Signs of Hope

March 14, 2025

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

On a day when almost all of the latest (and maybe last) snowfall has melted and the temperature tops seventy degrees Fahrenheit, we go looking for signs of spring.

Skunk cabbage has been poking up above ground for at least a week, but skunk cabbage is an overachiever, creating its own heat to melt its way free of the ground. Now we’re on the lookout for the next early flowers, snow trillium and pasqueflower.

Snow trillium is the smallest of Minnesota’s four trilliums and also a species of state special concern, which the Department of Natural Resources defines as “extremely uncommon in Minnesota, or has unique or highly specific habitat requirements.” A species to keep an eye on.

Not only is snow trillium small, it’s a plant that can take twelve years or more to flower. Finding its graceful white three-petaled blossoms is always a delight and a sure sign that wildflower season is beginning.

We don’t find the flowers yet, but we do find a very few, very tiny green shoots, one of them smaller than a grain of rice. But it’s enough to reassure us that they are coming, and we’ll come back soon to see snow trillium in full (and brief) flower.

Next stop: River Terrace Prairie Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) to check for pasqueflower, those lovely purple prairie anemones. As we drive down the dirt road to the SNA a bluebird flies in front of us, another sign of spring. On the hilltop at River Terrace Prairie we find still more signs: the small furry nubbins of pasqueflower emerging like little brown noses, along with prairie smoke leaves beginning to green. Farther down the hillside we find what we tentatively identify as last year’s kittentails gone to seed, even though we’ve read that kittentails stalks wither after blooming, leaving just the basal rosette of leaves behind. But these are times of change, so we wonder if flowers are changing, too, in response to the changing climate. If these are kittentails, they clearly don’t care what we’ve read about withering after blooming–they follow their own wildflower ways.

Just being out on a glorious day under a sky streaked with high white wisps of clouds and seeing spring makes its sweet way under trees and over prairies fills up our hearts that are hungry for springtime and hope.

Author: Phyllis Root and Kelly Povo, flowerchasers.com

Phyllis Root is the author of fifty books for children and has won numerous awards. Kelly Povo, a professional photographer for over thirty years, has exhibited in galleries and art shows across the country. She and Phyllis Root have collaborated on several books. This is their first book on Minnesota's Native Wildflowers. View all posts by Phyllis Root and Kelly Povo, flowerchasers.com