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.
Spring comes quickly to the big woods, where flowers have a brief time to soak up the sun, grow, bloom, and set seed before deciduous trees leaf out and shade the forest floor. Some flowers–the ephemeral ones–even disappear completely until the following year. Spring comes to the prairie, too, but at a more leisurely pace. The prairie has all summer to put on a show, and the prairie takes its time.
Last Sunday we visited a native prairie in Goodhue county to see how the prairie was coming along. From a distance the hillside looks dry and brown, but as we climb the hill we see green leaves poking through last year’s dried grasses. The top of the hill reveals a few lingering American pasqueflowers still in bloom among others gone to seed, tendrils swaying gracefully in the breeze. Prairie alumroot leaves are emerging, and pussytoes and bastard toadflax have pushed up out of the ground.
Part of the prairie has been burned since we last visited, and it’s here in the burned area that we find so many springtime beginnings against a quilt of brilliant new green growth. Leaves of large beardtongue unfold. Birdfoot violet in sweeps and swoops of purple and, here and there, stand-alone plants of prairie violets bloom. Small branches of sand cherry, a plant we’ve only ever seen before on Park Point by Duluth, open delicate white flowers that will soon be abuzz with bees.
Prairie smoke is in deep magenta bud, kittentails still bloom like yellow exclamation marks, and ground plum’s delicate lilac flowers are passing their prime. Bright yellow spots of hoary puccoon and fringed (narrow-leaf) puccoon dot the hillside, and prairie blue-eyed grass is slowly opening as the sun warms the day. The leaves of starry false Solomon’s seal and golden Alexanders are making an appearance, with flowers soon to follow. We even come across the leaves and buds of plains wild indigo, a plant we’ve seen here only once before.
The prairie has all summer to dazzle us with its constantly changing palette of flowers and colors. Here, in the beginning of May, we’re delighted to find the show beginning.
Mary Oliver in her poem “Instructions for Living a Life” writes: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
What better advice could there be for chasing flowers on a springtime prairie?
If we sound intoxicated by spring, it’s because we are, giddy with the glory of flowers bursting into blissful bud and bloom.
Down in the driftless area of southeastern Minnesota where deciduous forests climb steep hills, flowers bloom early before trees leaf out fully and shade the ground. The driftless is also decidedly hilly, and as we age we find ourselves more judicious about which steep slopes we scamper up. Luckily, flowers often obligingly bloom up and down the wooded hillside, where we can wander along on flatter ground looking up into whole hillsides of spring wildflowers.
One of our goals this year is to visit places new to us as well as familiar places and flowers. This past weekend we explored just such a place, a hiking path through part of Whitewater Wildlife Management Area with a wooded hill rising on one side. Trees greened with new leaves, but plenty of sunlight still reached the forest floor, creating a hilly flower-chasing heaven visible from the path. Within a few steps we were delighting in Virginia bluebells, wild blue phlox, hepatica, and Dutchman’s breeches plants with flowers so small we called them baby breeches. Canadian wild ginger hid its flowers under fuzzy leaves, fiddlehead ferns unfurled, wood anemone and nodding trillium budded. Bloodroot was mostly bloomed out, but scads of scalloped leaves stood upright around stems topped by pointy seed pods.
And then, around a bend in the road and up a ravine, we find a hillside covered with countless Virginia spring beauty’s pink-and-white-striped blossoms. In among the pink profusion a batch of white trout lily flowers nods gracefully. Around the next bend in the road, another hillside covered in Virginia spring beauty–more than we’ve ever seen except once before on the back of a goat prairie.
Whitewater State Park is another of our springtime favorites. We head there hopeful for twinleaf, which grows in Minnesota at the edge of its range. Twinleaf looks similar to bloodroot, but while bloodroot has a single leaf, twinleaf’s two leaves surround the flower, looking almost like one bowtie-shaped leaf. Finding twinleaf is always a thrill, since the flowers last only a few days and are so fragile that the weight of a single bumblebee can cause their petals to drop. Low down on the hillside–minimal climbing required– we discover several clusters of twinleaf freshly in bloom. Our knees and backs were grateful.
And then, nearby, a fortuitous find: eleven showy orchis, their vaselike clusters of leaves barely up out of the ground. Showy orchis is Minnesota’s earliest orchids, and we’ll return to this bunch of plants in a week or two for the lovely–and showy–flowers.
We also see many of the usual springtime suspects: Eastern false rue anemone; wood anemone; rue anemone; common violets in shades of blueish white, purple, and fuchsia; cutleaf toothwort; two-leaf miterwort (aka bishop’s cap); yellow trout lily; large-flowered bellwort. Beside the trout stream burbling alongside the trail multitudes of Mayapple grow, the ones with two umbrella-like leaves hiding buds beneath.
