The Chromatic Chord

Wildflowers

The flowers of meadow, field edge, bank, and shore that bloom unplanted across Caeldon, and that the peoples gather for wreaths, garlands, and the yearly offerings to river and sea.

Overview

Wildflowers are the flowers nobody plants: the meadow and field flowers of the farmlands, the bank flowers of the rivers, and the low tough flowers of the cliffs and shores. They feed no one and are gathered everywhere, because almost every people of Caeldon gives flowers to its powers. The river towns throw them to the water at the spring rise, the harbours throw them to the sea, and a flower floated downstream carries away a grief.

Appearance

Meadow Flowers

The wet meadows of the Confluence Basins, grazed in common below the villages, bloom in waves through the year: glossy yellow cups in early spring while the ground is still sodden, then pink and purple spikes and loose white umbels standing knee-high above the grass in summer, with a sweet, heavy, honey smell on still evenings. Cut, they wilt within a day.

Field Flowers

Among the grain and along the field edges grow red, blue, and white flowers the farmers count as weeds: a scarlet, paper-petalled flower with a black heart that drops its petals at a touch, a ragged blue star on a wiry grey stem, and white daisies by the thousand. They bloom as the grain ripens and are the flowers of harvest wreaths.

Bank and Shore Flowers

River banks carry tall yellow flags and loosestrife in purple spires; cliff tops and dunes along the coasts carry low cushions of pink thrift and yellow, fleshy-leaved flowers that stand salt wind. Shore flowers are small and long-lasting, and keep their colour for days after cutting.

Habitat and Range

Wildflowers grow wherever the ground is open, sunlit, and not ploughed this year: meadow, verge, bank, hedge-foot, cliff top, and abandoned terrace. They are richest in the basins and river valleys of the cradle-web and on the coasts of the far side, poorest in dense forest, on bare stone, and in the deep. The meadow flowers follow water, the field flowers follow the plough, and the shore flowers follow salt.

Behaviour and Temperament

Wildflowers only bloom and seed, but they keep time. Each kind opens in its own weeks, and country people date the year by them as much as by the sky. They call bees and other insects (see Insects and Bees), and close in rain.

Life Cycle

Most field flowers live one year, sprouting with the sown grain and seeding before it is cut. Meadow and shore flowers come back from the same roots for many years. Cut flowers fade within a day or two unless kept in water or held by a working.

Uses and Dangers

Wildflowers are gathered for offerings, wreaths, garlands, and the dressing of shrines; a few go into dyes and simples beside the herbs. At the spring rise the towns of the Lower Serath keep the Festival of the First Flow, offering bread, wine, and flowers to the river. Once a year the Festival of the Tides brings a Tidelace harbour down to the quays with flowers, shells, and stories for the sea. Any mourner may float a flower or a lantern down a river to let a grief or a secret go.

Workers of Nature Magic can make prepared plants flower on command, and in great workings set a whole valley into flower, at heavy cost to the land. A Frozen Moment Magic working, Lasting Bloom, keeps a cut flower or a coronation garland fresh through a long ceremony. Wildflowers harm no one.

Lore and Belief

Flowers belong to the gods of growth and water. Anvelle the Harvest-Mother is pictured with hair of ripening wheat and wildflowers that bloom and wither in a breath. The wreath of Tamsel the Season-Weaver joins spring blossom, summer grain, autumn fruit, and winter evergreen in one circle, and blossom opens out of season where Tamsel passes. The High Elf courts know the scent of cut blossom as the air about Saerith the Mirror-King. People say that if the flowers given at the Festival of the Tides are given sincerely, Maris of the Tides grants a good catch, and that Serovan the River-King walks the crowd at the First Flow in disguise.

Where It Appears

Gods and powers:

Magic:

In the Writers’ Guide

See Also