A Little Prairie Flower Power

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. –Luther Burbank

If you need light for dark days––

Try a little prairie flower power.

Discover a joyous chorus of bee balm….

…and blazing stars that pack a purple punch. Sock it to me!

Drink in a little pink…

 

…then soak up the colors of  July in the tallgrass.

Feel the buzz yet?

Braving the heat and humidity of the prairie in late July is a tall order.

But doing so offers rare surprises.

Slow down; sit for a while. Look around you.

Let the prairie flowers be “food, sunshine, and medicine” today for your soul.

Was Burbank right– Do you feel a little happier?

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The opening quote–– is by Luther Burbank (1849-1926), an American botanist who developed more than 800 different kinds of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Said Burbank, “What a joy life is when you have made a close working partnership with Nature, helping her to produce for the benefit of mankind new forms, colors, and perfumes in flowers which were never known before… .”

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All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom):  full thunder moon over author’s backyard prairie, Glen Ellyn, IL; gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; blazing star (Liatris) and rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) , Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL;  gaura (Gaura biennis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL;  swamp milkweed (Asclepis incarnata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; sweep of flowers and grasses at Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; false sunflower  (Heliopsis helianthoides), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Kankakee mallow (Iliamna remota), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; log bench, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: false sunflower at the prairie’s edge (Heliopsis helianthoides), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL. 

Exploring a Prairie Stream

It’s hot. Pull on your hip boots and wade into Clear Creek with me. Let’s see what morning brings to a prairie stream.

It’s 9 a.m., but the dewdrops still spangle the grasses.

In the shallows, a flower opens, half submerged.

 

A spider hangs her web out to dry.

The dragonflies and damselflies are half hidden along the shoreline,  shivering off the cool of the early hours.

 

Springwater dancer damselflies, colored an impossible blue hue, soak up the morning light.

Nearby, a eastern tiger swallowtail turns to stained glass as she sips nectar in the sunshine.

 

In the marshy areas, a blue dasher–slightly befuddled–balances on a twig, trying to wake up. Must not have had his coffee yet.

An eastern pondhawk camouflages herself in the grasses as she considers her plans for the day.

 

A Halloween pennant uses his wings as solar panels, ready to let the light lift him aloft.

 

Everywhere you turn, there is something ordinary that seems extraordinary when covered in dew.

 

And you realize what you would have missed…

…had you not gone wading in a prairie stream.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): dewdrops on grasses, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; flower opening in the stream, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL;  spider web across Clear Creek, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; ebony jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; springwater dancer damselfly (Argia plana), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; blue dasher dragonfly (male) (Pachydiplax longipennis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; eastern pondhawk dragonfly (female) (Erythemis simplicicollis), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Halloween pennant dragonfly (Celithemis eponina), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; dewdrops on grasses, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; Clear Creek, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL. 

Prairie Peace for Troubled Times

It’s a scary world out there, as this past week has shown.

If you need a lift for your spirits…

 

…a reminder that the world is beautiful, as well as broken, if we have eyes to see.

 

A promise that the future can be unexpectedly joy-filled,

And that there is hope for change.

 

Come take a walk with me in the tallgrass.

 

For a few moments, rest  your mind from all the violence and ugliness.

 

 

Think about the color and life that even now, is all around you if you look for it.

Some of it loud, pink, and glorious.

Some of it quiet and nuanced.

 

Do a little soul restoration,

 

while contemplating prairie restoration.

 

Better yet, when  you’re done reading this–

 

 

Go for a walk on the prairie, and let your spirit soak up the quiet of the natural world.

 

Whatever frame of mind these words and images  find you in…

I wish you a moment of quiet reflection. A rest from the chaos.

Peace.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): compass plant buds broken by a weevil (Silphium laciniatum and Haplorhynchites aeneus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; ; Halloween pennant (Celithemis eponina), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; American bullfrog in Willoway Brook (Lithobates catesbeianus) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bison calf (Bison bison) on the July prairie, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; the Schulenberg Prairie in July, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; chicory (Cichorium intybus) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  compass plant (Silphium lanciniatum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra) East Side prairie planting, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) and a bee (species unknown) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  Michigan lily (Lilium michiganense), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; flowering spurge (Euphorbia corollata), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  prairie parsley (Polytaenia nuttallii) going to seed, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  bison herd (Bison bison), Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; bottle brush grass (Elymus hystrix), savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Deep Prairie Purple

During Fourth of July week, the only fireworks aren’t just in the sky. There are explosions of color as the prairie pours out purple.

The tallgrass sends up blooms of pale purple coneflowers…

Twirls and swirls of color.

Soft, fuzzy, antennae-like purple, deep in the stamens of moth mullein.

Firecrackers of  deep purple lead plant, with orange embers.

Bees buzzing ’round satellite spinners of purple prairie clover.

Lilac bee balm exploding into floral fireworks.

Tick trefoil and germander dot the tallgrass with occasional ooohs! and aaahs! of  lavender.

 

Violet dancer damselflies send purple aloft, darting here and there in surprising directions; then come to rest in the morning sunshine.

Vervain spikes light purple sparklers along the paths.

Unlike the noisy fireworks on July Fourth, these purple fireworks explode against a soundtrack of birdsong and wind. A bit of a rest after all that night time noise, isn’t it?

 

Why not see for yourself? Go for a hike today — enjoy the quiet, and the magic of the color purple.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): mother bison and baby bison (Bison bison)  Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL; the prairie in July, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; moth mullein (Verbascum blatteria), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.; lead plant (Amorpha canescens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.; purple prairie clover  (Dale purpurea) and a bee, Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.; monarda  or wild bergamot, (Monarda fistulosa) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; Illinois tick trefoil (Desmodium Illinoense) and germander (Teucrium canadense), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.; violet dancer damselfly (Argia fumipennis violacea), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.; hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL;  prairie in July, Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.