Wildflower Exploration at Siruthavur

Recently, wildflowers have captured our interest. By definition itself they amaze us. How they appear in front of us in unexpected and inexplicable ways. And how they find their way there through the mysterious forces of nature. Picked up by wind and animals, their seed spores disperse at random and make their new destination a home by settling into the existing ecosystem of insects and other plants.

Entering our home at Siruthavur during the weekend before Pongal, we were immediately struck by a curious sight. A mound of upturned rubble-filled sand that lay in a discarded pile had turned into a burgeoning wildflower farm, dainty shoots reaching above our waist. Among the planned gardens of uniformly arranged plants that lie along the border of our farm house, this wildflower mound was a peculiar sight. Yet, its soft outlines, with snowflake-like blossoms bleeding gently into the background, brought an unexpected charm to the landscape.

We were struck by its ephemeral beauty. The lace buds jittering in the cool mellow breeze ready to burst open like pressurized popcorn kernels, and the leaves like tiny paper cutouts, shifting in stop-motion fashion. It almost felt like at any second they might take off and disappear, in nomadic fashion. True to metaphor, these wildflowers indeed didn’t have much time left on our property. In due time the mound itself would be overturned or discarded, and with it, the bloom of wildflowers would vanish. Therefore, we eagerly made it a point to explore all the wildflowers we could find in and around our farmhouse.

Read on to learn about the exciting plant species we encountered.

We can have an extra note for a few of the flower pictures like