I like to think I know my flowers. I almost majored in Horticulture. I enjoy going to arboretums, or even just gardening centers, testing myself to see how many of the plants I can name off the top of my head, then go check to see if I was right. I have my favorites, of course. The tricolored pansy, fountain lobelias, a multitude of foliage such as “dusty miller”, which quite honestly I really only like because of how fun I find its name. I know gardens, I love them and aspired for the longest time to have some sort of work of mine exhibited in the Philadelphia flower show. Part of me still does. 

But as much as I love hiking and taking in the uncoordinated beauty of the wild, I can barely identify anything out there. 

I took an Ecology class my senior year of High School where we went to multiple outdoor labs. One was all about identifying trees. The differences in the trees bark, the ridges versus the latis-like  “ski-slopes”, my professor explained them as. For the life of me I can’t remember how to identify all of them for the life of me, but I remember one. The ginkgo tree. The triangular, fan-like shape of its leaves fascinates me, but what amazes me more is that, is that this tree, not a relative species, but this tree, has been around for 270 million years. Fossils of its distinct leaves have been found multiple times. I think that’s why I love plants so much. They have been here and developing for far longer than we have. Think, this species of tree has been around 270 million years, and yet homosapiens just started to evolve 7 million years ago. And don’t even get me started on moss I love that shit. 

It is now with not so heavy a heart that I tell you that I did, in fact, know the plant I show you before now, but I feel that I have a rather fair explanation. I was on a hike right before school ended when I saw this flower that I had never seen before, not the color, the shape, anything to tell me which family it came from. It was orange, spotted, with a large bell. It reminded me of an orchid, tropical. I tried to search it up myself, but with no luck on my side. Finally I asked my Ecology teacher. She herself was puzzled by it, despite herself being well versed in the local flora and fauna. Together we learned that it was wild impatiens ecornuta, locally known as a spurless “touch-me-not”. It’s beautiful. 

I like to think I know my plants, but I really don’t, and quite frankly that sends a thrill of excitement through me. How long did this plant exist before me til I laid eyes upon it, how many plants are out there that I have never seen before? To know that there will always be something far older than I am, waiting for me to discover it for myself, gives me comfort, gives me joy.