Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo
February 15, 2019
February—a meager month for Minnesota native wildflower seekers. Even skunk cabbage is still buried in snow, waiting out the subzero temperatures.
So we go looking for flowers in indoor places, beginning with the relocated Bell Museum. The incredible dioramas from the old Bell museum whose backdrops were painted by Francis Lee Jaques have been reconstructed in the new building on Larpenteur, and we wander from display to display, exclaiming over the wildflowers “blooming” in the woods and wetlands and prairies, as excited as though we were outside and seeing them for the first time.
Look, Virginia bluebells! Dwarf trout lily! Bluebead lily! Calypso! Bunchberry! And…wait, wait, we know this one, um…uvularia…bellwort! Our identification skills may have grown a little rusty, but a field trip or two once spring arrives will remedy that.
The dioramas also display birds and fish and mammals, but we are focused on the flowers. Where else can we escape phenology and see so many different flowers from different habitats and different seasons, all blooming at the same time?
Our second stop is the Como Conservatory, which we love to visit every February. The flowers here aren’t Minnesota natives, but stepping inside the tropical exhibit is like wrapping up in a blanket of warmth and humidity and birdsong. Lucky sloth, who hangs in a tree all day, soaking in all this sensory delight.
In the fern room we can feel our desiccated selves drinking in the moisture and greenery. The sunken garden explodes with scent and color—azaleas, cyclamen, pansies, lilies, amaryllis all in vivid purples and reds and fuchsias and pinks. And a wander through the rest of the conservatory takes us past so many orchids we stop trying to count.
On a cold February day, we are drenched in spring for a few hours, enough to last us through the rest of the icy days until skunk cabbage melts the snow away and snow trilliums bloom among snowflakes and another native wildflower season unfolds.
Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo
