#minnesotanativewildflowers

Lost and Found

August 14, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

It’s been years since we’ve been to the Lost Forty Scientific and Natural Area (SNA), a parcel of old growth forest that was saved from clearcutting by a surveying mistake that mapped its trees as part of a lake. No one knows exactly how the forest was lost. My favorite theory (it was November in Minnesota and snowing) is that the surveyors said, “Let’s call it a lake and go home. No one will ever know.” However it happened, no one did realize that these were old growth trees, some of them four hundred years or more old, until the forest was “found” again by an observant ranger in the 1950s.

By mid-August in the flower-chasing season most forest wildflowers have long finished blooming, so we decided to leave our gear behind and just enjoy an unencumbered hike through the Lost Forty tall pines. We hoped to check on an orchid we’d seen there years before, one with two large roundish basal leaves and a flower stalk in bud. Maybe this time there would be enough flower to identify the orchid.

Only two of Minnesota’s orchids have two large round basal leaves–large round-leaved orchid (Platanthera orbiculata) and Hooker’s orchid (Platanthera hookeri). Both grow in pine forests, often in wet places. Although large round-leaved orchid can grow taller than Hooker’s, the heights of the two orchids overlap. And while Hooker’s orchid blooms in June and July, and large round-leaved orchid blooms in July and August, there’s a good month when they might both be blooming. The telltale difference, at least for non-botanist folks like us, is the flower. Round-leaved orchid flowers have a straight lower petal, while the lower petal of Hooker’s orchid curves up in a hook. Large round-leaved or Hooker’s–without a flower we couldn’t tell for sure.

As we hiked the trail, we passed an old-growth pine that Kelly had photographed years ago with me wrapping my arms as far around the trunk as I could–which wasn’t very far. The tree is still there, (and we are still here), so Kelly snapped another picture with her cell phone.

We followed the trail to where it ended at Moose Brook with no sign of orchid leaves, stalk, or flowers. Maybe the orchid was taking a year off underground, which orchids sometimes do. Maybe someone had accidentally stepped on the orchid, which had been growing on the edge of the trail. Maybe it hadn’t been the only orchid of its kind, and we would find another one somewhere nearby.

And as we walked back up the trail what did we find but two Hooker’s orchids growing among bearberries, both with flowers well past prime but still with the telltale hook in the lower petal. Hearty, happy, Hookerish hoots and hollers hurriedly happened.

“Can you believe we saw Hooker’s?” we kept repeating as we drove to another site we had visited six weeks earlier and where I had lost a boot. How does a person lose one boot, you might ask. Best guess: I was scrambling to get out of wet clothes at the side of the road after a downpour and knocked the boot out of the car without noticing it was missing until I got home.

The place I thought I had lost the boot was a few miles farther down the road from another site we love to visit. Why not stop there first on the chance we might see some orchids, then go boot hunting? But at the turnoff to the site (a completely overgrown dirt track) what did we see when we pulled off the road?

My boot, sitting upright in the middle of the turnoff as though it was watching for us or maybe hoping to thumb a ride. The boot seemed in fine condition–nothing chewed on, no unwanted tenants. “Can you believe it?” we asked ourselves again and again. “A Hooker’s orchid AND my boot.” Photographic documentation ensued.

The next day before heading home we spent some hours looking for a bog adder’s mouth orchid we’d seen once but hadn’t ever been able to locate again. At the coordinates where we’d once found the orchid was a fallen tree. Obviously, we decided, we couldn’t find the orchid because a tree had fallen on it. Which is our default whenever we can’t find something where we think it should be. It’s amazing how many flowers have trees fallen on them.

When we go flower chasing we are never sure what we might find (or lose or even lose and find again). But what’s against time spent hiking under tall trees or searching through a mossy forested wetland? We might find a Hooker’s orchid. We might find a lost boot.

We might even find both.

Postscript: We still hope to someday find the orchid we once saw in leaf and bud at the Lost Forty. Neither Hooker’s nor large round-leaved orchid is listed as growing at the Lost Forty, so those leaves and stalk could have been either one. Maybe someday we’ll find out. Maybe not. It’s nice to think that there might still be a mystery orchid lurking somewhere under tall pines.

