flowerchasers – Page 2 – Flower Chasers

Unexpected Wonder

May 22, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

On a day meant mostly for moseying, we set out for the Driftless Area hoping to find large yellow lady’s-slipper in bloom in Hayden Prairie near Lime Springs, Iowa where we’d once seen more of them in bud than I could count. We find them again easily enough–some in bud but none in flower, although the prairie shooting star were merrily blooming.

We aren’t far in our travels from where, last spring, we searched diligently (and disappointingly) for green violet, the only one of the state’s nineteen native violet species we had yet to find. This state-endangered wildflower looks nothing like its violet relatives–it can grow up to three feet tall, and its small greenish-white flowers grow on stalks from the leaf axils. If not for the name, we wouldn’t know it was a violet.

Since we’re passing through the area where we’d searched before without any luck, why not take one more look? So we do, following a trail through a depressing abundance of garlic mustard, past marsh marigolds and wild geraniums in bloom, around downed trees, steadying each other across a little creek until we come to where we had searched last year.

This time, however, we widen our search a bit. And before long, the cry goes up. Green violet!!! Two robust clusters of plants with delicate greenish-white flowers dangling from leaf axils. Celebration (and photographs) ensue.

Giddy with green violet joy, we decide to follow the trail on the other side of the creek back to the road. In high spirits we wade the creek, careful not to slip on mossy rocks, then follow the narrow bit of land between steep hillside and mucky streambed, ducking under or scrabbling over a few downed trees. When the path leads uphill we start climbing until we realize it leads straight uphill and directly away from the creek and the car to who knows where–clearly we don’t. Nothing to do but backtrack, so down the hillside we go, over and under the downed trees, across the slippery mossy rocks, past green violet (pausing for one last reverential look), around downed trees, along trail spurs that dead-end in thick brush, and back to the creek that we’re convinced has suddenly altered course when we can’t find the narrow place where we’d crossed before. Eventually, though, we find another narrow place and teeter across, coming at last to the car.

The rest of the day is fine wildflower chasing with showy orchis in bloom, green milkweed budding, plains wild indigo flowering. Wonderful as these wildflowers are, they blur together in the glow of finally finding green violet, a glow that keeps us smiling all the way back home.

How rare is green violet? Minnesota has only five known populations, all in the Driftless Area. In Iowa green violet is endangered. In Wisconsin, where green violet was thought to have disappeared completely, one population has recently been found. All of which makes it even more of a wonder that, thanks to directions from a knowledgeable friend, we actually found the rare and delicate flowers.

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Small Beginnings

May 3, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root • Photographer: Kelly Povo

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?

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Hoping for Hepatica

April 12, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root • Photographer: Kelly Povo

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.