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.
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
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
