Revel in the flowers of Bidwell Park
Renowned science educators Roger Lederer and artist-wife Carol Burr have the dirt on Bidwell Park. Or, more to the point, what grows out of that dirt. Their new collaboration is called “The Wildflowers Of Bidwell Park” ($24.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing, available locally from Magna Carta, Mangrove Gift and Garden, ABC Books, the Bookstore downtown, Bird in Hand, and Made in Chico).
Earlier volumes include “The Birds Of Bidwell Park” and “The Trees Of Bidwell Park,” but this project was a long time in coming. After consulting with local botanists, Lederer and Burr narrowed the list of some 800 flowering plants in the park down to 112 to illustrate, though more than twice that number are given a nod or a description.
Defining “wildflowers” as “typically short, showy, herbaceous and mainly annual plants” (including those accidentally or intentionally introduced), the book presents on each page a colorful illustration, name, origin, size, where in the park the plant can be found, and some interesting observations and history. Organized by color, this is not a comprehensive field guide but rather a revel in the beautiful and bodacious flowering park.
It’s clear that picking the flowers is prohibited by California law, so the health benefits often described (along with the sometimes poisonous effects) are not intended as a dinner menu. In fact, at least with one common weed in the park, “Handle the plant and you will never forget Milk Thistle.” Though, the book adds,
“its seeds have been used as a coffee substitute and are sold in health food stores” and the plant is the emblem of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Now the perennial sweet pea: There are “4 species of pea in the park,” often seen near Big Chico Creek. The common soap plant “was used by indigenous Americans after being pounded and mixed with water, its soapy mixture used as a stupefying agent and placed into streams to stun and catch fish. …” The seeds of the shepherd’s purse “when placed in water, supposedly act as a sort of fly-paper for mosquitoes, reputedly attracting and trapping them.”
The book will attract readers to marvel afresh at even the tiniest inhabitants of Bidwell Park.