Check out our new book! An intrepid search for Minnesota’s wildflower treasures in out-of-the-way places. Featuring Povo’s gorgeous photographs and Root’s finely detailed descriptions of nearly two hundred species, Chasing Wildflowers is both a handy guidebook and an entertaining chronicle of the thrills and occasional mishaps of the friends’ searches, from wading rivers and climbing rocky outcrops to getting their boots stuck in deep muck while on the run from an approaching storm. Neither botanists nor biologists, Root and Povo are wildflower enthusiasts determined to learn about native wildflowers wherever they can be found, providing readers with all the information they might need to find and identify rare and intriguing species in unexpected places.
It’s been a while since Kelly’s and my schedules aligned, but this past weekend they did, so we headed to some of our favorite places looking for orchids. And whatever else we could see, of course–it’s not that we’re just orchid fanatics. Really we’re not.
Our first orchid stop (okay, we’re a little fanatical) was an unmarked turnoff that a friend had found and shared with us. We’d been here before, the last time memorably getting our boots stuck in muck as we ran from a rainstorm. This time, although rain threatened, none fell.
This tucked-away cedar grove is one of the few places we’ve seen large round-leaved orchid (Platanthera orbiculata) with its almost ethereal looking blossoms. Under the shade of cedar trees the orchids were beginning to bloom, and among them we also found blunt-leaved orchid (Platanthera obtusata) blooming, one of the very few places we’ve ever seen it.
Diligent searching for lesser rattlesnake plantain orchid, which we’d seen there before, resulted in one tiny plant growing out of a mossy log. I called for Kelly to come see, but we had both wandered in different directions, and by the time we reconnected I had lost my bearings and couldn’t relocate the very tiny lesser rattlesnake plantain. But it was growing there, and so, along the trail into the site, were several lovely Loesel’s twayblade orchids.
By the time we reached Iron Springs Bog Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) the day had turned hot and muggy, but we didn’t care. We were in one of our very favorite flower-chasing places, and it didn’t disappoint. We saw showy lady’s- slipper orchids–far too many to count. We also saw a long-bracted frog orchid, and plenty of Platanthera huronensis and Platanthera aquilonis blooming. These two similar orchids of the Platanthera genus are the reason we felt compelled to learn the scientific names of all eleven of the Platanthera orchids that grow in Minnesota. Not only did they look similar but the various common names for them also confusingly overlap. Both have been commonly called some combination of tall northern bog orchid, northern green orchid, northern bog orchid, north wind bog orchid, northern green bog orchid. Just to be sure we knew which orchid we meant we took to calling them huronensis and aquilonis. The habit spilled over into the other Platanthera genus members. Besides, although we are not botanists, we feel rather botany-ish using scientific names.
Our hunt for white adder’s-mouth was unsuccessful, as was our hunt for tall white bog orchid (Platanthera dilatata), but we did see plenty of green adder’s- mouth (familiarly known to us as mop top–we’re not always botany-ish). Our trip included two more orchid-seeking stops the next day. By the time we arrived at the first unmarked site, the air had turned thundery, so we donned our rain coats and made our way to where we had once seen Hooker’s orchid (Platanthera hookeri). So many trees had fallen since our last visit that we were sure they were covering up the orchids we’d seen there before and couldn’t find now.
Rain fell in torrents as we headed back to the car. Luckily we had our raincoats on, although we hadn’t bothered with rain pants. We’ll dry soon, we assured ourselves. But it’s hard for wet pants to dry when the rain keeps falling. Sitting on towels, we drove down the road to another favorite SNA, where to our delight we found a whole little patch of blunt-leaved orchid (Platanthera obtusata) just beginning to bloom in the silvery light. Luckily I use an all-weather notebook, and Kelly always brings an umbrella for me to hold over her camera in inclement weather. In the same small area we also found early coralroot, heart-leaved twayblade gone to seed, lesser round-leaved orchid gone to seed, showy lady’s-slipper, bloomed-out small yellow lady’s-slipper, and a colony of tiny rattlesnake plantain growing jubilantly over a mossy hummock. Orchid heaven for flower chasers.
