The MN wildflower blog

Comarum palustre
This evening I went with a group on a nature hike through Tamarack Nature Preserve in Woodbury. The marsh cinquefoil is just starting to bloom there.

Glycyrrhiza lepidota
This photo isn’t special because of some artistic aspect, but because of where it was taken. The plant is a survivor of an area that was devastated by railroad (de)construction (see prior post on the subject [part 2]). All the old rails and ties are still where the RR left them months ago and a few hardy plants have sprouted up around them. If you look closely you can see the rail in the background.

I was very pleased to find this.

Maybe I should subtitle this:

Hope springs eternal

Today I took a walk through an area of Long Lake Regional Park that I don’t get to often–the east side of Rush Lake, between the lake and Old Highway 8, a stretch of nearly a quarter mile. While the west side has some very nice plant life, the east side is loaded with weeds and invasive species: sweet clover, butter and eggs, motherwort, lamb’s-quarters, buckthorn (of course) and a host of others. I got a nice surprise, though. Scattered along the way I came upon Culver’s root, wild bergamot, fringed loosestrife, and surprising amount of clammy groundcherry. None of it in huge quantities, but enough to make me think it wants to be saved. I’d start this new restoration project if I only had the time…

Hope springs eternal, part 2

A few months ago I wrote about The death of a prairie remnant. I’ve visited the site several times since then looking for signs of life. I had some hope at the beginning of June when some groundcherry and wild licorice looked like they might come up after all. I thought about changing that post’s title to “The prairie remnant that refused to die”, but the drought on top of the severe soil disturbance seemed to be more than the poor distressed plants could handle after all. Most just shriveled up after a couple weeks, including the 2 or 3 Nuttall’s evening primrose plants. Today I visited it again and found a wild licorice blooming. Sweet. Maybe some of it will survive after all.

Do you own a field guide? What do you think of it?

This survey is being conducted partly to determine whether a new field guide specifically for Minnesota wildflowers is worth publishing. I think it is, how about you?

You may have to get up pretty early in the morning to see these in full bloom, but it was pretty overcast this morning so I think they stayed open a bit longer than usual.