A flower collection

Spring Larkspur

Forty-one years ago, a now-forgotten science teacher in Creston, Iowa gave his class an assignment: turn in a collection of 35 dried flowers gathered in the area by the end of May. He was met with a silent groan from his class of sophomores -- I was one of them.

Flower Press

The project seemed impossibly huge and un-doable.  I doubted that 35 wildflowers existed in the hills of southwest Iowa. But my dad and I dutifully made a flower press out of two pieces of wood and I spent about a month combing the streets, roadsides and pastures around Creston, picking the wildflowers and carefully pressing them between sheets of waxed paper.

Dad

I know I didn't want to make the flower press, but it did the job well.  The collection, carefully stored in a Ziploc bag, contains yellowing sheets of paper on which are arrayed the wildflowers we picked that spring over 40 years ago. Some even retain hints of their original color.

Each flower is painstakingly labelled with the scientific name, common name, location, date, student name, amount of flowers in that locale. Here's an example:

Denturia lacinata
Toothwort
Northeast of Creston
April 17, 1971
Melinda Hall
Abundant

My dad took a real interest in the project.  Fortunately, he was a hiker and loved driving into the country on Sunday afternoons where we nonchalantly climbed over fences and trundled down hills in search of elusive Jacob's ladder, mayapple, and Dutchman's breeches. Those sunlit wildflower-hunting expeditions are precious memories, now that my dad is gone. And the names of many of the flowers have stayed with me, so that I can identify toothwort, columbine and false anemone with superiority and not a little pleasure.  


Wildflowers are everywhere -- abundant even on the hills of Iowa. May I always see the world with abundance!

Honeysuckle

Jacob's Ladder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily of the Valley

Spirea

Toothwort