On these warm sunny winter days that lift my spirits and deceive me into thinking that spring is really here, I find myself earnestly looking for that early spring wildflower that might have pushed its way up into the sunlight. I have to remind myself that it will be another six to eight weeks before the first spring ephemerals burst forth among the dry brown leaves to proclaim the end of winter.

Of course there are many plants to enjoy on late winter walks. In the wetlands, skunk cabbages heat themselves to as much as 70 degrees, even melting surrounding snow, to speed flower development and release volatile chemicals that attract pollinating bees and flies. Lichens flourish in delicate shades of gray, green, yellow and orange, and the evergreen Christmas, Polypody and Marginal Shield ferns are easily located. Alder catkins are elongating, red maple buds are swelling and the willows take on a golden yellow hue. Many plants that are normally green in the summer are now a dark reddish burgundy from anthocynanins induced by colder temperatures.

But the spring ephemerals, with their delicate beauty, are my favorites. They are special, blooming, producing fruit and seeds before being shaded by the new leaf canopy, and finally fading away for another year. It's been suggested that some ephemeral plants have a large leaf surface area in order to collect enough sunlight to be able to flower and set fruit and seed in such a short period of time.

Trout-lily and wood anemone often carpet the woodland floor with large colonies of blossoms. Yellow flowered trout-lily, with its spotted leaves reminiscent of a speckled trout, only produce flowers after about seven years, when the mature plant has two leaves. It is ant-pollinated and each flower lasts for a few weeks before it vanishes until the next spring.

Wood anemones are among the first to bloom, forming enormous carpets of white delicate blossoms in clearings where slightly more sunlight penetrates a woodland floor. Anemone quinquefolia (Latin for "five leaves") is our most common of these windflowers. Mature flowering plants have three leaves, each with three to five leaflets.

Bloodroot, with its delicate white flower that lasts only a few days and can be destroyed by a rainstorm, is probably the most fragile of the spring wildflowers. The deeply lobed gray-green leaf arises with the flowering bud and wraps around it as if to protect it. This plant, with the blood- red sap from the roots that gives it its name, has had a number of medicinal uses over the years, including Native American herbal remedies.

These spring wildflowers and others such as marsh marigold and mayapple bloom on many Land Trust properties. Medlyn Woods is one of the most diverse. Follow the woods road in from Sawmill Road to a gate that leads into a field. Close by the gate you'll find blue cohosh and bloodroot. Farther on, violets grow in the center of the road. Or pass through the gate and follow the path up the hill to find large clumps of columbine, the only host plant of the Columbine Duskywing butterfly. The fields flourish with a succession of wildflowers throughout the seasons.

Two other plants always mean spring to me. One is coltsfoot, introduced to Canada in the 1920's from Europe, which thrives on gravelly soils along dirt roads. The dandelion-like flowers appear in early spring from underground rhizomes. After pollination has occurred and the seeds begin to ripen, the broad velvety leaves begin to grow as the flowering stalk disappears.

The other is Dutchman's Breeches, my all-time favorite. This spring beauty is not delicate or fragile and can grow in the harshest of rock outcroppings. The leaves are finely cut and appear fern-like. Each plant has 4 to 10 small white flowers that have been described as pantaloons, bloomers or knickerbockers hanging on a line. It is nature's counter to the court jester. Take a walk in the spring and look for this neat little charmer. It will make you smile.