The Driftless Area’s hills are also a home for goat prairies–dry hillside prairies so steep that, so the story goes, only goats can climb them. Spring comes early to the prairie as well as the woods, so we drive to Mound Prairie Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) to see if anything is blooming there. The hillside is dotted with color – purple clusters of birdfoot violet, yellow whirligigs of wood betony, bright yellow-orange puccoon. What can we do but climb this hillside to see what else we might find?
And we do find more flowers–small stars of blue-eyed grass and yellow star-grass, plains wild indigo under pale yellow flowers, downy painted-cup, bastard toadflax. Halfway up the hill we figure we have seen what there is to see and don’t need to climb any higher.
Then a glance up the hill reveals bright spots of magenta spilling over a rocky outcrop almost at the hill’s top. What could they be but jeweled shooting stars, a flower we find more commonly in woods? And what can we do but clamber toward them, clinging to rocks that we check first to make sure no snakes are soaking up the sun on top of them? The climb is more than worth it, a spectacular show of jeweled shooting star. The day has become brightly sunny and windy, not the best conditions for photography, but I manage to throw shade on a few blossoms without throwing myself down the hill so Kelly can get a close-up picture. Then we gingerly make our way back to the foot of the goat prairie.
Whether standing at their bases or scrambling to the top, we get high on hillsides. And we are grateful that when we need to, we can still make it to the top of a hill.
Virginia bluebellsWild blue phloxCanadian wild gingerVirginia spring beauty hillsideTwinleafShowy orchis leavesCommon blue violet, blueish whiteCommon blue violet, blueish purpleCommon blue violet fuchsiaTwo-leaf miterwortWood betony Hoary puccoonBlue-eyed grassYellow star grassPlains wild indigoDowny painted cupJeweled shooting starMound Prairie SNA on a windy, sunny spring day
In just a few days it seems as though spring has burst upon us. Trees are greening, flowers rush to open–clearly it’s time to head down to our favorite Rustic Road, where a wealth of spring wildflowers blooms on wooded hillsides.
Wisconsin has over 700 miles of designated rustic roads that meander and mosey through scenic countryside. Some rustic roads travel in a loop, which explains why once, when we’d been driving on a rustic road, we were overjoyed to see a sign ahead promising another rustic road. A rustic road double header! Then we realized we had looped around and were back at the beginning of the one we’d just travelled. So we drove it again, just for the breathtaking beauty.
Rustic Road 51, just south of Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, wanders between steeply wooded hillsides where spring wildflowers bloom in abundance. We drive the road several different times each spring to see all it has to offer as flowers open according to their own internal calendars. This visit, though, we saw in a few hours almost everything we usually see over the course of several visits– some flowers just budding, some in riotous bloom. I love to count flowers, but there’s no way to count the wealth of wildflowers around us. Here’s what we saw in a single amazing morning.
Virginia spring beauty’s small pink striped flowers covering whole hillsides.
Eastern false rue anemone in bud and in bloom. Anemone means windflower, and these delicate white blossoms obligingly sway in the breeze.
Wood anemone, in the same family as eastern false rue anemone, blooming with its single white flower per plant.
Hepatica, joyful in shades of blue and purple and white
Canadian wild ginger, some with flower buds and some with the reddish flowers open but almost hidden under fuzzy leaves.
Bloodroot with its elegant white blossoms, leaves wrapping around their stems like scalloped shawls.
Dutchman’s breeches, many with stalks of flowers still upright, some with stalks bent like laundry lines holding–what else?–tiny breeches.
And in among the Dutchman’s breeches a few squirrel corn with tiny, tiny buds. The leaves of squirrel corn and Dutchman’s breeches are so similar we often have to wait until squirrel corn blooms just slightly later than Ductchman’s breeches to tell the difference, but this time we’re sure that the clusters of buds are squirrel corn.
Trout lilies, many white and a few yellow, their flowers hanging gracefully down.
Pennsylvania sedge in bloom with shaggy heads that give off a dust of pollen when we tap them.
And everywhere up and down the hillsides ramps running rampant.
We also find the leaves of Jacob’s ladder, wood phlox, and Virginia waterleaf along with trillium leaves unfolding to reveal their buds. We don’t find any clue of Mayflower poking up, though, and no sign of elusive twinleaf, so clearly we’ll need to come back in a week or two to continue the search.
Here and there a solitary bumblebee buzzes and small flies investigate flowers. A woodpecker hammers, birds call, a barred owl asked who cooks for you.
We’ve been coming to Rustic Road 51 for years, and it never disappoints. This might be the first visit, though, where we’ve seen it overflowing with such flowery glory, soothing and delighting our winter-worn selves.
Throughout the morning, air has felt increasingly like rain, so when thunder rumbles we head for home. But we know in a few days we’ll be back again. You can count on it.
Virginia spring beautyEastern false rue anemoneWood anemoneSharp-lobed hepaticaCanadian wild gingerBloodrootDutchman’s breechesSquirrel cornPennsylvania SedgeWhite trout lilyYellow trout lily
