By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--September 12, 2023
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Questions in the classroom are always best in the moment they arise, and waffles are best when they’re right out of the waffle iron. Likewise, baked potatoes are never better than when they first come out of the oven and bacon is best when it can be enjoyed with a little smoke from the campfire. And so it is with late summer flowers. We can enjoy the photos later when it’s cold and they’re long faded, but today we can mix the very air with their fragrance and contrast their color with the deep greens and golds of September. Today, before they are a pleasant memory, they are real and in the present moment.
This summer and fall wildflower is forever associated with my days at Riley Elementary school on Indiana 227 south of Richmond, Indiana. In those grade school days it was often a requirement for kids to have their own Goldenrod tablet. They had orange covers with green or blue or black edges and yellow goldenrod blooms front and center. The paper was always yellow, soft, and probably cheap. The folks got one for me or I wouldn’t have had one. “Tough luck, kid!” The teacher didn’t hand them out, either. Just as the goldenrod began to bloom early in September, goldenrod tablets would appear inside school desks. Their golden yellow color would soon match the sugar maple leaves, the school buses, and the black-eyed susans that abounded along the dusty country roads of my youth. I never had a problem with hay fever, so I welcomed their arrival in September, even if I did not welcome the opening of school. And for the record, Goldenrod tablets are still available today.
Sweet peas were a favorite of my grandmother, who had many old fashioned favorites. Once established, they self-seed easily. Pea blossoms are always little works of art. Hers grew among snow-on-the-mountain and amongst the phlox and along fence rows that were hard to keep weed free. The sweet peas did a little of the weeding for her.
Butterfly weed was there for many years before I knew what it was. As can be seen from the photo, butterflies and other pollinators really like it. This one grew along a dusty country road becoming grayer and grayer in dry weather, but showing bright orange again after a thundershower. I counted up to seven butterflies at a time on this plant, mostly swallowtails, fritillaries, and skippers. The hotter the day became, there more butterflies there would be. They’re almost as much fun to watch as chickens.
Buttercups are an old fashioned favorite wildflower. It was said the British played the tune The World Turned Upside Down as they marched out of their revetments after surrendering at Yorktown in October, 1781. The lyrics begin like this:
If buttercups buzzed after the bee,
If boats were on land,
Churches on sea . . .
We thus know that buttercups were a familiar sight in the New World and the Old even in the eighteenth century. More recently, the primary character in the beloved 1987 film The Princess Bride carried the name Buttercup. She was named after a flower that was pale yellow, sunny, cheerful, and beautiful. If you’re one of the eleven people left in the world who have not seen this film, arrange to do so soon. It’s a classic with a million quotable lines. If you’re one of the rest of the 8 billion people who have seen it, just take it down from your DVD shelf and watch it again. To remain among the few who haven’t seen it is, simply, Inconceivable!
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Sunflowers are a joy everywhere. There are many varieties, all of them enchanting. Van Gogh understood the magic their glowing gold petals brought to the viewer. To discover a field of sunflowers peeking over each others’ shoulders to see the first rays of the morning sun is a sight to calm us and bring great contentment. In the course of each day, the blooms will turn to face the sun for maximum solar effect.
Morning glory is just that. To see one of these when it first opens is just as shocking to see bluebirds or indigo buntings in bright sunlight. How is it possible to create such a shocking, intense shade of blue? Morning glory blossoms only last one day before they fade to make way for the tiny seeds. My grandmother loved these, too. There is a photo of her on the porch of their house on South Main Street taken about 1930 that shows her morning glories climbing the strings she had put up for a trellis. I always remember her when the morning glories begin to bloom.
Zinnias were another of Grandma Smith’s favorites, and so they have always been favorites of mine. She planted a row or two in her garden every year so they would begin to bloom in August and continue until frost. On a warm sunny day, go out to the flower garden, cup a big double zinnia bloom in your hands, lean over with your nose almost touching, and inhale deeply. I’m back there in an instant in that summer of 1958 seeing the pink and white and red and yellow blooms stretching away down the long row. She’s cutting some to put in water in a quart jar in the farmhouse. I can see them now.
Ironweed When I was growing up I had plenty of opportunities to play in cow pastures. They were abundant in my part of the Heartland. Late in the summer the cattle had often cropped their pasture rather short, especially if it had been dry. Cow pastures made great places for playing ball because they were mostly cleared already. It was always easier to find a softball in a pasture than it was to find in tall grass. On weekends in September, with school already begun, cow pastures offered a nostalgic memory of the summer just past. If cattle were present, it paid to know the difference between a bull and a cow. The larger the pasture, the more likely I was to range far enough away from the nearest fence to be out of the safety zone if a bull were about. If there were only cows I knew I could share the whole thing with them in complete safety. Ironweed has a woody upright stem that can be four feet tall or more. Cows do not seem interested in ironweed, so in the pastures of my youth it was one of the first wildflowers I learned to identify after dandelions. Today’s automatic cameras do not do it justice. With the naked eye it is always deeper purple and more intense than in the photo above. In low angle light with a deep green background it’s stunning and dramatic. It has long been a favorite of mine in late summer cow pastures.
Now is the time. As you go about your day, please look for the late summer flowers and enjoy them. Be sure to savor the moment. Like the summer of 1913, or the summer of ’39 or ’41, especially when we don’t know what lies ahead we can always thank God for today. In the not too distant future some will look back on today and sigh, “Those were good days. I’d give anything to go back there now.”
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Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.