The Miterwort Knoll

My husband and I frequently walked along abandoned logging roads or foraged through the woods on our 120 acres perched on a south-facing Vermont hillside. The forest there was mostly 2nd growth mixed hardwoods except for one distinctive area that was evidently too steep and rocky to have been cleared for grazing animals or raising plants. Although most of the virgin trees had been harvested many years before, the soil itself was otherwise undisturbed. We called this area the “Miterwort Knoll” because we found the diminutive native plant growing on small ledges wedged into the smooth rock face forming part of the knoll’s base. We walked to this area often, especially when Spring Beauties carpeted the top of the mossy knoll during their few weeks of bloom before disappearing for another year.

My pen and ink sketches of the native plants thriving on the Miterwort Knoll were my way of identifying, studying and appreciating them. The sketches including the Miterwort, “Mitella diphylla”, and are included in the Representational Gallery.