I snuck in a late spring hike in Cheat River Canyon yesterday, before the dreaded heat dome builds in early next week. Between Brazil's Pantanal going up in flames and the massive heat spikes in North America and elsewhere, I wonder what will be left of this planet's beautiful wild places in twenty to thirty years. For now, I celebrate and cherish every day the glorious diversity of living things that nature has gifted us. This includes the magnificent poke milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), a shade tolerant member of the dogbane family, which feeds and hosts a great many of those living things, such as the extraordinary Himmelman's plume moth (Geina tenuidactylus). Or the comical-looking rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens), which clings to the rocky outcrops of the canyon. And the exquisite downy skullcap (Scutellaria incana), a gregarious summer mint that associates with wild bergamot and tall thimbleweed at forest edges. And how about the peculiar dangling flowers of Indian cucumber (Medeola virginiana) or the pale, ghostly stems and bracts of the parasitic Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), just now emerging from the forest floor? In a couple of weeks, the rhododendron bloom will start in the canyon and summer will be in full swing.
