Spring time gives the city good air before the pollen count commences, great times to be out of doors.
Full sun bathed one such exertion combo around the leafy stretches of NYC’s parks. Marshy areas call for lighter stepping. I attempt to not even leave footprints. A drier winter has left marsh in place under a dry intact leaf carpet in most areas. One spot of perhaps an acre did stand out as wet as expected. Brush nested in oak leaves, which received sun later in the afternoon. Within that section there rested a spot near a tannic puddle bottomed in saturated oak leaves. Nearby stood distinctive green candle flame spires rooted in a patterned purple almost ceramic in appearance; there the new green shoots of the soon to be enormous Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus.
Sighted often on spring hikes, near the water waded in search of trout, some enormous verdant “verde” ears may be seen by early April. Fly fishers may take note stoneflies and bees are attracted to the plant, inedible and indelicate of odor to most humans. The health and vigor and native green this species gives to one’s eyes a fresh bloom to the picture; a kind of green quotation to the predominant three brown, white, and blue.
Skunk Cabbage could just as easily be called Woodpecker Cabbage, or Trout Cabbage, given its time of emergence and the other active living species gathered and about around the days surrounding the Spring Equinox.
“Phenology.”
Symplocarpus may be NYC’s first native thumb up for another growing season, perhaps like a first tuba in spring’s unfolding symphony of green. Skunk Cabbage takes its place with all the other wildflowers of the West Village, and beyond.
Happy 6th Anniversary, Wildflowers of the West Village. Spring, 2016.
Six Spires Green Beside the Path: Symplocarpus
(NYC, 03 2016)
– rPs 03 21 2016
Vernal Equinox . . .
A day does make a difference. The eve of the Vernal Equinox in Manhattan was sunny, if windy, and here and there, like at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields along Hudson Street, the very earliest hints of spring could be seen basking in the light.
First Shoots: On the Eve of the Vernal Equinox
(photo taken 03 19 2015)
First Tree Blossoms: West Village
(photo taken 03 19 2015)
The next day: again, snow . . .
— rPs 03 20 2015
The First Day of Spring . . .
The first courtyard flower of the year beat the first day of spring by a few days. (photo taken 03 17 2013)
The Vernal Equinox began in New York City today at 7:02 a.m. Snow fell just two days ago and temperatures for the week are to average ten degrees cooler than what the meteorologists state is normal for this time of year. Still, our courtyard had become decorated with a few scattered patches of pastel color, nestled like Easter eggs in the brown leaf litter from the previous autumn.
Spring is here . . .
– rPs 03 20 2013
Wildflowers of the West Village 