Long Walks On Leafy Streets

4/25/2016 Kansas Ave NE, Washington, DC.
Yesterday I finally learned the name of the weed with purple flowers that has become common in the yards around here every spring. Red dead nettle, aka purple dead nettle aka purple archangel aka Lamium purpureum. The little purple flowers start sprouting in early spring and soon they take over the yard like an invading army. They look a little bit like soldiers standing and marching in attention, too. The source of this information was John Parrish, who led a walk along the Potomac River near the Carderock recreation area as part of our celebration of the nature lovers’ meetup’s ninth anniversary.

John is the partner of another good friend of mine, RG Steinman. I met RG when I was part of a group of drummers called Rhythm workers Union long time ago. We used to practice drumming and then provide musical accompaniment to protests, marches and other events in support of social justice and peace. We ran into each other recently at Woodlands.
Woodlands is an Indian vegetarian restaurant in Langley park that is a favorite of our family. Then I ran into John again when he gave a talk during a walk in Rock Creek Park last month. I wrote about that event in an earlier post.

John used to be the Vice President of the Maryland Native Plant Society. During the climate change walk in Rock Creek Park he casually said “I know all the plants in this area.” Indeed he has written a book about it. During the walk I learned first hand that he did really know all the plants. I was impressed by his intimate knowledge of them. It takes a certain love and dedication to learn anything so thoroughly. He told us so many interesting things about the plants during the walk. We saw some plants that I recognized from previous walks and some I didn’t. I know the May apple, the Paw-Paw (both native), the violets, the Jack-in-the-pulpit and the invasive garlic mustard. I made the acquaintance of the star chickweed, wine berries, partridge berries, the greenbrier and many others. The highlight of the walk was seeing wild red azaleas in full bloom. I have seen them once while hiking on the Appalachian Trail near Bear’s Den hostel and they are a sight to behold.

Apart from showing us how to identify the plants, John told us about the different medicinal and nutritional properties of the plants, sometimes by munching on some of them. He told us how different soil and weather conditions affect plants. I learned for the first time that some plants have different parts that take on different tasks. It is the star chickweed, if I remember correctly, that we saw with a fertile part that was in full bloom and an infertile part with bigger leaves that only produces food for the plant. You can see pictures at the meetup’s web-page.

Last week I had been to a screening of “The Battle for Turkey Creek” at Howard. It was a very inspiring movie about a brave and determined young Boston schoolteacher who returns to his ancestral home in Gulfport, Mississippi to try and save the homes and habitats along Turkey Creek in that town. In that movie he learns that certain trees will only grow in wetlands and their presence can be used to identify wetlands for conservation purposes. John showed us a wetland, albeit dry due to the lack of rain this spring, near the end of the walk and discussed the trees such as the pin oak that grow only in such areas. Such trees are called “facultative” in this field.

My good friend Manuel and I shared a Zipcar to Carderock because Nicole couldn’t come and I left our Nissan Leaf for her and Prashant. We had a nice picnic on the grass after the walk. Lori and Scott my fellow organizers were there, along with Erin. Scott and Erin just recently got married in the beautiful Woodlawn manor. It was wonderful to walk in the woods along the river, with good friends who cared about nature and our environment. These are people who truly care, not because they want to push some political agenda. I have been enjoying many such tranquil moments in the past few weeks, delighting in the waters of a lake or the sight of yellow buttercups and dandelions in a field of green grass.

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