Thank you for Fire Pink

Judy and I both love to plant things and 

watch them grow.  In a different way, it's

even more exhilarating to find and enjoy

less common plants the God has placed 

around us.

Enter the humble Fire Pink.  Simple but 

beautiful.  More than three decades ago, we 

observed it in theNorth Carolina mountains 

while hiking.  We were delighted when a couple 

of specimens of it appeared on our own 

little home place.  We received it as a 

personal "housewarming gift" from God.

Perhaps you are similarly blessed to have 

Fire Pink volunteering in your yard.  But

I haven't seen it in the yards of friends and 

neighbors.  

A favorite of hummingbirds, it now lines

our driveway, inside and outside the fence.

It adorns the borders of Judy's prayer garden.

It thrives in this roadside patch.

Fire Pink is Silene Virinica, from the Catchfly

family of wildflowers.  Though not insect eaters,

the leaves, hairy stems, and flower tubes of these

flowers are coated with a sticky secretion that 

often ensnares small flying insects.  The stickiness 

keeps crawling insects from the flowers, and thus 

facilitates cross-pollination by airborne insects.

This stately five-petaled flower is classified as 

threatened in Michigan and endangered in both

Florida and Wisconsin.

But I think God knew it would find a safe

and welcoming sanctuary in our yard.

Thank you, God, for Fire Pink.