By the time we were ready to head home our orchid-seeking hearts and our pants were both saturated. In our haste to put on dry clothes when no cars were driving by, I somehow left a boot behind, and Kelly’s sunshade had disappeared, although we didn’t realize either loss until we got home and unloaded my gear when Kelly dropped me at my house. If anyone comes across a single hiking book with a tick gaiter attached to it or a round nylon case containing an expandable sun shade, you know where to find us.
A boot, a gaiter, and a sunshade seem like small losses weighed against the wealth of wildflowers and orchids that we saw. Even if we’d seen nothing, it felt good to be searching again. And yes, we saw plenty of other flowers besides orchids–twinflower, bunchberry, purple pitcher plant, Canada mayflower, one-flowered pyrola, one-sided pyrola, round-leaved pyrola, pink pyrola, green-flowered pyrola, shinleaf, tufted loosestrife, and more. Even if we hadn’t seen orchids, our hearts would still be overflowing.
It’s good to be out and about, chasing flowers (and sometimes even catching them) again.
Violet season is fleeting. We’ve seen all nineteen of Minnesota’s native violets now, and we are working on definitively telling them apart. Green violet, once we found it, was unmistakable, but the others–purple, blue, white–can be baffling. Are stems sparsely hairy, partly hairy, very hairy, hairless? Are the leaf surfaces hairy only on the tops, or on both tops and bottoms, or just around the edges, which might or might not be scalloped? Is the beard (tiny hairs on the centers of petals) short? Are the hairs club-shaped? Not there at all? Visible with an electron microscope? Okay, that last is an exaggeration. We never carry an electron microscope with us. But some details are so minute that only in a photo or with a hand lens do tiny differences reveal themselves.
A 1957 article on violets mentions “the tendency of species to hybridize with their close relatives, producing a bewildered variety of intermediate forms.” No wonder the violets have bewildered us–they are busily interbreeding.
On a day promising to be blistering in the twin cities we headed north to track down several similar-looking violets–three purple/blue and three white. First stop: Magney-Snively Natural Area near Duluth where along a trail we found blue violets which we determined with close inspection to have club-shaped beard hairs. Since marsh blue violet is the only violet to have club-shaped beard hairs, and since they grew in a wet area, we could definitively say, Yep, marsh blue. Nearby we also found Carolina spring beauty, a wider-leaved relative of Virginia spring beauty, along with trillions of trillium, both large-flowered and nodding.
At Hartley Nature Center we found another of the blue violets on our list: Great Lakes violet. It helps that this violet is only found in the Arrowhead region of the state, and it helps even more that close looking revealed that the lower petal was bearded, unlike the similar-looking arrow-leaved violet.
We had one last stop to make at Sax-Zim Bog, where we both were absolutely certain we had seen kidney-leaved violet the previous year at the welcome center, just steps away from the parking lot. Either we had parallel memory lapses or the violets were already bloomed out. What we did find was a boardwalk through a poor fen, which we knew was a poor fen because last summer we learned which four plants were poor fen indicators. And there they were, all in bloom: white leatherleaf bells, white labrador tea flowers, pale pink bog rosemary bells, and deep magenta bog laurel flowers.
Though it might be classified as a poor fen, this was a habitat rich in plants. A small hummock of moss held its own little microhabitat, with creeping snowberry in bud and round-leaved sundew glistening in the light. A garter snake slithered away, then paused, perhaps thinking itself hidden, although its black and yellow stripes stood out against the greens and red of mosses. Somewhere a white-throated sparrow sang.
Along the boardwalk we met two folks and learned that, among other restoration projects, they had converted a golf course in Wisconsin into Three Waters Reserve, a restored prairie/oak savanna where purple milkweed grows. Purple milkweed, long gone from Minnesota (if it was ever here), has been on our wish list for years. We are already planning a road trip to go see it.
