Danielle Dreams in Wildflowers

This is my first spring awake to the wildflowers. The first flowers I discovered this spring were little white blooms that sprung up near the fence in our backyard. It was exciting. I inspected the petals and leaves and could tell the flowers were some type of violet.

I take pictures using my iPhone camera and my Canon PowerShot SX540 HS with 50x optical zoom. I don’t think of myself as a photographer–I just like to take pictures. It feels like searching for seashells on the beach and collecting incredible treasures. I inspect the photos and compare them to some of my favorite wildflower identification resources. I love the Minnesota Wildflowers website. I often use their links on identifying wildflowers by color.

Western Canada White Violet, Viola rugulosa, Polk County, MN. Photo by Danielle, May 2025.

I learn the violets are Western Canada White Violets. I count maybe 30 blossoms and bunches of the heart-shaped leaves along the fence in our backyard. I learn the violets are native perennials that grow in shade/part shade. Knowing their name is like finally meeting an irresistible stranger.

I’ve always loved the colors and shapes of flowers. But until I learned their names, I admired them and simply moved on. Maybe I’d take a picture or two of the “pink flowers.” But now I like to learn what the flowers mean and might symbolize. I discover the violet family, Violaceae. Ernst and Johanna Lehner’s book, Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants, and Trees, identifies violets as the flowers of March in the Western tradition. They go on to discuss how, in Greek mythology, violets came to symbolize the tears of Io, transformed by Zeus into fragile, lovely flowers (82).

I’ve since seen a few more violets. I spotted only a few of these yellow violets, possibly the Smooth Yellow Violets Viola eriocarpa, in a wooded area near a creek in Polk County, MN. I learn they could also be Downy Yellow Violets, Viola pubescens. I pay attention to the range of the different types of flowers. Both types of these yellow violets are found in Polk County.

Smooth Yellow or Downy Yellow Violet, Viola eriocarpa or Viola pubescens, Polk County, MN. Photo by Danielle, May 2025.

I find some in shades of blue. I see a nodding blossom, alone, with a curled lower petal. The color is striking. It looks like a Common Blue Violet, Viola sororia, or a Western Blue Violet, Malpighiales. The way it surprised me, alone in the forest, makes me think of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” I recall the mention of the “violet hour,” and the images of lilacs rising in April, up from the dead. Discovering that poem in college felt a lot like seeing this little blue violet.

Common Blue Violet or Western Blue Violet, Viola sororia or Malpighiales, Polk County, MN. Photo by Danielle, May 2025.

I describe myself as a reluctant outdoorsperson. My lifelong fear of snakes makes finding new flowers a risky act for me, personally. Reptiles too wake up in the spring. Sometimes I try not to look at the ground. Chasing a fiddlehead fern or walking a manicured trail through the forest in search of a pond lily–these are dangerous acts for someone with a serious snake phobia.

Spring fiddlehead ferns, Clearwater County, MN. Photo by Danielle, May 2025.

But then I’ll dream of an unseen gem: a flower I haven’t yet seen in person. Trout Lilies or Prairie Smoke. Or I’ll find myself weaving my fingertips through a patch of backyard clover, lost in looking for charms.