during our last trip to france, our neighbor jean-luc, who understands the importance of such things, came knocking on our door one day with the urgent news that some rare wild carnations were blooming along a hillside where he walked his dogs at night. we dropped everything to go see them, of course, and they were to domesticated carnations as this blue-eyed grass is to its cousin the iris. they were so delicate and compact with such understated flowers that i never would have recognized them, or possibly even seen them, if they hadn’t been pointed out to me. they spent their lives too preoccupied with the unglamorous work of survival to fuss with pretty clothes just for show.

blue-eyed grass

vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota