Flower Chasers

September 22, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

On the autumn equinox, when summer officially ends and when you can stand an egg on end (I’ve done it), we headed out to Lost Valley Prairie Scientific and Natural Area (SNA). Wind whipped mares’ tail clouds across a blue sky, and swaths of big bluestem  bent in the breeze. 

Most of the prairie flowers had already gone to seed or were well on their way–stiff gentian with seeds like little purple rocket nose cones, prairie blazing star like fuzzy bottle brushes on a stick, skinny whorled milkweed pods pointing skyward.  Several goldenrods still bloomed, including a bright line of showy goldenrod, but the pride of the fall prairie is asters, bright bursts of color busily visited by bees. Lost Valley Prairie lists seven asters out of our state’s twenty-three native asters, and we saw six of the seven including one that wasn’t on the list.  

We’ve been trying to learn to identify the asters, something of a challenge because all of the flowers are either blue-to-bluish-purple or white (except for rayless aster, which has no petals). So what else do we look for besides color?  

Height can help, although plants can range from small to tall.  Still, it’s a start–awl asters can reach five feet tall.  Flower position is also helpful:  awl aster’s white flowers grow only along one side of the stalks, while panicled aster’s similar-looking white flowers grow in bunches at the top of  the stem and in leaf axils (where leaf and stem meet). Heath aster’s tiny  white flowers crowd in tight bunches along the branches.  New England aster’s purplish-pink flowers grow at the top of the stem like a little bouquet. 

Leaves help, too.  Silky aster’s narrow leaves are covered with fine hairs that gives them a soft grey-green look.  Sky-blue aster’s basal leaves are heart shaped, and both basal leaves and stem leaves feel sandpapery on both sides. Aromatic aster’s leaves are said to smell aromatic when crushed, and while we didn’t smell them, we identified the plants by the profusion of leaves that grow smaller up the stem.  

The only one of the listed asters that we didn’t find was smooth blue aster whose petals are (or course) blue and whose leaves are mostly hairless and mostly clasping.  But there’s plenty of fall left for flower chasing, and while we likely we won’t see all of Minnesota’s asters this year, flower by flower we are learning them as we go.

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August 23, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

On an almost-end-of-August morning we headed down to Highway 56, a road in Mower county with rich roadsides if ever there was one, to see if cream gentian might be blooming in a ditch where we’d seen it last year.  Minnesota has seven species of gentian, all a deep blue except for cream gentian, a pale soft yellow.  

A white waning moon still hung in the sky as we drove along.  And there they were, a ditch full of cream gentians blooming like little bouquets of almost-closed flowers. We pulled off onto the shoulder of the road well out of the way of trucks thundering past. When we’d looked our fill at so many cream gentians that we didn’t even try to count them all,  we drove farther along the highway only to discover where all those  trucks had been headed: road construction.  In Minnesota? Who knew.

The detour around the town of Le Roy gave us a chance to head down to our favorite Iowa prairie, Hayden State Wildlife Management Area, where many flowers had already gone to fascinating seed–tuberous Indian plantain, wild quinine, milkweeds with their pointy pods.  Circling back into Minnesota, we drove down a stretch of  Highway 56 that we’d never been on before, where pale gentian-like blossoms beside the road demanded another stop along  the shoulder.  These blossoms turned out not to be gentians but white turtlehead, blooming among bright blue lobelia.

Have  you ever been so excited to see a flower that you stepped into what looked like a grassy ditch only to find out that hidden beneath the grass was water deeper than your boot tops?  I have. Luckily my go-to bag held dry clothes, and, even soaked to the knees, it was lovely to be among so many cheery white turtlehead flowers.

Our route took us close to Iron Horse Prairie Scientific and Natural Area (SNA), where we’d seen several kinds of blue gentians on past visits. If  cream gentians were blooming, could we find bottle gentians too?  We thrashed our way down the overgrown south entry path, climbed down into the SNA , and found that bottle gentians were indeed in bloom in the wetter parts of the prairie.   Bottle gentian’s blossoms are even more tightly closed than cream gentian’s, so bumblebees are the only pollinators strong enough to fight their way inside. In the more open areas of the prairie, blue asters and white asters bloomed, along with bright yellow sneezeweed and pale yellow lousewort still holding on to a few  of its whirligig petals.

Not far away at Hythecker Prairie SNA we found more bottle gentians blooming, along with spotted Joe Pye weed, marsh bellflower, marsh skullcap, smooth rattlesnake root, and plenty of goldenrods.

One more stop in search of gentians took us to Oronoco Prairie SNA, where we’d seen stiff gentian before, a surprising find in a dry prairie since all of Minnesota’s gentians except for downy gentian seem to prefer wetter places. Even though we didn’t find the stiff gentian we’d seen on previous visits the prairie delighted us with its golden grasses and goldenrods, whorled milkweed still blooming, bright purplish spires of rough blazing star, rattlesnake master’s spiky white globes, and big bluestem’s raggedy seed heads bending in the breeze. 

We started the day with rich roadsides and ended with scientific and natural areas.  Wherever we find native wildflowers, in places protected and places unexpected, they always delight.

Even when you accidentally fill your boots with water. 

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August 4, 2024

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

The day begins with light, a huge, red, smoky sun lifting over the horizon as we drive in and out of mist that sparkles like ice crystals on big bluestem beside the road.

We are headed north in search of a stand of jack pines in Paul Bunyan Savanna, a Nature Conservancy site that is part of the Northland Arboretum in Brainerd.  Jack pine is Minnesota’s most common pine, dependent on fire to release its seeds.  But a combination of fire suppression, timber harvesting, and conversion of habitat to agriculture has made stands of jack pine rare. Badoura Jack Pine Woodland Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) is the only place we’ve visited where whole stands of jack pine grow.

At Northland Arboretum we follow Rudy’s Trail where we see occasional jack pines mixed in among other trees. A side trail takes us through a stand of jack pines where we find familiar flowers we’ve seen before at Badoura SNA : cow wheat, harebell, pipsissewa past blooming, We’re thrilled to know of another jack pine habitat, and we’re thrilled, too, to see tesselated rattlesnake plantain gone to seed.

We are not that far (as flower chasers measure miles)  from Badoura SNA where on our first visit we found tesselated rattlesnake in bloom. Although we’ve looked diligently on subsequent  visits for any sign of this orchid we’ve never found it again.  Seeing it gone to seed in Paul Bunyan Savanna convinces us to drive on to Badoura SNA to search again.  

We’ve always looked in the tallest stand of jack pines in Badoura SNA, partly  because the ground is more open, making it easier to spot flowers.  This time, though, we wander through a different stand, and to our delight we find tesselated rattlesnake plantain not yet completely done blooming. 

What we don’t expect to find is Hill’s thistle blooming in purple glory. Prickly thistles might not be everyone’s idea of an exciting wildflower find, but Hill’s thistle is uncommon, a species of special concern in Minnesota. We’ve seen Hill’s thistle before growing in dry hill prairies, but while jack pine woodland is listed as an important location for this thistle, we’ve never found it here until today. Farther down the road in another stand we find two more Hill’s thistles in lovely violet bloom.  

We’re glad to see tesselated rattlesnake plantain again (both blooming and gone to seed) but especially glad  to finally find Hill’s thistle in jack pine habitat.   You just never know where you might encounter a wildflower surprise, even in places where you’ve searched before.

Which is only one of the many reasons we love chasing flowers.

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