Many of the earliest and showiest wildflowers that I find and document belong to a group collectively known as the "spring ephemerals." How they got the name is, if you spot and monitor enough of these proverbial "here today, gone tomorrow" treasures, somewhat obvious, if, on occasion, not quite accurate. These seeds are the end game crafted by an ephemeral known as Winter Aconite, which is usually the first bloomer in our neighborhood. I featured this yellow-flowered beauty, which often flowers under the snow, on February 20th and 21st of this year, and it almost always figures into the chronicle in either February or March as a "harbinger of spring." It's often not the only misnamed "spring ephemeral" that pays no attention to our calendar. Bloodroot, another member of the clan, often awakens before the end of the winter, and there are a number of other early botanical birds that do the same thing. I suppose you could say that perhaps the "spring ephemeral" part of the designation has more to do with their finale than their debut, since another characteristic of this group is that, once their flowering and seed making is done, they tend to wither and completely disappear aboveground. However, this too is not completely accurate, since some of the "ephemerals," Bloodroot among them, will be part of the botanical landscape throughout the growing season. Not so Winter Aconite. It's already making seeds and its leaves are beginning to yellow. First to bloom, first to disappear... first to ensure that it'll be ready for its ephemeral year in 2018.