A Snail’s-Eye View in the Hardwoods

IF YOU WALK THE HARDWOOD TRAILS TOO FAST, looking up for Black-throated Blue Warblers or straight ahead while pondering your email or what’s next at work, you will miss one of our most elegant sights of spring. You will not see these blooms unless you kneel and lean way sideways or lie on your back and look up. There, dangling from twisted stems and lance-shaped leaves, you will find the flowers for which this plant is named: Rosybells (Streptopus lanceolatus). I photographed these as Ruth and I descended from Mt. Worcester today here in the wilds of central Vermont.