Elma's Bee Thistle Mix-Up
Starring Elma
Elma sets out to identify five plants for her Plant Passport, learning about a sunflower and a curly fern with help from her friend Fenn. When she dismisses a prickly purple-flowered plant as a weed and breaks its stem, three bees reveal that it is bee thistle, an important food source when other flowers are gone. Elma ties the stem upright, discovers a new bud the next morning, and records bee thistle in her notebook. She learns that even plants that seem plain or prickly can play an important part in helping bees.
Elma's knees squished into cool mud as she flipped open her Plant Passport, a little green notebook with a wobbly sunflower drawn on front. "Five plants by Friday," she said, tapping her pencil. "I'm going to know every single one." Fenn leaned over the fence, mismatched boots planted in the dirt. "Bet you can't name that one," he said, pointing at a fat green sprout.
Elma pressed her brass loupe to her eye and studied the tall sunflower stalk beside them. "Roots sip, stems lift, leaves catch the light," she sang, "petals wave hello, then say goodnight!" Fenn snorted. "You made that up." "Every plant needs those four jobs," Elma said, writing SUNFLOWER in careful letters. One plant down, four to go.
Next came a curly fern, its leaves shaped like tiny green feathers. Elma counted the little leaflets with her fingertip, smelling the damp earth clinging to its roots. "No flowers, no fruit," she muttered, scribbling notes. "Just leaves and leaves and leaves." Fenn scooped a snail off a nearby leaf and set it gently on a rock, humming to himself.
Then Elma spotted it, a tall prickly plant with fuzzy purple flowers, growing crooked between two tomato rows. "That one's just a weed," she said, wrinkling her nose. "It's not even pretty." Fenn tilted his head. "Maybe it's supposed to be there... I don't know." "It's taking up space," Elma said, already reaching for it.
Elma grabbed the stem and pulled hard. It snapped with a wet crack, spraying sticky green sap across her overalls in a long sticky streak. "Ugh!" She dropped the broken stem, wiping sap on her sleeve, only smearing it worse. Fenn winced. "That's gonna stain." Elma pressed her sap-streaked palm flat against her mouth, staring at the wilting flower in the dirt.
Three fat bees buzzed down anyway, landing right on the broken, drooping flower as if nothing had happened. "Wait," Elma whispered, crouching close. "Why would bees want a weed?" Fenn peered over her shoulder at a small wooden tag half-hidden in the leaves. "It says something. Bee...thistle?"
"Bee thistle," Elma read slowly. "Bees need it most of all, when other flowers are gone." She swallowed hard and picked up a garden stake, tying the broken stem upright with a long grass blade, humming, "Roots sip, stems lift, leaves catch the light... even the prickly ones help bees take flight." "That's new," Fenn said, almost smiling.
By the next morning, a tiny new bud had pushed out near the tied stem, and two bees were already circling it. Elma opened her Plant Passport and wrote BEE THISTLE in her best letters, right next to a small drawing of a bee. She wiped a fresh smear of mud onto her knees and grinned. "Five plants. Every single one."
