Purple things! And... I dunno. Maybe something else.

 Get the feeling that I'm not feeling terribly blathery? Well, I've said it before but whenever I take a break, intentionally or not, from blogging I either find myself absolutely brimming with things to say or absolutely empty. Today seems like the latter, but I'll keep typing and see what happens.

First, I suppose I should be identifying the purple things, right? This first one is Viola tricolor, better known as Johnny Jump-ups. It's a naturalised import from... oh, probably England. I'll look it up later, maybe. Naturalised is a fancy biology way to say escaped (from gardens, often) invader. Some invaders are nasty and can disrupt ecosystems (like Purple Loosestrife or... oh, heck here's a link to Alberta's noxious weed guide. That's easier) , but these little violets don't hurt anything. I have kind of a soft spot for violets anyway. Pretty, hardy, and you can eat them too. Yep, pretty much any member of the violet family is edible.

 This one is Moss Phlox (Phlox subulata, but don't even ask me which variety after all these years). This is a cultivated plant, but I know that at least  one species of Moss Phlox grows wild here in Alberta. Erm, not here here, exactly, but in sage-ier areas of the province. Oh, I see here that one's probably Phlox hoodii. And why should you care? You likely don't I expect, but I remember hiking up a place called Thumb Hill years ago with a group of interpreters at a conference. Thumb Hill is known for its First Nations tipi rings and long history of sacred use, but as we went up someone noticed that the Moss Phlox was in bloom. Someone else misheard that as Moss Floss, and we had a pretty good laugh about "what kind of a name is Moss Floss for a plant?" until we reached the site and the utter history and majesty of the place caught up with us. As we came down the sun was starting to set and the coyotes were howling at each other. It was so much like a movie set and soundtrack that it was hard to believe that it was real.

Here's pretty much the last Pasque Flower or Prairie Crocus (Pulsilatilla patens, depending on which book you consult) of the season. I've said before how much I like these things. The purple is so gorgeous. I find them really hard to draw, though, because they're pubescent (botanist for fuzzy). You don't want to make them look smooth, but you don't want them to look like they have thorns either.

That's a petunia. Scientific name? No freaking clue. Let me look. Ha. Figures. It's Petunia sp. This particular flower is from a Wave Petunia plant, so the thing (the plant, I mean. Not the flower) will go on to fill up the planter.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of petunias. They don't smell right. Still, they're colourful. I'll admit that. And when you buy a variety like this one, it's a lot of colour with not much effort.

And finally, one of my favourite wild purples, Purple Clematis (Clematis occidentalis. You'll probably find it listed as Blue Clematis because botanists have historically declared purple to be blue, but don't let that fool you. It's purple). This particular one is a volunteer in my dad's yard; that is, no one actually planted it. They're robust plants, though. There's another one in the yard that's growing up through a crack between the planter that the begonias are in and the driveway. It's been hacked down a couple of times for various reasons, and it still comes back.

I'm not sure what it was about this year, but the wild clematises were absolutely loaded with flowers. I did have a photo of this entire plant, but I didn't like it so this is all that you get. Just imagine this times about fifty on a plant that's only about a metre high (climbing, that is. If it doesn't have anything to climb it creeps instead), and you can see how beautiful it was.

And there you have it. And there were actual words besides. Maybe I should just blather about plants all of the time? Nah, that sounds too much like my job. And besides, the only reason you got all of these plants at once is that I want to clear my nerdstick of some old pictures (not that these are old. It was just last month) so that I have room for more recent pointlessness.

And maybe some spiders. There's been a distinct lack of spiders on the blog lately. Right now, though, there's a distinct lack of lunch. Later, folks.