The compass plant (Silphium albiflorum) returns every summer to our roadside. as persistent as a habit. This one is white, a rarer variety; I've read that compass plants are more often yellow. Coarse and weedy, it's not a very pretty plant, but it grows in an interesting way, aligning itself to the points of the compass. The rough, incised leaves grow on a north-south axis, facing the sun (east and west) morning and evening, but turned sideways (north and south) at midday (when this photo was taken). On hot summer days, this allows the leaves to do a good job of photosynthesis without losing lots of water through evaporation.
William Least Heat Moon writes about the compass plant in PrairyErth: “Where these yellow rays of blossoms once grew in abundance ten feet high, some prairie tribes refused to camp, believing that the plants drew down lightning, yet during electrical storms the people burned the dried root to ward off thunderbolts.” The association with lightning may have arisen from the plant's many uses as a valuable healer for all sorts of ailments--as well as its narcotic properties (it's a mild opiate). The stems were slit and the resinous sap gathered for use as a "chewing gum." (It's also called rosinweed and gumweed.)
I love the compass plant because it's a remnant of the ecosystem that once encompassed the Hill Country. If you come across it when you're hiking out here, pause and smile. You've stepped onto a rare piece of original prairie, the way it was before settlers arrived and began plowing and fencing and cutting and paving. That's something to celebrate.
Garden report. Not much in the garden this year, because we were gone through late April and into May, our spring gardening months. We dug the potatoes this week, between rainstorms. The Yukon Gold yielded better than the Reds, but not by much. Still, there's enough for several weeks of meals, and they're very tasty, boiled, then pan-roasted with butter, garlic, and lots of parsley. Parsley, basil, and thyme are growing better than anything else in the garden this year. But the Girls are outdoing themselves and we have plenty of eggs. I'm planning a quiche for supper.
Book report. Loving Eleanor has been shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, another important recognition for this story of the thirty-year friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Also, The General's Women was reviewed in an Irish newspaper. (Ireland is the homeland of Kay Summersby, the main character in this biographical novel.) Nice to see that the book is getting some international recognition. And I'm nearly finished with The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover. This book is the first of a couple (maybe three?) plot-linked books in that series--planning to publish this one early next year. Currently researching: the later life of the painter, Georgia O'Keeffe.
Reading note, from Always Beginning, by Maxine Kumin: I am grateful for every ordinary day, knowing that these will draw to a close somewhere beyond our seeing. I hope to go on picking vegetables, pulling bindweed out of the fields, enjoying the birds, the dogs, even our elderly cat, whose last season this likely will be. . . Going on is, after all, the ultimate pleasure of our lives.