In the Language of
Gods and Godesses, Kings and Commoners
While a delightful
symbol of late spring blushing into the glorious stretch of summer, an alpine
meadow tossed with wildflowers represents so much more than a bending, nodding
wave of blue and magenta, gold and crimson. Wildflowers are essential to the health
of our environment. They feed insects, birds, and even humans, hold the soil
together, and serve as a base for many modern medicines—in fact, flowering
plants provide almost 25 percent of the basic ingredients for our modern drugs.
Long before European settlement, Native American Indians were masters at using
plants medicinally and written records exist from the ancient Greeks who first
identified and categorized plants as early as 300 B.C. The following guide
includes nomenclature, myths and some little known facts for a small sampling
of the many wildflowers found beside the streams, along the hillsides, and
hidden among the rocky crevasses of our Idaho landscape.
(The writer is a Jammu based environmentalist and a regular contributor to this Website.)
(Feedback at: blparimoo@gmail.com)
By- Bushan Parimoo