The seed is a wonderfully mysterious thing. Who could tell by looking that this tiny, dark, shriveled “house of death” holds the promise of a tender shoot, reaching and entwining stems, delicate green leaves, blooming beauty, so many more seeds? Muriel Stuart beautifully describes this marvel in one of my favorite poems.

Here in the quiet and dusty room they lie.

Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,

Forlorn as ashes, shriveled, scentless, dry—

Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

—from “The Seed Shop.”

I want to add a flower to my vegetable garden, and the morning glory seems a good choice, since I remember a friend has grown them with success. I plant the little black seeds and am elated when—a week overdue—they make a green appearance. Despite a difficult start (the first leaves are like lace with the munching of insects, and it takes some time to coax the vine onto the trellis), I soon have four wispy vines stretching over the trellis and putting out leaves and flowers.

A month later...

It is early morning, and all outdoors is shimmering green and gold. The air is full of birdsong: the crooning of doves and the jubilation of a mockingbird set against the whistling, piping, and chattering of the other birds.

The screen door slams behind me, and I trundle over the unsteady boards that cut between the green beans and the feathery carrots. Yes, there are several buds on the morning glory vines. I have not come out early enough to see them before. They look like little shells of green and yellow and purple taupe, delicately spiraled.

The sun rises higher and the morning glory unfurls to warm its heart in the light. The morning glory is such a frank flower. Not for her the secretive folds of the rose; she turns upon us her full, beautiful face. A five pointed star of deep pink stretches over the fragile petals of purple flecked with pink. The flower seems to glow from the center with its own light.

The sun continues to rise, and the heat strengthens, and the delicate morning glory takes in her flounces. If the day is cloudy she may dally longer, perhaps even to the early evening.

The flower passes quickly, a jewel for a day. If it was pollinated by a passing insect, it will leave behind a smooth green and pink pendant—the fruit that guards the seed, the promise of future morning glories.

As they dry, the sepals flare outward, and all turns to dull gold. They look to my fanciful imagination like Chinese paper lanterns. Several fragile globes burst showers of black seeds at my clumsy touch.

I was more gentle, and found that each seed is housed in a compartment of paper so thin that it is almost transparent. The smallest “paper lantern” had one seed; the largest I found had six.

That is the history of the morning glory, from seed to seed. I lost many seeds in the dark soil, and I look forward to the little green sprouts that will herald a new beginning.

Across the little acre’s wintry gray

Comes, slowly traced, an old, authentic word

     In radiant lettering:

A shining script of tendril, vine, and whorl,

New green, faint rose, clear lavender, and pearl,

Petal by delicate petal, leaf by leaf…

—“Who Makes a Garden,” Nancy Byrd Turner.

Photographs: Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory, an heirloom variety available from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Papa, gallantly rescued the last three of these photographs from an old camera. Thank you, Papa!

Photographs and text © 2011. Copyright unknown for excerpts from poems “The Seed Shop “ by Muriel Stewart and “Who Makes a Garden” by Nancy Byrd Turner.

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