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.
Eager for spring wildflowers, we set out on an unseasonably warm day in search of at least a few hepatica blooming. Hepatica likes shade or part shade, growing in high-quality forests often alongside other native wildflowers. Here in Minnesota we are on the edge of the eastern deciduous forest, which puts us at the edge of hepatica’s western range.
You might think for hepatica we would head south to the wooded driftless area, but this year we are also in search of new places to visit. So we drive west to Fort Ridgely State Park, which lists hepatica among the wildflowers growing there. Along the way we stop at Morton Outcrops Scientific and Natural Area (SNA), some of the oldest rock on the planet. We don’t expect to find hepatica here, but other early wildflowers that delight us grow in pockets of soil among the dips and crevices of the rocks.
And there among the mosses we find our first spring wildflowers of the day–tiny western rock jasmine in bud, Northern Idaho biscuitroot blooming, Carolina anemone buds purple on the outside and yellow within, and Carolina whitlow grass beginning to bloom. Small signs of spring that warm our winter-weary hearts–so small, in fact, that we use a dime for scale in a photograph to show their miniscule size.
Our next stop is on a road alongside Cedar Mountain SNA where a short path leads down to a creek. Birds call, water gurgles, and frogs chirr. Here we find bloodroot flowers elegantly blooming and the first furry leaves of wild ginger. Still no hepatica.
Nearby Fort Ridgely State Park spans habitat from prairie to woodland and lists hepatica among its native wildflowers, so we hike hopefully along the wooded hills. Gusty winds keep us cool as the day warms to eighty degrees. Here we find the first leaves of Dutchman’s breeches and jewelweed just unfolding. Hepatica remains elusive, but leaf by leaf and flower by flower spring is unfurling itself.
We have run out of woodlands on our Sunday tour, and it’s time to turn toward home without a hepatica sighting. Then we remember that not far from our route back to the cities is High Island Creek Park, a wooded county park near Henderson. Why not make one more stop in hope of a few hepatica in bloom?
At High Island Creek Park leaves of trout lily and cut-leaf toothwort promise flowers to come. Then, on the steep wooded slopes we finally find what we’ve been looking for: hillsides with hundreds of hepatica in blue and pink and white. Blossoms bloom on the tops of fuzzy four-to-eight inch stems, swaying in those gusty breezes. Kelly waits patiently for the wind to catch its breath so she can take a picture.
Hearts hugely happy, we head home feeling healed by sunshine, breezes, blossoms, and spring. A grand finale to a glorious day.
Western rock jasmineCarolina whitlow grassCarolina whitlow grassCarolina anemoneNorthern Idaho biscuitrootCanadian wild gingerBloodrootWild leeksCutleaf toothwortSharp-lobed hepatica
Saturday with 200,000 people we marched for justice in Saint Paul. Sunday just the two of us hiked hillsides hoping for early spring wildflowers.
We’ve had enough warm weather and signs of spring that snow trillium, hepatica, and pasqueflower might be making their way into the sunshine, so we drive to Hastings Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) where a population of endangered snow trillium grows on a steep and rocky hillside. We find small green triplets of leaves poking up and one flower working at opening, but the full blooming display is still at least a few days away. Sharp-lobed hepatica leaves reveal furry little flower buds just emerging from the ground, and a scarlet elfcup makes a tiny splash of color among last year’s brown leaves. Sun shines, breezes blow. Somewhere a sandhill crane clacks through the sky. A glorious day to be chasing wildflowers, and we don’t want to stop.
From Hastings we head to Grey Cloud Dunes SNA near Cottage Grove where on past visits we’ve seen pasqueflowers along a sandy trail. This time, though, we can’t even find the dried clumps of last year’s leaves, but we do see the leaves of large beardtongue promising future flowers. Farther along the trail we come across the hopeful greening leaves of birdfoot violet.
We’re still yearning for pasqueflowers, and our favorite pasqueflower hillside at River Terrace Prairie SNA has seldom disappointed. Flower chasing never happens in a straight line–we head back the way we came through Hastings to River Terrace Prairie outside of Cannon Falls and climb yet another hillside where we find delicate purple pasqueflowers opening to the sun. Furry little buds just emerging hint at more flowers to come.
We still have hopes to see snow trillium blooming, so we make one last stop and hike down a hill. As we come to where the trail turns upward to where we have seen snow trilliums in past years, a biker barrels down the hill alarmingly close to where the flowers grow. After the biker has blown past, we hurry up the trail to find that clusters of snow trillium are indeed blooming, some with a bike tire tread so close in the dirt that the biker missed them by no more than an inch.
These past months have reminded us that life can be precarious. On a sunny Sunday we go looking for signs of spring, signs of hope, and we find them on the hillsides. Marching for justice and hiking for hope remind us that we need to protect precious things–our rights, our neighbors, and the native wildflowers that sometimes grow perilously underfoot.
Love your neighbors, love our world, go out looking for wildflowers if, like us, it gives you hope and makes your heart happy.
And work for justice. For all.
Snow trillium Snow trillium Snow trillium Sharp-lobed hepatica Scarlet elfcup Large beardtongue Birdfoot violet and Seaside three-awn Pasqueflower
While federal ICE agents still lurk in Minnesota, a warm spell has melted most of the other ice and snow here in the twin cities, which means it’s time to go looking for skunk cabbage. For years now we’ve gone down along Minnehaha Creek or Nine Mile Creek to see these first wildflowers emerge, melting their way up out of the ground by generating their own heat.
This year we wanted to find a new-to-us location, so after research on I-Naturalist, we head out for Spring Lake Regional Park. The map of the park shows trails among the trees, but, as sometimes happens, maps and reality don’t always agree. We follow the trails we can find, but the one we want that should take us to the skunk cabbage doesn’t appear anywhere on the ground. Time to bushwhack.
Bushwhacking is usually not our favorite way to get where we want to go. This time, though, the ground is unusually open and looks as though a giant maw has chewed its way through downed trees and branches and bushes, leaving splintered remnants behind. (Later in the day a conversation reveals that it was probably the work of a machine called a masticator.)
Skunk cabbage likes wet places–in the past we’ve seen it growing in little runoffs and rivulets, and we’re hopeful that we’ll find some in a little inlet past a beaver lodge where the land slopes down to the lake. We don’t hope in vain. In a narrow water track, partly covered with soft ice and partly muddy, we find the first small shoots of skunk cabbage, some no higher than an inch out of the ground. A few shoots look nipped at the tips, whether from brush clearing or perhaps from a hungry critter, but we know soon their maroon flowers will emerge, followed by cabbage-like leaves.
Mossy rocks dot the ground with green, and the air smells of wet wood, damp leaves, and spring unfolding around us. Somewhere a gaggle of geese gabbles. We are almost giddy to be out among trees and by water with our first wildflower sighting of the year. Who could go home when we’re close (as flower chasing goes) to Hastings Scientific and Natural Area where another early bloomer, snow trillium, grows? We head over to Hastings, and although it turns our we’re too early for even the first tiny buds of snow trillium, we do find last year’s sharp-lobed hepatica leaves and the first miniscule sprouts of this year’s growth. In a week or two we’ll come back for the delicate pale flowers, after which last year’s leaves will die and this year’s leaves will come in, and perhaps snow trillium will have made its elegant appearance.
We are pretty sure winter isn’t done with us yet, and we know ICE agents aren’t done, either. We’ll continue the work we’ve been doing for justice, helping to keep our neighbors and community safe. But we’ll also be on the lookout for spring unfolding, and seeing these early flowers makes joy sprout in our flower-chasing hearts.
