Flora in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal

Dorothy only mentions a few flora for the month of January. Perhaps it was too cold to spend much time outside. On 3 January 1802, on a trip to visit Mary, she describes the trees and hedges that surround the fields and the beauty of the hoar frost that covered the grass, trees, and hedges. She also mentions cutting the shrubs on 27 January 1802. She does make a couple of observations about a strawberry blossom and a fallen larch tree.

Larch [Larix decidua]— On 26 January 1802 Dorothy visited John’s Grove where “where the storm of Thursday has made sad ravages, two of the finest trees are uprooted one lying with the turf about its root as if the whole together had been pared by a knife. The other is a larch. Several others are blown aside, one is snapped in two.

Strawberry blossoms [Fragaria vesca]— On 31 January 1802 Dorothy recounts a tender story about a strawberry blossom: “I found a strawberry blossom in a rock. The little slender flower had more courage than the green leaves, for they were but half expanded and half grown, but the blossom was spread full out. I uprooted it rashly, and I felt as if I had been committing an out- rage, so I planted it again. It will have but a stormy life of it, but let it live if it can.”

Posted on Δεκέμβριος 30, 2017 0507 ΜΜ by melindacreech