White Alder trees, Alnus rhombifolia

The pendulous flowers of our alders are one of nature’s greatest, but most little seen wonders. But when you “wander in the wilderness” after the winter’s “Great White Silence” they, as well as Robert Services’ poetry, can lift your spirit and feed your soul.

In his legendary poem “Call of the Wild”  Robert Service asks:

Have you seen God in His splendors,
heard the text that nature renders?
(You'll never hear it in the family pew).
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things --
Then listen to the Wild -- it’s calling you.

So when you “silent men” are out this spring to gaze on Service’s “naked grandeur” or when walking through Oregon’s “visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it” be sure not to miss the white alder’s blooming catkins—as whatever you may think of alders (or Robert Services’ poetry) most all will agree they are definitely a big part of  “the simple things…that nature renders”.

Well before the first green leaves appear, you may have notice or examined the alder’s long dropping, anther bearing catkins.  Many more people have only admired the mature female catkins that are shaped like little oval cones. But have you ever seen these same VERY young cones when they first display the bright red tips of their tiny pistils in total, late winter/early spring, riotess bloom?

If not, then this year, it is time to follow Service’s inspiration and perhaps take a bit closer look.  On a few of the upper branchlets, above the pollen bearing male catkins, are the far less conspicuous, newly formed female flowers--that months after spring pollination will eventually developed into the alder’s thin angled-margined (tiny winged) seeds.  Wow!

Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is,
can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild – (the white alder flowers are calling you).

Photo 1:  Up to 6 individual stamens (also with reddish anthers) adorn each small male flower, unfurling in multitudes on pendulous catkins up to 3 inches long.

Photo 2:  In Oregon’s “visioned” valleys with “green stream streaking through” them, still leafless white alders display hundreds of tassels made up of their pendulous, pollen bearing flowers.