Wildflowers

REHOVOT, Israel -- To the many mysteries of love, add avocados. Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out how avocado trees have sex. A tree can sprout as many as a million blossoms in spring, but only 150 to 500 will bear fruit. Some avocado flowers bloom as females in the morning, then appear the next afternoon as males. Other avocado species do the opposite. Honeybees are not impressed. Bees that break-dance with excitement in the hive after discovering a rich source of citrus blossoms do a slow shuffle when bringing news of avocado.

Interested in the wildflowers along the Baltimore and Annapolis Trail Park?A 50-page booklet containing drawings and descriptions of 44 wildflowers is available at the B&A ranger station in Severna Park. The booklet also contains a glossary and several blank pages for field notes.Joe Macola of Apple Press in Glen Burnie donated the printing costs and supplied the first 1,000 copies.The booklet costs $4 plus tax. Office hours are 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Fall is a season often taken for granted. In the cycle of seasons, autumn is typecast as a period of dying and a depressing prelude to winter. In Howard County, the beautiful colors, the smells, the comfortable, clear days, belie the stereotype. Every sense tells us that the fall is definitely not an unfortunate demise to better times.Allen Lacy, garden columnist for the New York Times, speculates in his new book, "The Garden in Autumn," that fall got its bad reputation in Europe, especially England, where, because of its latitude, fall is wet, dank and cold.

Spring is a little showier around here these days, thanks to the efforts of plant specialists at the University of Maryland, College Park.  The staff at UM's Arboretum and Botanical Garden have tracked down and rescued or preserved dozens of patches of an increasingly rare wildflower known as the sundial lupine. The meadow-loving plant with tall clusters of purple flowers has been under siege from mowing, herbicides, invasive plants, deer grazing and development. As with much in nature, the wildflower's decline has affected frosted elfin butterflies, which prefer lupines for food and habitat.

Soldiers Delight, where the deer roam and the buffalo used to roam, will have a little bit of the past in its future.The Department of Natural Resources, in association with other state agencies, is developing a master plan to preserve rare wildflowers and prairie grasses that are being crowded out by competing plants.The 2,000-acre natural-environment area in northwestern Baltimore County was once part of a game-filled grassland that covered thousands of acres in northern Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Halfway through the day, the itch becomes unbearable. Calvin P. Buikema can't stand it any longer and pulls up his shirtsleeve to scratch the prickly rash above his wrist.The relief is so great that soon he's scratching his other arm, also covered with poison ivy blisters from clearing an overgrown park trail with his bare hands.It's not at all unusual for Baltimore's superintendent of parks to do the dirty work himself. He's paid $65,000 a year, yet he routinely arrives at the office disheveled, his khaki pants stained from trimming weeds or inspecting a debris-filled, inner-city park.

What kind of director is actress Diane Keaton?Very good, to judge by her directorial film debut in a grim but ultimately uplifting movie called "Wildflower," premiering on the Lifetime cable network at 9 tonight.Having previously directed a CBS afternoon special, a couple of TV series episodes and a documentary titled "Heaven," Ms. Keaton is a little arty behind the ears, indulging in such showboating as slow motion and weird camera angles. But she displays an obviously effective way with actors, especially the young ones upon whose shoulders the film rests.

CARNEY -- Defying the lingering winter weather wasn't easy, but a group of determined wildflower watchers spent yesterday afternoon hunting for specks of color among the grays and browns in Krause Memorial Park.They were so hungry for signs of spring, they even ate a few of their finds -- chives, violets, white mustard and winter cress.But the cold days have slowed most of the flowers and trees from showing their true colors."We had more winter in March than we had in the winter," said Mary Scott of Ruxton, one of the seven people who showed up for the wildflower hike.

Now that wildflower meadows are the up-and-coming thing in lawns of all sizes, it behooves us to take a look at how they are best acquired.Contrary to the blithe representations of the "Meadow-in-a-Can" sold at many suburban garden and home-improvement centers, there is more to establishing a successful wildflower planting than simply walking out and scattering some seeds about the yard or on bare spots. While there is something splendidly beguiling about such a lighthearted approach, it is notdestined to get you many flowers, meadow or otherwise.

NORFOLK, Va. -- Holly Cruser's heart flutters when she spies a butterfly, especially if it's feasting on the sweet nectar of a blossom."A swallowtail can work one buddleia panicle a day," says Cruser, referring to the flower clusters of the plant commonly called the butterfly bush.Talking with visitors about the recent opening of the new 2-acre Bristow Butterfly Garden at Norfolk Botanical Garden, Cruser leaves the group to walk over to where she can get a better look at a butterfly she can't readily identify.