BY LESLIE REGO
A bit ago I was hiking with my husband, Alfredo, when we came across the wildflower, Tweedyi’s snowlover (Chionophila tweedyi), also known by one of those magically evocative names, Tweedyi’s toothbrush. The flowers are light pink/lavender and begin to bloom halfway up a long stem which grows from a rosette of small oval leaves. The blossoms are evenly spaced, one above the other, along only one side of this very straight stem. The blooms give the appearance of bristles on a toothbrush. I pointed this out to my husband. He took one look at the flower and said, “Huh, one would have to have a very big mouth and very widely spaced teeth for this to work.” He continued to ponder while we hiked until finally he asked, “Why does Tweedyi’s toothbrush have such a large size, while the blossoms on elephant’s head are so small?” That got me thinking about the names of flowers and their relative sizes.
The wildflower elephant’s head has many very small blooms inhabiting one stem. Each bloom is about the size of a small fingertip. The individual flower does look exactly like an elephant’s head, but certainly is much much smaller than the actual head of an elephant. Tweedyi’s toothbrush in comparison is HUGE. The “toothbrush head” is about 4 inches long and the spaces between each bristle are about an inch. That would be a very peculiar looking mouth to make that configuration work!
Last week I wrote about Western monkshood, which is another flower with a very evocative name. The bloom looks like a monk with a hood, but it is tiny in comparison to the robe a monk would wear. Next to mind is monkey’s head, which is minuscule juxtaposed to the head of a real monkey. The spots on leopard’s lily are a lot smaller than the markings on a life-sized leopard.
Then I thought about mule’s ear. Curiously, the leaves on this plant are very similar in size to an actual mule’s ear. Another local gem, vaseflower, certainly looks like a vase, but only a very small flower would fit inside.
This summer, I have written about all of these oddly-sized wildflowers. The names are expressive and poignant and bring forth strong visuals by which to remember both the shape and the name of the flower. It is fun to imagine brushing your teeth with such a huge toothbrush. It is also fun to imagine a monk trying to fit under the tiny hood of the Western monkshood. Imagine a leopard with such tiny spots. The spots would be practically invisible. Names of flowers can bring about incongruous comparisons, which make for lively conversation while hiking.
Leslie Rego is an Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist, artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit www.leslierego.com.