It was hard to take those last steps off the boardwalk, but the day was drawing down toward a long summer evening, and we wanted to make one last quick stop. At the Warren Woessner bog boardwalk we hoped to see stemless lady’s-slipper in bud, and we did, with their graceful leaves and curving stems and flowers almost ready to open. The plants along this boardwalk were more boggish, including three-leaf false Solomon’s seal and goldthread, and instead of hurrying back to the car we moseyed to the end of the boardwalk.
And there, at the very end by the viewing platform, was one white violet. Close examination revealed no beard hairs, which, along with its sparsely hairy, roundish leaves, identified it as kidney-leaf violet.
We’d set out to find violets, and we did. But we also found boardwalks across fens and bogs and met two people who work to protect and restore wild places. As one of them said while we chatted about bees and teas and butterflies and, of course, flowers: “Places like this give us hope.”
Some days that hope seems in short supply. But out among violets, bogs, fens, woods, wild birdsong, slithering snakes, bees, butterflies, and native wildflowers we did find hope and brought it home with us–as well as new clues to tell apart some of the (often happily hybridizing) violets.
Marsh blue violetLarge-flowered trilliumNodding trilliumCarolina spring beautyGreat Lakes VioletLabrador teaBog RosemaryBog laurelLeatherleafGoldthreadStemless Lady’s-slipperThree-leaf Solomon’s sealSnowberry and Round-leaved sundewKidney-leaved violetSax-Zim Bog Visitor Center Bog Boardwalk
On a day meant mostly for moseying, we set out for the Driftless Area hoping to find large yellow lady’s-slipper in bloom in Hayden Prairie near Lime Springs, Iowa where we’d once seen more of them in bud than I could count. We find them again easily enough–some in bud but none in flower, although the prairie shooting star were merrily blooming.
We aren’t far in our travels from where, last spring, we searched diligently (and disappointingly) for green violet, the only one of the state’s nineteen native violet species we had yet to find. This state-endangered wildflower looks nothing like its violet relatives–it can grow up to three feet tall, and its small greenish-white flowers grow on stalks from the leaf axils. If not for the name, we wouldn’t know it was a violet.
Since we’re passing through the area where we’d searched before without any luck, why not take one more look? So we do, following a trail through a depressing abundance of garlic mustard, past marsh marigolds and wild geraniums in bloom, around downed trees, steadying each other across a little creek until we come to where we had searched last year.
This time, however, we widen our search a bit. And before long, the cry goes up. Green violet!!! Two robust clusters of plants with delicate greenish-white flowers dangling from leaf axils. Celebration (and photographs) ensue.
Giddy with green violet joy, we decide to follow the trail on the other side of the creek back to the road. In high spirits we wade the creek, careful not to slip on mossy rocks, then follow the narrow bit of land between steep hillside and mucky streambed, ducking under or scrabbling over a few downed trees. When the path leads uphill we start climbing until we realize it leads straight uphill and directly away from the creek and the car to who knows where–clearly we don’t. Nothing to do but backtrack, so down the hillside we go, over and under the downed trees, across the slippery mossy rocks, past green violet (pausing for one last reverential look), around downed trees, along trail spurs that dead-end in thick brush, and back to the creek that we’re convinced has suddenly altered course when we can’t find the narrow place where we’d crossed before. Eventually, though, we find another narrow place and teeter across, coming at last to the car.
The rest of the day is fine wildflower chasing with showy orchis in bloom, green milkweed budding, plains wild indigo flowering. Wonderful as these wildflowers are, they blur together in the glow of finally finding green violet, a glow that keeps us smiling all the way back home.
How rare is green violet? Minnesota has only five known populations, all in the Driftless Area. In Iowa green violet is endangered. In Wisconsin, where green violet was thought to have disappeared completely, one population has recently been found. All of which makes it even more of a wonder that, thanks to directions from a knowledgeable friend, we actually found the rare and delicate flowers.
Large yellow Lady’s-slipperPrairie shooting starWild geraniumMarsh marigoldShowy orchisGreen milkweedGreen violet
