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One thing I enjoy this time of year is just watching what tends to be growing along the side of the highway. Well, it’s a good idea to keep a watch as you drive along. You never know what you might see popping out along the edges of the highway. Some of those things might leave a mark if you hit them, so it’s best to try to keep track of them.
But watching the edges of the highway means you also might notice what’s growing there. Or at least I do. First, the white clover. Then all the service berry blooms. Then the pink clover starts to appear. Now there are daisies. And some little yellow things that I’ve also noticed. Might even be some buttercups in there. And of course, the lupines.
I started looking up some of these. The strange thing is, most of them are really invasive species. The lupines are about the only thing that came from here.
Clover did grow in North America, but apparently most of the more common varieties are imports. The dandelion was an import. The buttercup was an import. Even the daisy.
The oxeye daisy, which is the most common wild one, was brought from Europe many years ago. I have this picture in my head of a person standing on a ship, holding a flower and using it to figure out if that cute woman he met down in the cargo hold might be interested in him, as he slowly plucks the flower petals. Once he discovers that. according to the flower, she does indeed love him, he squeezes out the seeds to find out how many children they will have and Bam! We got daisies everywhere.
It probably didn’t happen exactly like that, but it could have. Okay, probably not. But it goes that way in my head. Although the loves me/ loves me not thing comes from a French game that apparently had a few other options. Like he loves me a little/ a lot/ passionately/ to madness or not at all. That one could get hard to keep track of.
But since the daisy, although other flowers could be used, seems to have an irregular number of petals, you can’t tell right off the top what the outcome might be. There could be anywhere from fifteen to forty petals. And each one could be different. As for the number of children, not sure that works.
All I know is I pulled a lot of flower petals as a kid. And squeezed out a lot of those little yellow things from the center.
I don’t think any of it came true.
