Classroom Naturals for April The Mohican School Teacher Newsletter on-line

Wild about flowers?  There is a  renewal of interest in wildflowers -- a topic that once seemed destined for obscurity.  Firstladybird Johnson's work to designate  sections  of highway median strips as special wildflower areas made  wildflowers politically correct.  Medicine Man (the movie) stirred the public imagination. Certainly the rainforest buzzword "biodiversity" has sent us each into our own backyards  with a heightened sense of appreciation. And if you ask Emerson: "... beauty is its own excuse for being."

Getting Started
Let  rebus  puzzles  introduce your  students  to the fun of wildflowers. Present the puzzles to be solved without mentioning the topic of  wildflowers,  and  see  who can figure  out  what  the  individual puzzles  have   in  common.   The sketches  will give you some ideas; add your own puzzles, but be sure to leave a few choice flowers for the students to use in making their own puzzles for the rest of the class. Then assign each of the wildflowers to groups to research for class reports. Be sure to ask how the wildflower got  its name, how big the plant is, where it is found, and when.
 

Cal of the Wildflowers
There's something special about woodland wildflowers—so early, so delicate,  so capriciously  named! When we need a breath of fresh air away from the stuffy radiators of overfull classrooms, a walk in the woods with the beauty of the first spring blossoms rejuvenates us.

But  life  is not  idyllic for these flowers. The spring thaw will start them on a do-or-die course of development which must be completed before the trees leaf out, cutting off energy from the sunlight. Most have some kind of bulbous root with enough stored energy to support the plant through flowering.   Flowers open before leaves expand to full size; the energy harnessed by this year's leaves will  jumpstart next year's flowers.

Pollination and seed formation are the priorities this year. Those fragile  stems,  trembling  in  the breeze aid wind pollination.  Even pale petal hues attract  insects against a uniform  background  of sere browns and repetitious greens. The subtle flower fragrances are magnified by the sun-warmed moist earth. Flower shapes that seem whimsical  lure  insects  past  the pollen and over the pistils. Enjoy your walks the spring all the more, knowing that both you and the wildflowers will soon be having a well-deserved summer rest.

(Spring) beauty is ...
To make a positive paraphrase of  Forest Gump,  "Beauty  is  as Beauty does."  Of course everyone knows "Beauty is in  the eye of the beholder." And "(A thing of) Beauty is a  joy forever."  Have students use a concordance, Bartletts "Quotations" or other reference books to find a sentiment that expresses their own thoughts on beauty. From a wildflower book written 100 years ago: "I should be very sorry if I were not capable of enthusiasm over such beautiful things."

Show your enthusiasm for beauty by calling your metroparks, county park  district,  or  nearest  state park to  find out  when they have scheduled spring wildflower walks. Share  this  information by having your  class  design  posters  to be displayed around the community.

Pick a Flower!
Practice the skills of letter writing,   penmanship, word-processing, or telephone etiquette as you encourage your students to explore the legal and courteous aspects of wildflower   picking   in   parks, preserves,  school playgrounds, roadsides and their own backyards. Use  this  information  to  form  a class  policy  for your wildflower investigations.

Wildflowers or Weeds?
The school  lawn,  playground, or even cracks in the sidewalk and blacktop can provide a good source of wildflowers!  Weeds, you say?  A weed is simply a wildflower growing where  it  is  not  wanted.  So  any plant you want to use to begin your study is a wildflower.

Take the exotic dandelion: it is not just one flower but a whole bouquet. Its French name "dent de lion"  refers  to  the  lion-tooth edges of the leaves (which can be cooked  like  spinach  as  a  good source of vitamins A and C).  The hollow stem is great engineering. Rubbing  the  juice  between  your fingers makes rubber. Blow on the seedhead and count the remaining seeds to tell the time -- the British nickname for dandelion is "clocks".

Down and Dirty
Another remarkable attribute of the dandelion is its root. Did you ever use one of those long forked dandelion diggers to cut off the root way below ground level?-- and did the dandelion resprout all the same?   Some spring wildflower names describe a characteristic of the plant's root. There's dog-tooth violet, Solomon's Seal, Squirrel Corn, Goldthread, Pepper Root and even Bloodroot. Most wildflower books concentrate on picturing the flower and leaves, but some older books get down to their roots.

