Ziigwan! Ziigwan is Ojibwe for “it’s spring,” and the beginning of the 13-month lunar calendar. The first month is the Maple Sugar Moon, a time when days are warm and nights are cold and the sap is running. The difference in daytime and nighttime temperatures creates the flow of sap and signals a return to new life after the hard winter. Soon, the frogs' chorus will signal the end of maple sugar season.
There are many other signs of early spring throughout the Arboretum.
At the beginning of Three-Mile Drive, I found a breath of summer air. On the right, near the Home Demonstration Garden, is a small greenhouse with beautiful, bright succulents providing a little vacation from the cool weather. There are parking spaces near Berens Cabin with a short walk back to the warm greenhouse.
A greenhouse in the Home Demonstration Garden provides a hint of summer weather ahead.
Catkins of the willow family are in flower, and pussy willows are a sign of early spring and regrowth. Several willow species in the Chinese Garden provide a succession of flowering catkins for early pollinators. Willows are dioecious, meaning they have separate male and female flowers and trees.
The fuzzy, early male catkins have a coat of hair for protection during dramatic dips in early spring temperatures. Male catkins produce the flowers and pollen, and females produce greenish pistils that create the seed after wind-pollination. Willows also reproduce by modified stems that take root and become a separate tree. The word “catkins” comes from the Dutch word for kitten.
Catkins form on willow trees in the spring and provide food for early pollinators.
Near the Prairie Garden is a large American basswood, planted in 1973. It is a native tree that flourishes in Minnesota woodlands. The tree and the bench are covered with lichen colonies, but free for visitors to sit and observe them and the Bennett-Johnson Prairie across the drive.
This member of the linden family will produce an abundance of sweet, honey-citrus-scented flowers in early summer, attracting bees that make delicious light-colored honey. You can buy the pricey honey online. Basswood flowers can be dried and used in herbal teas and perfumes. Learn more about cooking with baswood from the Forager Chef.
Minnesota’s Dakota and Ojibwe people traditionally used bast fibers from the inner bark of basswood to make cordage for nets, binding and lashings. Birchbark containers were joined together with cordage. The inner bark can be cut into strips, dried for storage and rehydrated when necessary.
An American basswood in the Prairie Garden (left) and a winter-worn basswood leaf (right).
Basswood leaf litter is very crumbly now, unlike the leathery leaves of an oak. The leaf shape is an uneven heart, with serrated edges, and a “drip-tip” to channel rainwater from leaf to roots. Watch for the blooms in June. To sit on the bench, park in the Prairie Garden lot, and walk the short distance to the basswood tree and bench.
A caribou lichen living the high life in the Oswald Visitor Center as part of an art piece from the exhibition “Stillpoint, Changing Line.”
On my way out of Rootstock in the Arboretum’s Oswald Visitor Center, I found a lichen in the hallway, in an artwork on display in the Cafe Callery. Nestled in the base of the art was a colony of reindeer moss, known as caribou lichen, an edible lichen that can be purchased at a botanical supply store. It was beautiful to see a lichen that grows on the ground featured in the art piece.
Early spring at the Arboretum has many surprises on display for those who look.
Zan Tomko is an artist, horticulturist, Minnesota Master Naturalist Instructor and a co-founder of the iNaturalist Minnesota Lichen Map Project. To learn more about the University of Minnesota Extension’s Master Naturalist program, visit their website.