#flowerchasers – Page 7 – Flower Chasers

Unexpected Wonder

July 8, 2023

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

We’ve been looking for specific flowers blooming in specific places when our two different schedules allow, which only works when the flowers cooperate. This year when bloom times seem less predictable than usual, we’ve come to expect disappointments along with successes, so this past weekend in the absence of flowers to count we started counting disappointments.

Disappointment number 1: The roadside where we’d seen showy milkweed blooming last summer shows no signs this year of showy, or of almost any other, milkweed. Where did they go? We don’t know. We only know they aren’t where we’d seen them before.

Disappointment number 2: The tessellated rattlesnake plantain leaves and last year’s flower stalks that we’d seen in Badoura Jack Pine Woodland Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) last fall are nowhere to be found, even though we scour the area around the GPS coordinates we’d recorded and brought with us.

Disappointment number 3: We are almost at Iron Springs Bog SNA when the low tire pressure light comes on. Do we change plans and drive forty miles to the nearest town large enough to have a tire store, or do we fill the tire up with air and take a chance it will hold while we explore the SNA? We take a chance, inflate the tire, and head to Iron Springs Bog. But we’re barely down the rutted, slippery track into the SNA and beginning our search for an adder’s mouth orchid when the sky darkens, thunder threatens, and lightning crisscrosses the clouds.

We run for the car and make it back up the treacherous track just as rain sluices down so hard we can barely see the road. We make it to town, where we look so forlorn that the manager at Tires Plus works us into his crowded schedule and patches our tire. We find our hotel, and settle in for the night.

The next day is sunny and fresh-washed, and so are we. Back at Iron Springs Bog, we search for an adder’s mouth along with other orchids we’ve seen there. Hours pass without success, but the bog is rich and green after the rain, moss is soft underfoot, and the tall slender bog orchids platanthera aquilonis* and platanthera huronensis* are plentiful. We find one showy lady’s-slipper with a single flower and the leaves of several more plants, their blossoms nipped off by whatever eats these elegant flowers. Just as we are about to drive on we find one more orchid with a few small flowers that we identify as a blunt-leaved orchid. Not seeing any sign of the orchids we came to find might count as disappointment number 4. But on such a splendid morning, do we care? We do not.

Our next stop takes us to Larix Wildlife Management Area (WMA) where we’ve heard we might see some rare flowers. We park at the corner, begin to bushwhack in through the dense undergrowth and trees, and quickly realize how easily we could get very, very lost. Luckily we’ve brought plastic marking tape so we can boldly go where no one seems to have gone in a very long time, marking our way with orange strips tied to trees. When we finally admit that we are only getting into more unpassable bushwhacking we backtrack, taking our orange ties with us. But we agree that not getting lost counterbalances the disappointment of not really getting anywhere at all.

Across the road lies Gully Fen SNA, looking almost as densely impenetrable as the WMA we’ve just left, but we decide to at least drive around the edges. About halfway around we come to a gate and a sign that says, “Stay on the Trail.”

Trail? We park and hike easily and gleefully into the SNA where we spy wood lilies, blue flag, shrubby cinquefoil, and pink shinleaf. We’ve barely scratched the surface of Gully Fen’s 1600 acres before it’s time to start the long drive home, but we promise to come back with much more time to explore this amazing place.

One last turn down a road along the edge of the SNA takes us past a roadside ditch with a small stretch abloom with wood lilies, Joe Pye weed, swamp milkweed, goldenrod, yarrow, Kalm’s lobelia, and, amazingly, many platanthera aquilonis orchids. We’ve looked hard in many places, but this gift of a ditch feels like the richest place we’ve seen all weekend.

Flowers may not bloom when and where we expect them to, disappointments may occur, but always we see unlooked-for wonders that make our hearts happy and grateful.

What more could a flowerchaser want?

*Note: Usually we use common names for flowers, but the similar orchids platanthera aquilonis and platanthera huronensis share so many variations of the same common names (tall, northern, bog, green) that we decided we needed to learn their scientific names to keep them straight.

See more of what we are seeing now HERE!

Surprises

June 17, 2023

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

Because we are in the midst of another book, our wildflower chasing trips this summer have been focused mostly on specific flowers we want to include in the new book. This means heading out to particular places at times we are able to go and hoping the plants we want to see will cooperate by blooming where we can find them. Alas, not always true, but even when we don’t have total flower chasing success, we sometimes find unlooked-for surprises.

This past weekend we headed north with a laundry list of places to stop and plants we need to see, but as we made our way up the north shore we checked off stop after stop without checking off any flowers that we needed.

Then we came to a section of Lake Superior shoreline where we’d been told we might see arctic relicts. We made our way down the rocks, careful of where they dropped off steeply and of the slippery places where, even in this dry year, water seeped toward the lake. In one damp spot, a splendid surprise: Canadian tiger swallowtail butterflies puddling on the rock, flitting down to the moisture, sipping, flying away to return for another drink.