What in the World is a Wort?
Soon after you start to look at  wildflowers  you  will  notice worts. No,  not the bumps on witches' noses, but suffixes on plant names. Wort is an Old English word meaning "plant". So  you  have bellwort, motherwort, mugwort, and miterwort, just to name a few.

Plants that Heal -- or Not
For  many  centuries the only drugstore  was  the  vast  array of plants. Every culture sampled and doctored  with  plants  with  some successes and more failures. Many deadly  poisons  are  derived  from plants,  and even "good" medicines misdosed can be fatal.

The  wealth  of  folklore that documents   plant   usage   is  now studied  as  the  subject  area  of ethnobotany. There  was  a  common cross-cultural   theme   that   the plants themselves would "advertise" their  helpfulness.  Thus  a  plant with red mottled tri-lobed leaves was named liverwort (even the genus is named Hepatica) and was used to make medicines for liver problems. We still have boneset, lungwort, feverfew, and healall with names for remind us of their medical history.

Pieces and Parts
It  is not  necessary to know much  plant  anatomy to appreciate the beauty of the wildflowers, just as it is not necessary to know the names of the flowers to enjoy them. However,  if you want to learn to identify wildflowers, then you will want  to know a bit  about  flower structure. Flowers  have  much  in common despite such differences in appearance. The pistil is the part of the flower where the seed will be produced;  it is usually topped by a sticky stigma to catch pollen. The pollen is formed on the anther portion of the stamen. The rest of the flower is just for show: petals and  below  them the sepals -- often green, but sometimes colorful like the petals. There is page in the MOS student textbook which labels and identifies these flower parts. Not all flowers have all the parts, but with a little practice and a hand  lens,  you  can  figure  out what's what.

Here's the Key!
One of the learner outcomes of the science part of the proficiency test is an understanding of the use of a scientific key, a method used to separate and name groups of objects based on a few observable characteristics. A great  reference book  with  a  built-in  key  is Newcomb's Guide to Wildflowers. To identify flowers with this key, students  need  only to make observations of color, leaf shape and arrangement,  and number of  flower parts. Students at MOS are often amazed at how well this technique works

AKA
Many wildflowers have multiple names, each teaching something new. Dog  Tooth  Violet  (from  root)  is also called Fawn or Trout Lily (for leaves) and  Adder's  Tongue  (the form of the pistil).  Almost every student  who  attends  MOS  in  the spring has heard the "Mother Nature blew it" version of the naming of the Bluet. This flower is also known as Innocence and Quaker Ladies:

 

In their little blue gray bonnets Chatting brim to brim More than a dozen Quaker Ladies Straight and small and slim.

Stop and Smell the Skunk Cabbage
While the leaves of the Skunk Cabbage may smell like the name's sake,  the hooded blossoms have a pleasant melon-like fragrance. Many flowers have faint odors which may be magnified by wetting the end of your  nose.  Really!  Just  walking through the woods causes fragrances to be released from inadvertently crushed leaves and flowers. Inhale deeply and slowly, and enjoy!

Change is Good!
 

If you scan the wooded open  Where some western hill road crawls You will spy the green umbrellas Of the apple woman's stalls. In a colony they cluster. Peep beneath the spreading flaps...	If you see the little women Nodding in their snowy caps You will know that you are early. Not yet open is the stand.  Come back in 2 months time you'll find them With a stock of fruit on hand.

State and National Wildflowers
The rose, iris, chrysanthemum, edelweiss, and shamrock are readily associated with foreign countries. The US does not have a "national" wildflower, although an attempt was made to adopt mountain laurel which grows  wild  in  the Appalachians. More than thirty states do have a native flower for a state symbol, with goldenrod and violets the most popular choices.  Ohio has both a state flower and state wildflower. Do you know what they are?

Painted Trillium
As  a  wonderful  exercise  in observation, have students paint a wildflower from memory. Supply only poster-size paper,  large brushes, basic colors, and mixing pans.

Wild Riddles

• What  wildflower  should  be kept in a zoo?
• What wildflower can you find in a crayon box?
• What wildflower is found in a henhouse?
• What  wildflower describes a  fall activity of chipmunks?