an amazing thing

Each year, about now, I start craving the green world of plants.  Trudging along on the daily walk, encumbered by snow boots and coveralls, the heatless light of short days waning early, I contemplate living things at rest beneath the snow.  Barn chores are early and end the day.  It is a time of long darkness and of rest.

Consider the development of the Lesser ladies slipper (a.k.a. Cypripedium parviflorum), I do.  One seed pod may hold a whopping 16,700 seeds, some of which may disperse up to 900 miles.  With seeds remaining viable for up to 8 years, you might wonder that they haven’t replaced dandelions as the pan-global weed.  This amazing plant has a different strategy, much of it formulated underground, hidden from view.

The catch, the reason this beauty is not a weed, is an intricate relationship that the light, nutrition-less seed must form with not-always-present threads of mycorrhizal fungus in the ground before it develops into a flowering plant.  Utterly dependant on the fungi during its early life, the naked speck of a seed may spend from one to four years underground, working through several stages of development before a plant capable of photosynthesis sprouts.  And then, it will be many more years before it blooms.  The subterranean, clandestine, mycorrhizal relationship is essential to seed development, seedling establishment, and very possibly even adult winter dormancy.                                                                                       
                                                                                                                       ~ Mary

Cypripedium parviflorum

From my Native Orchids of North America series – this is an original relief print ~ 6” x 11” ~ printed from multiple hand-cut linoleum blocks, and signed as a numbered edition of 100.  Made using archival ink on Okawara MM neutral pH paper and printed on a Whelan Pro Press at Green Ink Gallery & Studios in the Black Hills near Nemo, South Dakota.

Artist & amateur botanist, Mary Wipf lives & works in the Black Hills of South Dakota creating drawings, collages, fine marbled papers & silks, and original prints.

All materials and pigments used meet the highest archival standards.

Green Ink Gallery & Studios • by appointment

605 342-2552 • www.greeninkgalleryandstudios.com

Mary Wipf & Mark Zimmerman – artists:

paintings, drawings, original prints, and fine marbled silks & papers

View more posts from the orchid series...

Corallorhiza maculata:  http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2010/12/thing-of-beauty.html

Cypripedium parviflorum: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2011/12/amazing-thing.html

Calypso bulbosa: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2014/12/it-takes-forest.html

Listera convallarioides: http://greeninkseen.blogspot.com/2012/06/small-thing.html

enlichenment 101 ~ Hoary cobblestone lichen

We first trekked up the big rock in 1996.  I’d looked at it from far below for nearly eight years.  Until Mark arrived, nearly all of my outings were on horseback and the sheer white limestone cliffs did not beckon.  I always rode out the opposite direction.  Heading out on foot opened a whole new world – it was the advent of my now obsessive explorations into to the tiny world of non-vascular plants.  About once a year we venture to the top of the height that serves as a constant sentinel of our valley.  From high on Easter Rock, I can see a tiny speck of meadow we call home awash in a veritable sea of forest.  Deep snow has been the flavor of the day on some of these hikes.  On other occasions, balmy and breezeless sunshine required lolling around and napping once we reach the top.

It is while lying atop the limestone that I begin contemplating the entire little ecosystem functioning there.  Balance is tricky up on the rock – not just anything will grow on this relatively erosive substrate.  Much of the ancient limestone strata, which once capped the entire Black Hills, are gone, eons of wind and water blowing and rinsing the particles to who knows where.  The cliff-edge, where annually I while away part of a spring afternoon in contemplation, has been retreating steadily eastward.  High and exposed, the microclimate here isn’t always pleasant.  It can be harsh.  There are a few small flowering plants here and there, but soon it becomes quite clear that this is the domain of the lichens.  Time and space – in this case, very near space (the little ‘loup’ that I’ve a habit of carrying in my pocket is an essential tool) reveals the exquisite details of tiny ‘microlichens’ growing on the rock.  A specialized community of lichens makes its home on the exposed limestone surface.  One of the tiny hardscrabble miracles is Hoary cobblestone lichen.

~ Mary

Hoary cobblestone lichen ~ Acarospora strigata

Description: Pale grey areolate crustose lichen with apothecia sunken in the thallus.
Habitat: Calcareous rock. It can be quite successful in harsh and exposed habitats.
Comments: In the Black Hills, Hoary cobblestone lichen is considered rare. Found here and there world-wide, it is most common in the North American southwest.

summer paintings & poems

Autumn Moons – Rising

dome of far darkness

violet deep ascending

a blue night falls still

windswept lonely ridge

cast haze burning with last light

exhilaration

sedate somber cool

hanging Hunter’s Moon of blood

long autumn’s approach

grasses glow golden

one low moon orange on hushed lands

patiently silent

Medium: acrylic on board  ~  16 ¼” x 10 ¼”     private collection

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Red Section – Golden Hills

wide supple vastness

infinite undulating

immeasurable

eternal canvas

intricately textured planes

ambiguous skies

gilded great High Plains

loaded brush red touch of fire

slippery tip of flux

floods of color wash

trailing lines of perfection

cords interwoven

Medium: acrylic on board  ~  16 ¼” x 10 ¼”     $450.00

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Heart Butte – Night & Day

divide day and night

sounding hours glide freely

fraught moments fleeing

shifting silently

all sun dust mind heat linger

blazing rock dirt butte

one into the next

eternal frozen moments

now into later

long turning laid out

stretched spectacle of nowhere

sweeping across time

Medium: acrylic on board  ~  16 ¼” x 10 ¼”     $450.00

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Plains & Buttes – Shadows & Light

sunrise and sunset

orange impossible opening

coming and going

searing horizon

flat sections puddles and earth

long squares dark buttes bust

burning to shadow

fraying edge of blanket planes

aqua runs red deep

cobalt and rare Earth

streaked with hot heavenly fire

die and shadows cast

Medium: acrylic on board  ~  16 ¼” x 10 ¼”     $450.00

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Green Ink Gallery & Studios • by appointment

22435 Jim Creek Lane

• Deadwood, SD 57732

605 342-2552 • www.greeninkgalleryandstudios.com

Mary Wipf & Mark Zimmerman – artists:

paintings, collages, drawings, original prints,

fine marbled silks & papers.

All materials and pigments used meet the highest archival standards.