The Unexpected Orchid

July 24, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

For some wildflower chases that we go on we might not know exactly what we’ll find, or whether the flowers (if we do find them) will be freshly blooming. For other wildflowers chases we go with coordinates that we’ve researched, information from friends, a fairly precise idea of where we might find what we’re looking for.

Either way, we know that wildflowers don’t keep an exact calendar. What we see at a certain time one year may not be blooming yet the following year or may have already gone to seed. We know, too, that the flowers we do find may not always be in prime condition for a beauty shot photo. Still, we go for the flowers whenever we can.

Last weekend we set out to find three flowers we’ve been yearning to see this year: tesselated rattlesnake plantain, round-leaved pyrola, and tall white bog orchid. We knew the tesselated rattlesnake plantain would be past prime and that the round-leaved pyrola would already be gone to seed, but we hoped for tall white bog orchid in full flowering glory.

Our first stop was down a narrow one-lane sandy road to a place where we’d once seen tesselated rattlesnake plantain leaves. The day was overcast, and the pine trees made a sound like rain that never reaches the ground. No sooner were we out of the car than we saw the white spires of two northern (very) slender ladies’-tresses with their wispy spiraling flowers already going to seed. We’d seen northern slender ladies-tresses only once before, so jubilation ensued to see them again in this new-to-us location. We also found plenty of tesselated rattlesnake plantain, mostly heading to seed but still happily growing.

Next stop: Badoura Jack Pine Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) where we were on the hunt for round-leaved pyrola, the last of the state’s seven pyrola/shinleaf that we had yet to positively identify. We’d found the coordinates in an online search in the University of Minnesota Herbarium records, and we followed them down a sandy track to where we planned to veer off into the trees. Jack pine woodland often has an open understory, but as we peered into the woods it was clear that some serious bushwhacking would be required. We can bushwhack with the best of them, but the day had turned hot and humid, and our enthusiasm for bushwhacking was at an ebb. Besides, we had not brought along our colored plastic ties, for us a bushwhacking essential.

Perhaps we could come at the coordinates from a different direction by taking a trail we had passed earlier and then heading into the woods. We backtracked to the trail and hiked past tesselated rattlesnake plantain, pipsissewa, and Hill’s thistle. But when we reached the place where we needed to turn into the woods again, bushes and undergrowth still blocked our way.

Surely, we reasoned, if round-leaved pyrola grew somewhere deep in bushwhack territory, what’s to say it didn’t grow elsewhere, too, in this part of the jack pine forest? We’d scoured the trail as we hiked, but now as we retraced our steps we looked more closely in open areas alongside the trail. Which is where, down in the pine needles and grasses, we found several stems of seed pods and the long-stalked shiny leaves of round-leaved pyrola. All seven pyrola/shinleaf seen and identified in one year–check!

Our last stop of the day was Iron Springs Bog SNA where, just at the coordinates where we’d once before seen tall white bog orchid long past prime, two tall white spires bloomed beautifully, almost as though they were waiting for Kelly to take their picture.

Our targeted searches had paid off, but we also had the thrill of an unlooked-for flower find. We might set out with maps, coordinates, helpful hints–and then, just beyond the car door, we might find two unexpected northern slender ladies’-tresses growing.

Which is one of the reasons we do what we do: for the surprise of delight.

See more of what we are SEEING NOW…

Pinesap, Pyrola, Perspiration

July 11-12, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

We’ve been on a search for all seven of Minnesota’s pyrola and so far have seen five of them (possibly six). The seventh, small shinleaf (Pyrola minor) is a species of special concern in Minnesota, which along with its small size and limited range makes it hard to track down.

Luckily we have a friend who delights in finding wildflowers, rare and otherwise, and who is generous in sharing their locations. When we told him we were still on the hunt for small shinleaf, he offered to show us a patch he had found. So we drove up to meet him in Grand Marais, where the breeze off the lake was a welcome coolness (this was pre-wildfire smoke). He warned us, though, that inland was hotter and muggier, and inland is where we were headed.

