Out With April Showers, In With The May Flowers The author urges everyone to preserve with a passion all habitats of Door County's official wildflower, the large yellow lady's-slipper orchid. Roses are red, violets are blue, and yellow and white and purple too! Yes indeed, May in northeastern Wisconsin is violet month. Of the approximately 50 species of violets in the U.S. at least 21 species grow in our state. The blue downy woods violet, our state wildflower, is among them. Door County is home to at least a dozen different kinds. The violet group is quite fascinating and pleasantly challenging to study and learn. Some are so common, such as the dog violet, as to grow freely, perhaps even within your own lawn. One of the favorites, an alien to this country as were my great grandparents, is the species Viola odorata (o-doe-RAY-ta), better known as the English dooryard violet. It’s an extremely early bloomer, tough as nails, spreads nicely, and is very fragrant, unlike nearly all other violets. Ours open about the same time as do the first hepaticas, around the middle of April. One of our favorite native violets is the long-spurred, Viola rostrata (ros-TRAY-ta), a species whose range in Wisconsin is limited to only those counties bordering Lake Michigan. Once seen you will easily remember this lilac-purple wildflower with the incredibly long nectar spur. Challenge yourself to discover an out-of-the-way sanctuary, a place to which you can escape to find that precious element so frequently missing in people’s lives today – solitude. Chances are you’ll find at least several species of violets there, too, growing in their quiet beauty along with other wildflowers such as Jack-in-the-pulpit, Dutchman’s breeches, squirrel corn, bellwort, trout lily, bloodroot, giant trillium, blue cohosh, spring beauty, wood anemone, rue anemone and barren strawberry. Giant triliums, lilies of the woods, will highlight the wildflower season on the Door Peninsula. Fortunately one of America’s most beautiful wildflowers, the large yellow lady’s-slipper orchid, was voted by the Door County Board of Supervisors to be Door County’s official wildflower. What never ceases to amaze those wildflower afficionados, who quite passionately study and enjoy the wildflowers in our richly endowed county from lake to bay throughout the blooming season, is the unusually long flowering season of these stately orchids. Last year brought unusually early warm May weather. Our large yellow lady’s-slipper plants were three inches out of the ground by the fourth of the month. Some were in good bloom by May 20. There have been years when these lady’s-slippers were still in very good bloom near the shores of Lake Michigan into the middle of July. Yes, for there to be a five-to-six-week blossoming period for a wild orchid, from the warmer upper woods near the bay to the lower colder woods along the big lake, is quite amazi ng. What a perfect choice this is for our official wildflower representative! Most agree that turtles add great beauty to the ponds. If people could be as peaceable and harmless in their own environment as painted turtles are in theirs, what a great world this would be. I’ll always remember a Mother’s Day hatching of some painted turtles. A friend had called the summer before telling of watching a female painted turtle lay eggs in his backyard along the edge of the woods near Kangaroo Lake, and what should he do. I told him to make a small cage of chicken wire, place it on top of the nest site and weight it down to keep out the digging predator foxes, raccoons and skunks. Perhaps he was somewhat in doubt when I told him that the eggs most likely would hatch sometime late next spring. The following Mother’s Day, at least ten months later, my friend called excitedly to tell of the hatching of the baby turtles. My plan had worked! After photographing those little beauties we watched them slowly but unerringly make their way toward the nearby lake. It is during the last ten days to two weeks of May that the blossoming serviceberries, choke cherries, pin cherries and black cherries grace the edges of woods and roadsides in Door County adding that final touch of delicate elegance to the gentle greening of the land. This year marked one of the earliest sightings, by two different families in Baileys Harbor, of ruby-throated hummingbirds, April 14, the day before Easter! Past state records tell of sightings in Brown County to the west by April 15. This unusually early arrival appears to fit in with the overall picture of bird migration this year throughout the state, considerably earlier than usual. A species that can be expected any day in the county is the rose-breasted grosbeak. Challenge yourself to identify the second-year males having brown wings and tails as opposed to the third-year and older males whose wings and tails are black upon their arrival here in spring. Prepare yourselves for some spectacular nature watching. Magical May has arrived! This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 05/04/2001. © Copyright 2001 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.