Tarweed Fiddleneck, Göteborg, March 4th, 2002
The remaining two rosettes from the Next Block
are surviving the winter
not elegantly, but enough to refute identification
as Purple Viper's Bugloss (Paterson's Curse in Australia).
So it was time to adjust the identification (a first time)
and give these four their moment on the Web
in brown
green
olive...
From the two outdoors survivors I didn't have the heart
to nip one of their best leaves.
Those are the two top scans:
the big one (back and front) from the big one
the little one from the little one.
The leaf from the pot dweller indoors
is definitely greener
although it is not all that happy
as a host to myriads of aphids.
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There's a long story with the Viper's Bugloss - or whatever these rosettes turn out to be IF they make it into bloom. There is one from the New Lawn, which has been in a pot on my windowsill since early November
- snatched indoors
right under the nose of the frost.
In that patch (where there isn't much fun left
after the latest snows) it was the only one
of its narrow-leaved Boragic kind.
And if it had been a Purple Viper's Bugloss
it would not have made it through the cold.
But when I extended my walks to the Next Block
in the opposite direction from the Mall
I found first one then two and then three
very similar rosettes in a lawn similarly new.
The first one of these had the misfortune
to be stepped upon in the New Year snow
get half embedded in a frozen lump
and then catch a rot when the thaw came.
There's just a hole in the ground now. 
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