As much a part of July as Independence Day
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- July 11, 2023
- 531
July is easily my favorite month. Warm mornings, hot days and just-cool-enough nights offer the perfect environment for some of my favorite activities. The warm mornings mean I don’t have to wear an extra layer on my bicycle ride to work. The hot afternoons grant that, despite a sometimes sweltering ride home, I will be richly rewarded with a cool douse of the garden hose followed by a relaxing float in my little kiddy pool upon arrival. After a day in the heat, anything south of 75 F seems perfect, and a well-placed window fan can deliver that on a dime after the sun sets.
Nothing beats a good night’s sleep with the window open. There’s no need for an alarm at this time of year. The robin outside my window begins singing at 4 a.m., and by 5 a.m. its song is no longer the spice of dreams, but an all-out rendition of “Reveille.”
Up and on the bike, I travel through a sensory bouquet, both olfactory and visual. The sweet smell of new mown hay alternates with honeysuckle and all the other blooms of the season to play perfectly against a backdrop of vivid green cornfields striped on the contour with bands of golden wheat.
As beautiful a sight as crops in full grow are field edge and roadside ditch ablaze with my favorite flower, the daylily. It’s a fare wager I’ve spent more time marveling over the bright orange blooms than all the other summertime flowers combined. The daylily seems to capture and hold the long, warm rays of the season. And whether against a bright, blue sky or the pale haze of the far horizon, the blossom shines back that magic to all who take time to see.
Had one moved about our little slice of the world on a July morning back before our country was born, they’d have seen plenty of flora and fauna — and trees all the way up to the sky — but nary a daylily would have crowded their path. The flowers, as ubiquitous as they now seem, were never a presence in North America until immigrants carried the roots over as precious memories of their European homeland. Oddly enough, this was not the flower’s first or even longest journey as the blooms, depicted in Asian artwork as early as the 11th century, had traveled the Silk Road from the Far East generations before.
Much time is spent decrying the appearance of non-native species of plants and animals, and rightfully so. Oftentimes, the new arrival seems bent on destroying the delicate ecological balance of its new home by overwhelming native habitats and interrupting the food web. Other times the introduction is considerably less pernicious.
In a very few circumstances, it can actually add something to the mix that neither destroys nor disrupts nature’s plan. In the rarest of all instances, the new arrival can bring a beauty that seems so appropriate and well-suited to our landscape that you can’t imagine a summertime without it. That’s what the daylily is to me.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.