May 16

May is the month of the flower moon, which is appropriate given the seeming explosion of spring blooms that we’ve had these past two weeks. It is as though we discover a new flower has opened each day, timed just so to receive the increasingly filtered light and to take advantage of differing pollinators that are emerging.

I have been waiting patiently for my favorite to show itself, and today I noticed the unmistakable purple blossoms peeking furtively from within a patch of newly growing grass and poison ivy along South Road as it dips downward toward the lakes of Reservoir Road.

The Lunaria annua has returned.

Lunaria, or “Annual Moon” is also known familiarly as the Money Plant, and we used to see it in abundance alongside the roadways of our Kalamazoo farm, as thick as loosestrife to the point that the edges of the road appeared as a purple haze when seen from a distance in spring. There isn’t as much Lunaria here in Paxton, though apart from this patch along South Road, it grows abundantly down the Mill Road past Moore State Park, near the old red barn that is used as an antique store.

The Lunaria is a curious plant, and as beautiful as its splash of vibrant purple blossoms are in the spring, it shows a secondary wonder in the fall, when its seed pods ripen. These are shaped as thing green disks, roughly the size of a half dollar, each containing three to five seeds tucked within two outer layers. A plant may have dozens of these pods dangling from various stalks, and in the breeze they wave to and fro like the swaying pattern of the aspen leaves in the wind.

As autumn approaches and the plant dries, the pods lose their color, becoming a translucent yellow that looks like bits of silver dollars attached to the sere plant stalk.

Lunaria is a biannual plant; from seed, it will produce a squat green rosette in the first year, absent of flowers, yet able to overwinter in the strength of the root. In the subsequent spring it grows to the familiar taller plant, resplendent with dozens of purple blossoms. In the autumn, I’ve collected the dried seed pods and removed the outer coatings and seeds, leaving only the thin translucent inner membrane surrounded by an oval shell. They are beautiful as decorations of an annual moon we keep inside.

Notes:

Robin’s Plantain in bloom