Wild Things

Remember that song? “Wild thing, you make my heart sing?” Well, everything in this post does indeed make my heart sing, wild or tame. It begins at a local pond where one of our most beautiful native shrubs grow. The rhodora is in the same family as azaleas and rhododendrons but it likes wet feet. Or at least, it doesn’t mind wet feet. I don’t like wet feet but I’ll risk them if it means being able to see these beautiful flowers again. But though I saw some colorful rhodora buds I never did see any flowers that day. Instead I saw leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) in bloom. This small shrub is in the heath family along with blueberries, heather, and many other well known natives. The plant gets its common name from its tough, leathery leaves, which are lighter and scaly on their undersides. Each leatherleaf flower is about half the size of a blueberry blossom. The evergreen plant likes to grow in boggy ground right on the water line and hang its long flowering branches out over the…