Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

As May approaches, the Hepatica has finally faded for another season. One of the things that I enjoy the most about hepatica is that it is not boring. Many other flowers – wild or cultivated – appear in essentially one form. Consider Spring beauty, Trillium, Marsh Marigold, or other spring wildflowers. They have the same coloration, same number of petals, and often grow in the same formations. Spring beauty, for instance, often grows a pair of flowers, situated slightly diagonally to each other.

Hepatica, on the other hand, demonstrate a lot of diversity. They may have 6, 8, 10, or more petals. They may be solid or multicolored, dark or light - deep blue, pale lavender, or even white.

Some time ago I likened hepatica to snow crystals – although they are similar, each one is slightly different and unique. Combine that with their arrival as one of the very first spring wildflowers, and the rather short period of time they are around each spring, and you can see what makes them so interesting to photograph.

Spring is a season when things change fast. If you watch closely, you can sometimes see the turning point – that particular day when winter’s inertia finally gives way to the compelling changes that come with spring. It’s the day when the grass turns green. It’s the day when the buds on the trees reach a critical mass, and as you look down your street you no longer see wooden skeletons, but the green, red, and yellow fringes of new growth and life.

While this transformation may seem to be abrupt and sudden, it is really is the result of long preparation. Spring is the season of rebirth, but rebirth is not a haphazard or random event. Rebirth comes when elements are mixed together, daring the universe with their potential, and awaiting the spark of warmth, the spark of light, the spark of Spring – that triggers the annual renewal of the earth.

When the skunk cabbage buds burn through the snow in late winter, they are laying plans for spring. When a tree buds out in February, it is making plans for spring. When the first green shoots push up through dried leaves on a cold March day – they are making plans for spring.

At the turning point, those plans are quickened and made real. It’s a not a grand event, not a planetary phenomenon, but rather each square foot of soil builds it’s potential, and then unleashes it when the turning point comes.

This year, here in the place where I am, things turned around 3:00 AM, Friday morning, April 24th. That’s when the first really warm air of the year arrived – I know that because it came in a grand display of thunder and lightening, that woke even me. Although the weather forecasters predicted that Thursday would be a warm day, it fell short and turned out to be a bit chillhy, a bit cloudy, and a bit like March. But once the storms rolled through on Friday moring, the night air warmed and the next day the earth turned green. All the plans that nature had laid suddenly came to fruition.

I visited some of my usual haunts in Cass County. The woodland wildflowers are truly at their peak. Hepatica is still standing, but has faded and is now rare. Anemone – wood, rue, and false – is everywhere. So too is Spring Beauty, Trout Lily, Dutchman’s Britches and Squirrel Corn. Isolated patches of Bloodroot still bloom, but in most cases this early spring flower is gone, leaving its leaves to grow to incredible size.

This is the sweetest time of year, when the trees are just beginning to bud out and have a faint glimmer of green to their branches; and when the forest floor is radiant green, sprinkled with the wildflowers. Looking ahead – Trillium is just staring to open and May Apple is just starting to unfurl it’s umbrella-like leaves.

Like I said, this is the turning point.

Yesterday I visited a few choice locations in Cass County, Michigan, looking for spring wildflowers. Our long cold snap seems to be coming to an end, and Michigan might actually see temperatures in the 70’s for the first time in 2009. Combine that with some recent rains, and it seemed that the wildflowers would be breaking out for sure.

The forest floor is now covered with large patches of wild leeks the earliest wildflowers are still out – Harbinger of Spring, Skunk Cabbage Flowers, and Hepatica are still abundant. Most of the skunk cabbage has moved beyond the flowering stage, and is now sending out its green napkin sized leaves.

Bloodroot is also out, and is probably near its peak in many places. Here and there I found withering blooms or plants that had already lost their blooms, but most were still fresh.

The next wave of wildflowers is starting to make its appearance. Marsh Marigolds are starting to open up a bit more. Rue anemone and false rue anemone were just starting to bloom in the places I visited, but along the way I saw solid patches of them by the side of the road. Spring beauty is also just starting to appear. I found a few Dutchman’s Britches, just starting to bloom, one of which is shown below. Trillium leaves are now up, and a few budding flowers have started to crack open. May Apple foliage is also pressing out of the ground, though it is just starting to unfurl.

Here in Michigan, Harbinger of Spring - Erigenia bulbosa – is one of the first spring wildflowers to appear. While Skunk Cabbage is usually credited with being the very first spring flower, the red leafy flower is not particularly, um…, floral in appearance. But Harbinger of Spring is close behind and its “salt and pepper” flowers presage the wonderful spring wildflowers that will come in the weeks that follow its arrival.

For all that, I’m not sure that I ever bothered to photograph this diminutive flower. This year and in years past I’ve run straight past the lowly Harbinger of Spring and into the arms of hepatica. From there it’s on to the spring beauty, anemone,trout lilies, trillium, and more. For me, Harbinger of Spring is as ephemeral as expectations always are – like a cloud of breath on a cold spring morning that fades away as quickly as it appears, and is forgotten as the day warms.

So this year I laid down in the early spring mud and took a few photos of Harbinger of Spring. The best is shown here. The cluster of flowers is scarcely an inch across, and depth of field is always a challenge at high magnifications like this. The plant rises just a couple inches from the ground, and the background of the photo is made up of the pale brown leaves that cover the forest floor.

On this flower, one petal remained suspended by some sort of invisible thread. I expected to see the thread in the high resolution images, but it remained as invisible to the camera as it was to mine own eye. I should probably photoshop that suspended petal out of the image – it is, after all, a distraction from the main subject of the photo, the flower itself.

But then all expectations are distractions from what is, and so I rather like that sole petal, hanging out there, the essence of Harbinger of Spring.

The really big piles of snow may still be melting, but spring is definitely in the air. And with spring comes the wildflowers. The counties in the very southwest corner of Michigan – Cass, Berrien, and St. Joseph – are home to some of the finest spring woodland wildflowers. On Sunday, I made a quick exploratory trip to the Dowagiac woods, to see how things are progressing.

The late March woods were still pretty bleak. A few sprigs of wild garlic poked through the brown leaves that carpeted the ground. In some places, Harbinger of Spring had started to bloom – tiny white flowers. Here and there hepatica leaves were starting to appear.

That was 4 days ago – my guess is that in a week or so, depending on the weather, the hepatica should be coming out in full force.

Despite recent flood warnings due to heavy rain combined with snow melt, the woods were fairly dry. The Dowagiac River runs along the east edge of the woods, behind a short levee. The levee has cuts in it to allow high water to flood into the woods. On the day I was there water was draining out of the flooded areas and back into the river. While a lot of the ground was muck, the trail and the areas nearby were pretty firm.

One pleasant surprise was to hear a great cacophony of frogs near the flood ponds. Frogs are such a rarity anymore; it’s encouraging to hear large numbers of them singing.

I took the old Kodak Retina 1a camera that I try to keep in my coat pocket along for the walk, and here’s a snap of the flood area:

I think that place is “Crescent Pond” - I’d have to chck the maps to be sure, but it looks like a crescent.

This shot was taken on my very last expired roll of 35mm Plus-X (the “old” version). Since the Retina has no focusing aid and no built in meter, focus and exposure were determined by dead reckoning. The film was processed in Rodinal, 1:50, which really makes the Plus-X grain sing.