Phyllis Root and Kelly Povo chronicle the ten years they spent exploring Minnesota’s woods, prairies, hillsides, lakes, and bogs for wildflowers, taking pictures and notes, gathering clues, mapping the way for fellow flower hunters. Featuring helpful tips, exquisite photographs, and the story of their own search as your guide, the authors place the waiting wonder of Minnesota’s wildflowers within easy reach. Published by University of Minnesota Press, May 2018. Check out the book! Buy the book today!
That’s because goat prairies are high up on hillsides in southeastern Minnesota. Also called bluff prairies, they’re found on the sunny southern and southwestern sides of bluffs and steep (very steep) hills, sort of like a prairie tilted on its side. Although from a distance goat prairies may look sparse and bare, like other prairies they are rich in a variety of grasses and flowers.
We try to be as sure-footed as goats as we carefully pick our way up the side of a goat prairie to the top and cautiously make our way back down, pausing to take in the view out over other hills, valleys, and rivers. But the view right beneath our feet is stunning, too, and we watch our feet closely as we climb to avoid discovering just how well gravity works if we should trip or tumble.
On a recent afternoon we clambered upward past a wealth of springtime wonder: wood betony blooming in whirligigs of yellow, bright orange puccoon, vivid magenta jeweled shooting star, columbine, downy paintbrush, birdfoot violet, pussytoes, yellow star-grass, and a just-beginning-to-bloom cream wild indigo with its cascade of elegant flowers.
And that was only the front side of the hill. The back side of a goat prairie usually faces north and east, and in that cooler, shadier–but still steep–habitat forests grow with their own assortment of native woodland wildflowers. After our scramble up the front side of a goat prairie we followed an old road up the back side of another goat prairie past a mossy bank where walking fern made its way downward, showy orchis leaves opened like little vases, and downy rattlesnake plantain grew in a close community of distinctly patterned leaves. Round-lobed hepatica’s shiny new leaves had already grown in, and more large-flowered bellwort than we’ve ever seen before blanketed the hillside.
Is it any wonder that whenever we find a goat prairie, we can’t resist the climb?
No matter what sort of winter we have, we always hunger for spring. Down along Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis below the falls, bloodroot are blooming, skunk cabbage is already spreading its cabbage-like leaves, and trillium are budding. We love this city springtime, but we wondered, too, what might be happening farther from home. So on a day so blustery we needed winter coats we headed out to see what might be blooming farther south in Minnesota.
At Whitewater State Park we found more buds than blooms, but buds make our hearts happy, too, since soon enough blossoms will follow. Because the day was overcast and chilly, many of the flowers were wrapped up tight against the gloom and cold. Bloodroot held its leaves upright around tightly closed buds, but false rue anemone braved the weather to scatter white flowers among last year’s brown leaves, and a few cutleaf toothwort flowers opened while many more budded. Dutchman’s breeches’ britches-shaped flowers swayed on their stalks, and several trout lily buds hung gracefully down among many, many trout lily leaves. Masses of mayapple rocketed through the ground like missile nose cones, a few with buds nestled between their leaves. (Like trout lilies, mayapple plants only bloom once the plant has two leaves.)
Spring beauty’s delicate pink flowers delighted, and hepatica opened pale blossoms with fuzzy bracts at the bases of the petals. Trillium leaves poked up, beginning to unfold and Canadian wild ginger flowers hid under their soft wrinkly leaves. A little creek churkled along until it encountered several beaver dams, where it pooled up behind the mud and stick structures. Beavers, it turns out, are not only excellent engineers but also help prevent the spread of forest fires and ameliorate drought by creating wetlands with their dams.
We’d set out not knowing what we might find, and despite the cold (and a smattering of snowflakes) a whole budding world awaited us.
With windy arms, spring welcomed us in.
BloodrootFalse rue anemoneCutleaf toothwortDutchman’s breechesTrout lilyMayappleSpring beautySharp-lobed hepaticaCanadian wild gingerBeaver workBeaver dam
After a year of thirty thousand words, 275 photos, and 6,000 miles crisscrossing the state, we have finally finished a working draft of our next (as yet untitled) wildflower book! So what do we do to celebrate?
What else but go flower chasing?
It’s been a chancy spring after an almost snow-free winter. Snow had finally fallen on our first free weekend from working on the book, but we couldn’t resist the urge to be outside and looking for wildflowers . We’d heard about a hillside covered in snow trillium south of the cities, and even though we’ve seen snow trilliums, a flower of state special concern, in several places over the years, we are always excited to see old flower friends in new places.
The snow had mostly disappeared as we drove south, but the day was cold, and the ground on the hillside felt frozen underfoot. Still, poking up through last year’s oak leaves were undaunted trios of trillium leaves, a few plants with buds almost ready to open, others with buds smaller than a grain of rice, some with no buds at all yet. Scattered among the trilliums were tiny, reddish false rue anemone leaves and the purplish-red leaves of last year’s hepatica along with a few, very small, unfolding fronds of Dutchman’s breeches. Ephemeral or not, the early wildflowers were already hard at work.
Not far away at Kasota Prairie Preserve pasqueflowers were still blooming, so we headed over to see them, too. Some were past prime, others still a pale lavender, and a few were barely buds, all furry with soft hairs to help hold in heat. Pasqueflowers are clearly sun lovers: on cloudy days their blossoms stay closed, and on sunny days they follow the sun, a slow dance called heliotropism which helps the flowers trap the sun’s heat. Early queen bees flying from warm flower to warm flower gather pollen and warmth at the same time.
One last stop at Ottawa Bluffs Nature Conservancy site took us up a hill topped with burr oaks, past more pasqueflowers than a person could count to a panoramic view over the river valley.
We are always delighted by these first flowers and the promise of more to follow. Most of all we are delighted to be out and about again, chasing wildflowers wherever we can find them.
Snow trilliumSnow trilliumFalse rue anemoneHepatica leavesPasqueflowerOttawa Bluffs
