Naming

We rode Green Mountain Road through the Penticton Indian reserve yesterday. The road winds and climbs gradually and the vegetation changes every few kilometres, through the dry hills dotted with sagebrush, past open, swampy meadows, along a creek, running fast with all the rain we've had and then into forest. Wildflowers everywhere and I thought of Maggie and her obsession with naming the flowers she sees. Not surprising, I guess, that it's an obsession I understand.

I saw flowers yesterday whose names I didn't know. This yellow one is a Columbia lily (I found out). The red one, below, is a Scarlet Gilia, which I've never seen (that I can remember.) I thought at first it was a columbine. I also saw blue flax, brown-eyed susans, yarrow, lupines, wild roses, thimbleberry, corn flowers, mountain avens and forget-me-nots. Knowing the names tells me that I know this place. It's like knowing the street names of a city, or knowing which restaurants you can still get breakfast at on a Sunday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Early July, I can look for the Columbia lily on this side of Green Mountain Road.