MAY

THE FIFTH MONTH • 2021 MAY HATH 31 DAYS

Oh! fragrant is the breath of May In tranquil garden closes. –William Hamilton Hayne

Farmer's Calendar

In the first days of May appears the red trillium (Trillium erectum). It's a vigorous plant a foot or more high, with three broad leaves atop its stalk. In their axis is the slightly drooping red-brown flower—a plain thing distinguished by its scent: that of dead mice. Yet its reek seems to win it friends. If a well-loved child has many names, then this trillium must be a favorite. Books on wild plants give it at least 16 common or local names. Two—stinking Benjamin and wet-dog trillium—come from the flower's outrageous smell. Others allude to the plant's supposed medicinal properties. It is thought to aid in childbirth, and Native Americans used it for snakebite—hence, birthroot, Indian balm, squawroot. Another name for this flower is wake-robin. Perhaps this flower's blooming coincides with, and thus signals, the spring arrival of the robin. But it doesn't around here. When our wake-robin comes out, the robins have been here for weeks. I think the robin who is fancifully being waked by T. erectum is not a bird but a boy, a man, in particular a simple country fellow, a ploughman, whose busy season on the land this flower's bloom announces.

Listen to the Farmer's Calendar at Almanac.com/Podcast.