Butterflies weren’t the only surprise. In cracks of the rocks and in places where the water pooled we found common butterwort (so much that we understood how it got its name, since we’ve only ever seen it uncommonly in Minnesota before), bird’s-eye primrose with some flowers still blooming, three-toothed cinquefoil flowering, and round-leaved sundew gleaming redly in the moss. We wandered from tiny habitat to tiny habitat, marveling that high on these rocks a small relict world survived.

Then back to the road and more stops. By the end of the day we had checked off a few finds: western spotted coralroot, small false asphodel, Canada buffaloberry. We’d found several places we hoped to return to again when flowers might be more cooperative. We’d found a sweet little habitat of plants thriving in their own world. And we had spent the day in the presence of Lake Superior.

We counted the day a success.

Canadian tiger swallowtail

See MORE of what we are seeing now!

A Pair of Parks

May 26 and 27, 2023

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

Springtime flowers are well underway in southern Minnesota, so we headed out to see what was blooming farther north, stopping along the way at Banning State Park. The forest floor along the road into Banning was abloom with large-flowered trillium, the first sign that we had turned back the wildflower calendar a week or so. The sun shone, the river ran noisily over rocks as we hiked along the Quarry trail, and a helpful breeze blew away most of the mosquitoes that had attacked us as soon as we got out of the car.

But what are a few (well, a lot) of mosquitoes when there are wildflowers to be seen? We passed mossy, massive rock walls where little spikes of Canada mayflower blossomed, a few yellow large-flowered bellwort dangled, and wood anemone and starflower bloomed in constellations of white. Most of the Virginia spring beauty had already closed for the day, but several still showed their delicate pink and white flowers. And everywhere we looked we saw trillium upon trillium upon trillium stretching away through the trees.

It was hard not to linger, but the day was getting late. On our way out of the park we drove past even more trillium–a trillion of them, we were sure. Clearly spring had headed north. And so did we, to our home for the night in a camper cabin at Jay Cooke State Park.

The next day began briskly, beautiful and chilly. An early morning hike took us across the Saint Louis River footbridge where the water roared quietly around rocks below and foamed into bubbles that sparkled in the sun. Here, too, spring was making an appearance with both large-flowered bellwort and sessile-leaf bellwort, nodding trillium, fly honeysuckle, serviceberry, yellow wood violets, and wild ginger flowers. Among a crowd of trout lily leaves a few flowers still drooped gracefully.

Then we were off for what we thought would be a quick stop at Minnesota Point Pine Forest Scientific and Natural Area (SNA), located across the lift bridge in Duluth on the longest fresh water sand bar in the world. At the end of the road we crossed over to the lake side where waves lapped calmly, American beach grass grew in clumps, and large patches of bearberry spread across the sand. A sand cherry bush alive with pollinating bees smelled sweet, and starry false Solomon’s seal leaves, a few with foamy flowers, grew everywhere. Once in the shade of the SNA’s pines, we decided we’d just walk quickly to the end of the trail where we’d heard that another of Minnesota’s many berries grew. After all, the SNA was only 18 acres. How long could that take?

Long.

Each time that we thought we might be nearing trail’s end, the trail stretched on. Was the SNA one acre wide and eighteen acres long? One-half acre wide and thirty-six acres long? But once headed for trail’s end we were determined, and at last we saw open water and Wisconsin on the other side. We had set off for a quick walk, not bothering to bring water or snacks, and now we were thirsty and hungry. Figuring that the walk back would go more quickly on the packed sand at the edge of the lake, we trudged along wondering which distant landmark might be where we had parked the car. Finally the car came into sight, and we devoured sandwiches and long drinks of water, promising to remember to bring food and water with us every time, no matter how short we thought the hike might be. (We’d promised this before, but this time we promised not to forget the promise.)

Later a look at the map showed that the SNA covers only part of the point’s end–we had unknowingly walked well beyond those eighteen acres to get to the end of the trail. We promised to look more closely at the map next time, but, well, promises, promises….

After a few short stops as we drove along the shore we turned inland to a place where we’d heard uncommon wildflowers grew. We found the place but not the uncommon flowers. Still violets, pussytoes, bilberry, bearberry, and blueberry were in bloom, and a fat bumblebee buzzed from flower to flower. We wandered along this richness of roadside until we came to a mossy, hummocky stretch of forest where Labrador tea grew and more leatherleaf that we’d ever seen bloomed with rows of dangling, bell-shaped white flowers. We would have lingered longer and wandered deeper into the woods, but once again we had miles to go. Supper, beds, and family were all waiting at the end of a splendid wildflower searching day.

Spring had made it north, and so had we.