One of these days we’ll be making our annual pilgrimage to a
few of the cold, wet, marly, limey shores and cobblestone beaches
to enjoy one of our most eagerly-waited-for spring wildflowers of
this entire region, the arctic primrose. These six-to-eight-inch
tall plants will delicately decorate the otherwise bleak
landscape with their heart-shaped petals of pink, lilac and
pastel purple.
A close look at its basal rosette of leaves and
five intricately shaped petals will reveal a plant of great charm
and beauty. Look at one of these flowers straight into the eye
and you’ll easily understand why so many people refer to this
little charmer as the bird’s-eye-primrose. Its pattern of light
and dark colors makes it appear as an iris and tiny pupil. Then
there are those people who, perhaps due to the flower’s delicate
colors and diminutive size, prefer to call it the fairy pri
mrose.
It was Francois Michaus, famous botanist of the late
1700’s and early 1800’s, who, while doing extensive botanical
research and collecting in the boreal regions of North America,
discovered the Arctic primrose along the shores of Lake
Mistassini (mis-TAS-si-nee), east of James Bay in south central
Quebec. A natural scientific name of this prim little plant came
to be Primula mistassinica (mis-tas-SIN-i-ca). The
wildflower was listed in Michaux’s book, "Flora Boreali –
Americana," publis hed in 1803. A study of this plant’s
distribution in North America clearly indicates a close
relationship with cold marly shores of lakes and rivers. In a
few isolated cases, such as the Wisconsin Dells region, south
central Iowa and northeast Illinois, their present occurrence
along some rivers and bluffs can be traced back to post-glacial
times when these particular habitats were shores of lakes or
rivers.
Closer to the water in parts of northeastern Door
County lies the cobblestone beach which supports a number of
plants, including the arctic primrose, that prefer to have their
feet moist throughout the growing season. A majority of visitors
are not familiar with the plants in this zone for two reasons:
one, they are inconspicuous and, two, they grow in wettish sites
usually circumnavigated by most hikers who don’t wish to get
their feet wet. Even the names of these plants are not familiar
to most peopl e: water speedwell, bittercress, Iceland yellow
cress, Baltic rush, creeping spearwort and savory. The latter
plant, savory, Satureja glabella (sat-you-REE-ja
gla-BEL-la) is a very uncommon plant mainly because it is so
wonderfully inconspicuous. In fact quite a few people hiking and
stumbling along the difficult-to-navigate cobblestone beach first
discover the plant, not by seeing it but rather by smelling its
strong minty fragrance.
I’ll never forget the adventure I had
twelve years ago while sailing with Dan and Donna Lash in the
Beaver Island group in upper Lake Michigan. We had anchored in
Indian Harbor on Garden Island for a few days and did quite a bit
of botanical exploring. It was while hiking along the vast
stretches of rocky marly flats along the east side of Garden
Island that we came upon immense gardens of arctic primroses,
long past blooming but nevertheless very recognizable by their
thousands of tiny rosettes of lea ves hugging the ground.
We were also astounded at the gigantic expanses of savory
through which we had to walk. That night I was quite amazed,
upon taking off my hiking boots at "bunk" time, at the
delectable minty fragrance still clinging to the soles of my
boots. Around three days later, back home in Door County, I
shared the unusual experience with Charlotte and, to our
unbelieving surprise upon smelling the soles of my boots, could
still detect a very definite mint-like odor on the soles!
Every May, without fail, the same botanical urge deep inside
begins to gnaw away at my "gypsy feet." I want to get
out and examine every woods and bog and meadow in the county just
to learn about the plants growing there. In order to do the job
correctly one really would have to inspect each habitat
periodically throughout the growing season. Surely you can sense
what a time-consuming job this would be, but what challenging fun
and exercise you would receive in return.
On the other hand can you imagine the heartbreaks involved in
this undertaking? Suppose that one year you discover prime
stands of at least three different rattlesnake plantain orchids,
calypso orchids, showy lady’s-slipper orchids, two different
species of yellow lady’s-slippers, plus all of the other
spectacular plants associated with these rare plant communities.
The next year you return to enjoy a rebirth of this original
discovery only to find that over 100 acres of this prime
environment has been leveled, destroyed, developed!
I bristle whenever I see a new driveway and homesite being
bulldozed and generally leveled in a wooded area prior to the
building of a new home, without the slightest knowledge or
interest in what plants are being destroyed in the process.
Would it be totally out of the question for a town, village or
city to develop an interest in preserving native plants? How
wonderful it would be to establish a law that would require
landowners to survey the vegetation on the land to be developed,
and then to do everything in their power to protect or even
transplant especially the threatened and endangered species – to
save and preserve them!
Perhaps this is one of the reasons we enjoy the remote, low,
wet, marly, rocky, cobblestone beaches that will never be
developed – and are rich with exceptionally wonderful plants!
The inconspicuous but beautiful arctic
primrose most often grows along rocky shores seldom visited by people.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 05/15/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
