i was hiking off-trail today, and was so excited when i stumbled on a fresh green carpet of  these charming corrugated rosettes. a magical harbinger of spring. i came home and started googling, and what i found was not magical at all: what i had stumbled on was the persistent winter growth of garlic mustard, or, as it is referred to by the minnesota department of agriculture: a class a noxious weed. in other words, the nifty retro checkerboard floors in my new mid-century basement had just revealed themselves to be made of a very useful material, called asbestos.

garlic mustard leaves

lake vadnais, saint paul, minnesota