The winter has been pretty harsh. Its passage through the pathside grass tells the tale. As the February sun shines I can see the little patches of faded green that fought the cold and now give the wilderness a pleasant aroma along pathsides, field embankments, fallow lands and canal bunds—little sinewy hideouts still surviving for mother earth to keep her flag flying, to still somehow maintain the timeless sanctity of her duty, her divine principle. Gone are the days of large doses of wildly engaging swathes of mother nature. Well that is fabled past. This is enough for me, a middle-aged poetic man with lukewarm sensibilities, moving on the visual surface almost lost in the puzzling quizzes of existence. It’s a representational canvas and by its side is placed earthy palette. There is soulful stillness and I distinctly hear nature’s compositional effort to still get attuned to the changing times. These little ribbons of weather-beaten wilderness alleviate my tensions; a sense of openness permeates my being.
Wild sorrel or common sorrel, a leafy bouquet, stands as a green beauty among the winter-beaten grass. It welcomes me with its clumps of arrow-shaped leaves and juicy stems. It will have whorled spikes of reddish green flowers in early summer. Butterflies and moth larvae feast upon them. It’s not that useless as one may think it to be as you pass it. In Nigeria it’s used in stews. Indians who know about its properties use it in soups and curries. The Afghanis coat the leaves with butter and consume them as appetizers.
Disengaged from the world of utilities and economic valuation stand some stalks of great mullein. It’s a hairy biennial plant that can grow to two meters. It will add to the short spring waiting just round the corner when it will have small yellow flowers densely grouped on a tall stem, growing from a big rosette of leaves. It’s a prince of fallow lands and hosts a variety of insects. Its tall pole-like stem greets me with a very slight nod as a gust of wind eggs it to greet me. Its hermetic disposition has fetched it quite interesting names including Hare’s Beard and Moses’ Blanket.
Sardonically stand a few twiggy mulleins, a kind of spiky rosette of leaves, self-absorbed in their pleasant redundancy. Beyond the gloss and superfluousness of mankind’s manipulation, it stands as the unpretentious, anonymous engraver of the last lines of free nature on this planet.
On the canal bund stands a dwarf shrub called bluemink, or pussy foot or flossflower. Reaching up to three feet high its bluish and purple fluff-haired flowerheads are the harbingers of spring. It seems to be waiting for the first butterfly carrying the colors of spring. It knows how to defend itself well as it repulses insects by secreting a repulsive compound. Then it’s toxic to grazing animals because it causes some mild liver complications to goat and sheep. And the grazers know it through natural intelligence.
There are some billygoat weeds with attractive mauve flowers. It by the way is a medicinal plant and is used to cure dysentery and diarrhea. And the goats, sheep and buffalos don’t need medicines much, so they leave it to bask in its glory.
There is a very nice colony of annual ragweed. They are invasive by attitude and know how to grab their share in this competitive world. They have much-branched hairy leaves, 4-5 inches long, that can cause allergic reactions to some humans.
Riverside wormwood, also called mugwort, has long leaves and safe to be even considered a culinary herb.
Then there are strands of smut-grass, or call it pheasant’s-tail-grass, having whisk-like crown heads gently swaying to the late winter solitude.
Pampas grass defines the second tier crown of this little ribbon of wilderness running along the canal. Only occasional trees hover over them. They have razor-sharp leaf margins having whitish inflorescences on top of their stout upright flower spikes. They stand in clump-forming solidarity with their blade-like leaves. The dark brown and whitish spikes at the end of stems sway to the gentle accosting of breeze. Their clumps carry an indispensable air. They are the fortresses of birds of bush and reptiles.
There is greater pond sedge along the water margins in the thickly overgrown sides of the canal floating over the water in a decided sense of agnosticism.
All these sentinels of wilderness greet me on my solitary march in the countryside. They have weathered a tough winter and now leave us at the threshold of a pleasant spring.