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I haven’t been very active on the blog this year, not because I haven’t been out and about, but more like I’ve been out and about too much. Even though I have added a few dozen wildflowers species to the photo collection, it seems I’ve spent more time this year on other activities. Invasive species, in particular. (more…)
Maybe I should subtitle this:
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…
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.
Today’s outing was a quest for yellow iris at Long Lake Regional Park. It’s a relatively new invasive species I first found growing there a couple years ago. I volunteered to hunt down all the spots it’s growing for the Ramsey County Cooperative Weed Management Area.
I recorded about 30 spots with 1 or more iris leaf clumps along the west shore of the lake, 12 of which are blooming. Only 2 have been confirmed as blueflag. That’s 10 confirmed clumps of yellow iris. It’s already worse than I thought, and most of the plants aren’t even blooming yet. 
I spent a couple hours at Long Lake Regional Park today. On the prairie, the prairie smoke and pussytoes are starting to go to seed, though there are still plenty of blooms left. The blue-eyed grass is blooming now, as is American vetch, lupine and Carolina puccoon. Bastard toadflax and golden alexanders are finally opening up—I saw the first buds on them weeks ago.
In the woods by Rush Lake, the giant colony of European lily-of-the-valley is in full bloom. When I went into the thick of it to take some pictures I thought I would pass out from the scent, it was so strong. Also blooming in the woods now are cream pea, starflower and drooping trillium. Last year I only saw a handful of trillium scattered about, but this year I found a clump of about a dozen flowering plants, plus the scattered loners. I was worried it was dying out, but now I’m not so concerned.
I spent the day at Wild River State Park, my first trip there this year. My duties in the Prairie Care program had me checking on pussytoes and sandwort. It looks like it will be a good year for pussytoes, but it’s too early to tell on the sandwort.
The large-flowered trilliums are blooming in droves now—there’s millions of them. Also blooming are nodding trillium, early meadow-rue, jack-in-the-pulpit, kittentails, large-flowered and sessile bellworts, prairie buttercup, miterwort, and a variety of violets: bird-foot, prairie, downy yellow, dog, and common blue. Yellow lady’s slipper is starting to bloom, but isn’t quite there yet.
We spent a couple hours in the afternoon spreading seed on a newly-burned part of the prairie. It was a blustery day and the wind did a good job of dispersing the seed. Even so, I had a bunch stuck to my clothes when I got home, enough to plant myself. We’ll see what sprouts.
I spent a good part of the day at Battle Creek Regional Park, partly on a field trip organized with the Native Plant Society. We recorded about 75 plant species for the Ramsey County Plant Survey.
The timing of the trip was perfect – kittentails look to be at peak now. Also blooming somewhere in the park are large-flowered bellwort, hoary puccoon, jack-in-the-pulpit, pussytoes, rock cress, rue anemone, wood anemone, blue and downy yellow violets, wild plum and gooseberries. Just starting to bloom are columbine, wild sarsaparilla, wild blue phlox, and starry false solomon’s seal. Bloodroot and skunk cabbage are done for this season.
The garlic mustard is coming up in force, too.
Yesterday evening the Native Plant Society, in conjunction with Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR), had a field trip to the Sand Coulee SNA, just south of Hastings. The restoration work done there by the FMR and DNR is pretty impressive. Even though it’s still early in the season, there was plenty to see.
In bloom now are pussytoes, prairie smoke, birds-foot and prairie violets, blue-eyed grass, sand cherry, and the uncommon Carolina anemone and prairie plum. Soon to be blooming are Carolina puccoon, bastard toadflax and prairie ragwort.
In another month this place will be pretty spectacular.
The SNA is also a great place for bird watching.
Yesterday I took a stroll around Rice Creek Trail North. I found a couple big colonies of field pussytoes blooming. At both sites, budding next to the pussytoes is what looks like bastard toadflax. Wood betony is budding, too, and should be blooming in another week or so.
At Long Lake Park I found the first wood anemone blooming. Small white violet is also blooming and little-leaf buttercup is in full bloom in sunnier spots, but isn’t even budding in the wooded areas yet. I saw a couple buds on one red columbine plant but it looks like most won’t be blooming for at least another week.
On the bad side, hoary alyssum is blooming now, too.
Marsh marigold, rue anemone and small white violet are starting to bloom at Sucker Lake, but not much else. I wandered around a part of the woods I hadn’t been to before and came across a patch of what looks like shinleaf. I’ll definitely have to visit there again in mid-June, when it should be blooming.
The Native Plant Society had a field trip to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden today. There are quite a few plants blooming there now, and even more should blossom next week. We were supposed to tour the woods, wetland and prairie, but we didn’t even get through the woods before we ran out of time. Native species seen blooming there are: sharp-lobed hepatica, cut-leaf toothwort, yellow and white trout lilies, Canada white violet, wild ginger, bloodroot, skunk cabbage, marsh marigold, and snow trillium.
I took a couple hours off yesterday to take advantage of the good weather and trekked around part of Battle Creek Park, mostly to get photos of skunk cabbage while I still could, and to see how far along the kittentails were.
Not much is blooming yet. Lots of bloodroot scattered around the woods, and wild ginger is just starting to flower. The kittentails are budding, but not yet in bloom.
This afternoon I took a quick look around the prairie at Long Lake Regional Park and found the prairie smoke already blooming. Pussytoes aren’t quite there yet, but should be blooming next week. The stalks are only about an inch or so tall now, but there are buds on them.
