Producers/Hosts: Hazel Stark and Joe Horn
Fireweed
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at mainelyphenology.wordpress.com
June gave us the crescendo into summer, with turtles on the move to lay eggs, rhodora shrubs becoming covered in pink blossoms, gray tree frogs trilling away in the forest, and the fields of endless color painted with bright yellow buttercups, white daisies, red clovers, purple vetch, and the entire spectrum of pink to purple found in large patches of lupines. These tall spikes of color were decidedly en route to becoming spikes of fuzzy seed-bearing legumes right around the summer solstice, giving us all a brief start, wondering if summer was already on its way out. But fortunately, another flower that offers us swaths of exuberant color is already taking the place of lupines, telling us that we are merely at the beginning of the middle of summer in Maine: fireweed.
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