Roadside Aesthetics

Here, let's just look at a bit of the mid-Missouri roadside that we too often drive past without noticing.  I'll report this out of my cranky mode.  Not mood--mood implies whim, a fleeting register or tone, while mode is more a choice of presentation, a rhetorical choice.  Cranky--well, let's say that reflects my on-going frustration over our collective decision to ignore long futures.  Instead, we choose the fast-path in relation to most of the world around us, and that's not often (ever?) the healthy or fair or just decision.  Us = several billion Nascar vehicles racing over the cliff...

But ok, I said not cranky here...

In late spring, we saw whole embankments of this frilly pink flower, for which I have no certain name.  I've never noticed any scent, and it's easy to glance and not see these, the pink merging with the green to give almost a gray tint to the low hills, when you cruise by at 65 mph.  And these grow so thick, you'd think nothing else would be able to push up through their tangle.
    

But these do give way.  Here's some of what we saw driving back and forth in mid-July of this year. Huge swaths of Queen Anne's Lace...

These seem to grow everywhere, at least where we've disturbed the trees enough to give them light.  Some mixed reviews over how they fit in:

This beneficial weed can be used as a companion plant to crops. Like most members of the umbellifer family, it attracts wasps to its small flowers in its native land; however, where it has been introduced, it attracts only very few of such wasps. This species is also documented to boost tomato plant production when kept nearby, and it can provide a microclimate of cooler, moister air for lettuce, when intercropped with it.

However, the USDA has listed it as a noxious weed, and it is considered a serious pest in pastures. It persists in the soil seed bank for two to five years.

Huh...I still enjoy how they decorate so many of our marginal spaces. Even the way the flowering heads turn at slightly different angles, as if each is engaged in a conversation with different opinions. (See, much more of this, and you'll be ready for me to go back to cranky.)

The Queen Anne's Lace grows along with acres of these little yellow flowers, which alas, remain nameless in my sheltered world. "Little yellow flowers along the road"--maybe if I could just translate that into Latin or Greek...

 

What I really notice about these is how they spill over the edges of the road, even those more-in-town curbs.  Not that you shouldn't keep your eyes on the road, but glance over there--it's like miles and miles of window boxes, on balconies in Paris.

And then the chicory comes in.  It's been sprouting through the spring, but by mid July, it's there in force.

 

I've noticed the chicory for years, but haven't done anything with it. I still like my Lakota coffee, in all its exotic splendor--Moka Java and Indian Moonsooned Malabar and Tanzanian Peaberry, on and on...so haven't wanted roasted chicory roots in my brew.  But the web tells me I could be doing quite a bit more with it: "Brought to the colonies and then naturalized throughout the country, chicory is an herb that offers a bright spot in the garden, a delicious root for roasting and making a warming beverage, a delicious green for our salads and fodder for livestock." ["What is Chicory Used For?"]

Of course, we always have to touch in with Wikipedia, which adds that, "Common chicory is also known as blue daisy, blue dandelion, blue sailors, blue weed, bunk,coffeeweed, cornflower, hendibeh, horseweed,ragged sailors, succory, wild bachelor's buttons, and wild endive," and goes on to give a table of all the nutritional value of the leaves. I'll have to try that.  Always need more bitter greens.

Later, bob