circumpolar

warning: this is another wildflower post, but only in part.

exactly a month ago today, our swedish friend ingrid treated jm and me to an excursion to a forest preserve outside eskilstuna. we rode our bikes until the path became too narrow, hilly, rocky, rooty, mossy, dark, and full of holes where trolls lurk (trolls don't like to come out in sunshine, so we didn't see any, nor did we see any other human beings).



we walked to a small lake, where ingrid spread out the typical and delicious picnic lunch of västerbotten cheese pie and some pickled herring and beer. i tried to ignore the water snake(s?) that was tacking back and forth between the reeds and waterlilies. we relaxed and indulged in some long-winded storytelling about people on our minds.


at several places in little openings in the forest were modest groups of small pink twin flowers (Linea borealis). these modest little blossoms are the one plant that the great botanist Carolus Linaeus chose to name for himself. he might have said that this plant was like himself: "lowly, insignificant, disregarded, and flowering for but a brief time..." (no citation for this given; is this an example of the Swedish dictum not to boast?)

there were several stands of them, so we picked one. the flowers have a very sweet, delicate smell.



the same twin flowers show up in my "wildflowers of michigan" book, as an indicator species of ancient woodlands. i've never seen them here--i suppose they must be further north. they are described as 'native.' this seemed puzzling until i found a reference online that called them 'circumpolar.' very good. i like the concept and the term itself.

but then, how many other things on earth are circumpolar, i wonder? evergreen trees, i imagine. seals? bears? deer? lichen? mosses? and much more. did the sami people from the polar regions of europe have contact across the ice with the inuit?

on our way back, we rode past a farm with dairy cows grazing in a field some distance from the road. knowing that ingrid is an expert in an archaic form of traditional cow calling, we encouraged her to give it a try. amazingly, the entire herd immediately came galloping towards us, about as fast as cows can run.

these were the cleanest cows i have ever seen, but then, they were Swedish cows.

as you can see, we enjoyed a perfectly beautiful summer day.