Goldthread

Coptis trifolia

White-lipped anthers purse & part. The sturdy styles end in hooks — it’s not enough to be adhesive. Nectar pools in the petals’ yellow spoons above a white dish of sepals, which shatters in the first hard wind.

This blooming is so early & brief, the leaves are better known: like the glossiest strawberry leaves you’ve ever seen growing in the least fertile, most pristine parts of the forest, far from plow & logger, from fire & subdivision, just under the scruffy surface of the world threading a net of gold.