By Ron Dodson
The Nature of Things

As the late evening light filtered through the canopy at Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary, I found myself walking more slowly than usual. It wasn’t just the fading daylight urging caution—it was the stillness. A kind of hush had settled over the woods, interrupted only by the soft crunch of leaf litter beneath my boots and the occasional twitter of birds settling in for the night.

I’ve walked these trails many times, but something about the fading light always changes the feel of the place. It draws your eyes downward, where shadows dance across moss, bark, and understory. That’s when I noticed a plant I’ve seen often but rarely stopped to appreciate in detail.

Nestled near the edge of the trail, surrounded by leaf litter and the beginnings of autumn’s slow decline, was a graceful spray of leaves and a small cluster of berries—False Solomon’s Seal, or Maianthemum racemosum. Its long, arching stem bore alternate lance-shaped leaves, each delicately veined and gently tapering to a point. And dangling beneath one of those leaves were its berries—still ripening, mottled with hints of red and cream.

False Solomon’s Seal is one of those woodland plants that might go unnoticed by a casual hiker, yet it plays a quiet role in the forest’s rhythm. Unlike its more rigid cousin, Polygonatum (True Solomon’s Seal), which bears its flowers along the stem, Maianthemum keeps its blooms and berries clustered at the tip or just below the leaves. When in bloom, its feathery white flowers attract early pollinators. Now, late in the season, its fruit will become food for birds and small mammals.

I knelt beside it for a while, just observing. There were tiny holes in the leaves—evidence that something else had paused here before me. A beetle perhaps, or a caterpillar. The plant had done its part in the cycle of give and take.

In moments like this, I’m reminded why I return to places like Hollyhock Hollow. Not to check off species or log miles, but to encounter—quietly and without agenda—the lives of others who share this landscape.

As I continued on, the light dipped further and the woods took on that dusky blue hue that always makes me think of memory—how fleeting it can be, and how easily overlooked are the small details that become most meaningful in retrospect.

So if you find yourself walking a trail as the day begins to exhale, pause for the plants. Look for the berries, the chewed leaves, the stories etched in silence.

You might just find a kind of stillness you didn’t know you were missing.

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