Meanderings

June 15, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

All our flower chasing last year had one goal: to finish our next book.  This year our goal is to  mosey and meander.

With that in mind we set out to visit a Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) that lists tamarack swamp and black ash seepage swamp as habitats within its boundaries, because who doesn’t love to explore a good swamp?   We know we do. Once we reached the SNA, however, we discovered that entry from the two designated parking areas involved thrashing through brambles and thistles.  We thrashed for a bit, but once we encountered vigorously growing poison ivy we decided instead to drive along the edges of the SNA in search of a more welcoming entry point.  

The drive took us down a winding road  where rainy light fell through tall green trees.  Along that road we found an easier place (no prickles, no brambles, no poison ivy) to explore beside a tiny, meandering stream. Jack-in-the-pulpit and starry false Solomon’s seal  had finished their blooming, but in the rich black mucky soil we also found clusters of rounded basal leaves, one with a flower stalk of tiny round white buds, that turned out to be elliptical pyrola just beginning its bloom.  

On the other side of the road we were delighted by signs that read “Roadsides for Wildlife – No Unauthorized Mowing, Spraying, Haying, ATV Operation or Wildflower Collection.”  We’re always glad to see these protected roadside strips–they may be narrow, but they provide critical habitat for nesting birds, small animals, bees, butterflies, and native wildflowers.

A glance at the map showed we were close to Roscoe Prairie SNA, a longtime favorite of ours, so we headed over and pulled into the parking area where the prairie spread out before us–no thistles, no thrashing, just an exuberant display of native flowers. Prairie phlox stood out brightly pink along with the  purple flowers of fragrant false indigo, and northern bedstraw’s foamy white blossoms bloomed almost everywhere. A few spires of mountain death camas stood tall, and we wandered among purple spiderwort, flat pink prairie rose, and the yellow flowers of two-flowered Cynthia and golden Alexanders.  Everywhere we looked the prairie was gloriously busy making more of itself.

We had set out to see swamps, and what we found instead was a roadside for wildlife, a mucky streamside, and a burgeoning prairie. Plenty enough to delight flower chasers whose only goal was to go somewhere we hadn’t yet been and to see (or maybe not see) something we hadn’t yet seen.

A meandering success.