Phyllis Root, author and Kelly Povo, photographer – Page 5

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.

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.

A Flower Chaser Fall

October 11, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

Fall offers fewer and fewer blooming wildflowers to chase, so early one morning we head out to Morton Outcrops Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) to look for a different kind of color: lichens. Lichens aren’t plants—they’re a relationship between fungi, algae, and sometimes cyanobacteria, and Minnesota has as many as a thousand different kinds. For help in identification we bring along our copy of Lichens of the North Woods by Joe Walewski. We arrive just after the sun is rising and wander among granite outcrops 3.6 billions years old, some of the oldest rock on our planet. Splotches of orange, gray, brown, green and yellow dot the pink-and-gray rippled rock, and we tentatively identify yellow cobblestone lichen and rock greenshield lichen.

The year is far enough into fall that it’s possible to wander places we couldn’t get to earlier in the season without thrashing through undergrowth, and we like to avoid thrashing whenever we can. Now we can easily visit the northeastern edge of the old quarry in the SNA, where cubes of blasted rocks are piled up like a giant’s building blocks and wind ripples the water in the bottom of the quarry.

We aren’t many miles from Gneiss Outcrops SNA, so we drive on west to revisit it. In a previous summer visit we were defeated by tall, thick growth (think thrashing) and barely got past the first outcrop near the edge of the SNA. Now much of that growth has died back, and we head toward a lake on the far edge of the SNA following trampled trails in the grasses, making our way around thickets of bushes and trees. The hike is longer than it looks on the map, but at last we spot water and follow a narrow trail through thorny branches down to a small lake where a swan rests white on the water. A ridge of rocks leads up the other side of the lake, and a short climb brings us past brittle prickly pear cactus growing in rock cracks and plains prickly pear cactus sprawled across ledges. One way cactus survives our Minnesota winters is to lose water, shrinking into shriveled pads until spring when those pads swell again, and these cactuses are definitely shrinking.

It’s amazing what color you can find, even when most of the flowers have died back or gone to seed–lichen dappling rock, a few goldenrods still blooming, deep red sumac leaves and berries, flecks of quartz sparkling, little bluestem glowing red in the sunlight, trees along the road turning golden. And amazing what you might find if you just push on and even thrash a little through the undergrowth and trees–even a lake with cactuses growing on the rocks and a swan resting on the water.