On our way to see the small shinleaf we stopped at Pincushion Mountain lookout, where our friend had seen pinesap. We’d seen pinesap once before about a mile along the trail to Bear and Bean Lake. Did we write down the coordinates to help us find it again? We did not. Besides, in our memories it was far gone to seed. So a quick walk along a short trail to see pinesap in better condition sounded just right.

But pinesap keeps its own schedule. Because it lacks chlorophyll and doesn’t need sunlight to produce food, it also doesn’t need to show itself above ground every year. Apparently this was one of those years.

Our friend offered to send us coordinates for another location not too far off our route home, and we headed on for the main event, finding small shinleaf.

If our first stop was a short walk down a trail, our hike to see small shinleaf was the opposite—a long bushwhack over uneven terrain through forest with alder thickets, waist-high patches of bracken fern, downed trees, and logs hidden underfoot. Did we mention the uneven hillside? Before long we were drenched in sweat, but we trusted our friend and slogged on after him, resisting the urge to ask, “Are we there yet?” (I could hear Kelly, though, behind me thinking it. Loudly.)

Finally he told us, “This looks like the place.”

And sure enough scattered on the forest floor were single upright stems with small white flowers, mostly done blooming but with a few flowers still open. Two other white-flowered shinleaf look similar, but not only are small shinleaf’s flowers arranged differently around the stem but it also has shorter styles (the slender stalk in the middle of the flower) while the flowers of the other two shinleaf are larger and have longer, curved styles like elephant trunks.

Kelly took photos, careful not to let sweat drip on her camera. I wrote down GPS coordinates, and Kelly asked me “Why?” There is a remote chance we would ever want to find this location again, (but not in hot and muggy weather without carrying a week’s worth of food and water and possibly a small battery operated fan). Then we headed back for the road by a shorter route with less bushwhacking and only one little creek to leap. We emerged from the woods soaked with perspiration, glad to see our cars not far down the road.

After many gulps of water and many thanks to our friend, we drove off in air conditioned comfort to check on a ditch we’d seen two years earlier full of lesser purple fringed orchid. Last year when we’d checked on the ditch, we found not a single sign of a single orchid. Were they gone? Taking a year off underground? Just not up yet? This year, because we were looking about a week later into summer, our hopes were high.

So were the orchids, about thirty of them growing out of the ditch, some in bud, some partly blooming. With happy hearts we drove on to spend the night with generous friends at their home on Lake Superior.

Now that we’d seen small shinleaf, we only needed to see round-leaved pyrola to complete the set. We thought we might have seen it last year along Woods Creek trail, although it might have been green-flowered pyrola, which looks similar but has duller leaves than round-leaved pyrola. On Sunday we set out to re-hike Woods Creek trail to check on which pyrola we had seen.

The day was hot and sunny. The creek babbled along below us, and we were grateful for occasional breezes that cooled us off. We saw plenty of pyrola—one-sided, pink, one-flowered— but when we came to the plants we’d been uncertain about, we knew enough now to identify them as dull-leaved green pyrola. So we are still on the hunt for pyrola number seven.

On the way home we detoured from the highway to follow our friend’s coordinates down narrower and narrower winding dirt roads until we came to the place he had sent us. And there, just where our friend had said, we found pinesap— a few stalks going to seed and one plant fighting its way up out of matted leaves, its stalks and flowers still ghostly white.

Epilogue: When we got home Kelly checked the picture she had taken of pinesap on the Bear and Bean Lake trail and realized that that pinesap had been in better and more colorful condition than the pinesap we’d seen along the road. And even though we had seen pinesap before, in a weekend that began and ended with a search for pinesap, with plenty of pyrola in between, it’s good to know that, under trees and down roads in the back of beyond, more pinesap makes at least an occasional appearance. To know, too, that somewhere in forests we may never hike again we have seen small shinleaf, thanks to our wildflower-wise friend.