Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Lyre-leaved Sage
This lily, found in the same marshland where I came across the early blooming, jewel-like, Spring Beauty, is another addition to the Gallery for 2007. Although also a denizen of this often-flooded wetland, this wildflower grows in a quite different environment.
In fact, the early blooming wildflowers are almost gone for the year when this member of the Salvia family begins to grace the drier ground at the margins of this marsh in the early days of summer.
The few blooming flowers I found in early March, such as Spring Beauty, stood out even though they bloomed almost at ground level, because other new vegetation had not yet appeared to cover the ground made barren by winter.
But summer bloomers like Salvia lyrata, growing in the same shady areas, has to compete with the new growth of waist-high, rampant vines and grasses that had covered the ground.
So while the early spring flowers need to grow only a half-inch off the ground in early spring, Lyre-leaved Sage, as you can see, grows much higher to reach up above the competition. (This specimen was twelve inches tall. The species can reach twenty-four inches, if necessary, to find sunlight.)
Notice, too, that this native wildflower has bent over to follow the few rays of the sun that penetrate to this shady, wetland hummock on a hot, late-spring day.
A native wildflower, Salvia lyrata was valued by Native Americans as a healing herb.
The Cherokee and Catawba Indians applied the crushed leaves of this plant as a poultice to aid in the healing of sores and skin irritations, and internally as a relief from asthma and colds, by concocting a syrup made from boiling the leaves with honey.
The latter sounds like one of our modern cough syrups, doesn't it?
The common and scientific names both provide apt descriptions of the healing properties, as well as alluding to the unusual shape of the foliage.
(Salvia/Sage for the medicinal attributes: from the Latin salvare = to save. Lyrata for lyre-like ["stringed instrument in the harp family, with u-shaped frame."]
The marsh can be a dark and mysterious place as I make my way out at the end of the day.
With a little imagination, I can hear the music of the "little folk," who perhaps inhabit this special area. Strumming the spider web strings of their leafy lyres, they make magical music in the moon-lit marsh.
Well, perhaps, I'm just hearing the breeze in the swamp grass. But then there are the Fairy Spuds....?
Any thoughts, pro or con? Why not drop me an anonymous note at the Comments page?
OR
Go back to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.