Category: flowerchasers

Too Many to Count

April 13, 2025

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

We’ve been stalking spring for weeks now, and while we’ve seen signs of it, we found proof positive last weekend when we visited a hillside along a bike trail in southern Minnesota. We’d been to the hillside before in search of snow trillium, a species of special concern. On that previous trip we were too early to see more than buds, but this year our timing was perfect. Countless elegant, small, white, three-petaled flowers dotted the hillside, so many even I, who love to count, was overwhelmed. Snow trillium bloom early and vanish, so we counted ourselves beyond lucky to see this incredible display.

The snow trilliums weren’t alone. Here and there sharp-lobed hepatica bloomed, some white and some purple, their new bright-green leaves unfolding. Small trout lily leaves poked up, most singles but a few in pairs with a bud. (Trout lilies only flower after a plant has achieved two leaves, which explains the vast number of single, non-flowering trout lily leaves we often see in the spring.) Dark red columbine leaves were beginning to open, and Dutchman’s breeches plants no more than two inches high already had tiny buds that looked like miniature peanuts.

But the snow trillium were the glory of the show, climbing up and up the hillside. We climbed, too, marveling, while below the Le Sueur River sparkled brownly in the sun.

You would think an exuberance of snow trillium would be enough for our flower chasing hearts, and it was. But we wondered, too, if it was past time to catch another early bloomer, pasqueflower. The way back to the cities could take us past Ottawa Bluffs, a Nature Conservancy site not far from St. Peter where we’d seen pasqueflowers before, so what could we do but drive there and climb a steep, steep hill crowned with burr oaks to see if pasqueflowers were already done blooming. Halfway up the hill pale purple pasqueflowers began to appear, some singly and some in twos and threes, more and more of them the higher we climbed.

At the top of the hill we caught our breath, admired the flowers, looked out over the Minnesota River and wetlands far below, then began our descent among the small purple flowers still blissfully blooming away.

A wealth of snow trilliums, sharp-lobed hepatica, the beginning buds of Dutchman’s breeches and trout lilies, and pasqueflowers to finish up the day. Not only has spring arrived, it’s about to burst forth in all its flowering splendor.

And we can’t wait to see it.

Snow trillium
Wild leeks
Sharp-lobed hepatica
Dutchman’s breeches
White trout lily
Virginia waterleaf
Pasqueflower
Pasqueflower

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.

Skunk cabbage
Snow trillium
Kittentails in seed
Pasqueflower buds
Pasqueflower

Pursuing Putty-root

November 24, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

On a day when fall’s colors have mostly faded and fallen, we go looking for putty-root orchid–not the orchid’s flowers, which are long done blooming, but their distinctive leaves, one to a plant. 

Why look for putty-root orchid leaves when there are no flowers? In Minnesota, putty-root grows in the deciduous forests of the southeast part of the state.  Although its flowers don’t need sun, its leaves do.  And sun only really reaches the forest floor in the fall when trees have lost their leaves and also in the following spring before the trees leaf out.  Putty-root’s flowers themselves are delicate and hard to spot, so finding the long, green, pleated-looking, striped leaves in fall (and remembering where we found them) is the best way we know to find putty-root flowers the following spring. Once the plants flower, the leaves will die and new ones grow again the following fall.

We’ve looked long and closely for putty-root leaves in several places, but this time we’re searching in a new-to-us location:  Louisville Swamp Trail in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

The morning is chilly and gray. Almost all of the leaves are off the trees, but we’re amazed to still see so much color. American bittersweet vines with their bright orange fruits sprawl alongside the path.  Sumac berries have turned a deep red.  Splotches of grey and mustard-colored lichens brighten a dead branch. Green moss cushions rocks. Yellow-orange berries indicate horse gentian plants, but early horse gentian or late horse gentian?  Whether in flower or fruit, the two horse gentians continue to flummox us.  

Under the tree branches we begin our search in earnest for putty-root leaves. We look, we look, we look–and then we find them, obligingly standing upright among the brown oak leaves covering the ground.  Kelly takes photos, I count at least eleven separate putty-root leaves, and we note the location and jubilantly plan to return in spring to see the flowers.  

And really, it’s only a few months until flower chasing season begins again.  We’re happy to wait while the putty-root leaves soak up sunlight, while the earth orbits the sun and days grow longer and warmer again until spring when, with any luck, we’ll find putty-root orchid flowers blooming. 

A very good thing to hope for in the darkening time of the year.  

Putty-root leaves
Horse gentian
Sumac
American bittersweet
Lichens
Louisville Swamp

Stop by our Holiday Show on December 7, 2024, from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. to talk wildflowers, hear more about our upcoming book, Chasing Wildflowers, or purchase one of Phyllis’s children’s book or our book, Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers….email flowerchasersmn@gmail.com for all the details!