Deer Tongue Grass Flower

For most of the year, Deer Tongue Grass—it gets its common name from the broad basal leaf's fancied resemblance to Bambi's tongue—is fairly unobtrusive. But come the start of summer, Dichanthelium clandestinum sends out a panicle that looks something like a string of shooting stars, each ending in a lovely little perfect flower that bears two feathery stigmata and three tiny stamens. The minuscule blossom is too small to be of interest to bees, so the agent of pollination is simply the wind. In my collection of signature organisms that mark the passage of time, Deer Tongue blooms signal the incipient arrival of the summer. When you start seeing those intricate pollen catchers combing the June breezes for the continuation of the species, you know the solstice is nigh.