Finding Joy on the Prairie

“…It is time for a different, formal defense of nature. We should offer up not just the notion of being sensible and responsible about it, which is sustainable development, nor the notion of its mammoth utilitarian and financial value, which is its ecosystem services, but a third way, something different entirely: we should offer up what it means to our spirits; the love of it. We should offer up its joy.” –– Michael McCarthy

*****

May draws to a close. June bugs beat against the porch lights in the evening. An almost “Full Flower Moon” rises on Memorial Day, not quite technically “fully-full” but looking complete.

The sun intensifies its gaze after dawn. It’s hot.  In my backyard, the garden blazes into bloom. Giant allium attracts some tiny pollinators.

The poppies open their crinkled blooms. Just in time for Memorial Day week.

Their knock-out color is only matched by the screaming scarlet of the prairie’s Indian paintbrush. The hummingbirds rejoice to see so much red!

Speaking of scarlet, the red-winged blackbirds, wearing their red and yellow epaulettes, sing territorial warnings. Get too close to a nest, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.

The prairie puts away its spring wardrobe in exchange for summer. Goodbye to the smooth wild blue phlox along the shaded prairie edges.

Hello, shaggy little fleabane!

The asparagus-like spears of white wild indigo unfurl their leaves. Soon their white flower spikes will turn heads on the prairie. For now, they bide their time.

Golden Alexanders begin to fade in the suddenly intense heat. The ants frantically work the blooms, knowing their time with this flower is getting shorter.

The sedges humbly make their presence known, mostly overlooked by people wowed by all the new prairie blooms.

It’s the annual transition from spring to summer. So much joy! So much anticipation. What will happen next, here on the prairie?

I can’t wait to find out.

*****

The opening quote is from Michael McCarthy’s (1947-) “The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy.” By turns it is poignant memoir, elegy, and a passionate call to fall in love with the natural world.

All photographs copyright Cindy Crosby: May’s “Full Flower Moon,” about 12 hours before it is “fully full;” giant allium (Allium giganteum), author’s backyard garden, Glen Ellyn, IL; oriental poppy (Papaver orientale), author’s backyard garden, Glen Ellyn, IL; Indian paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea), DuPage County, IL; Indian paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea), DuPage County, IL; red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; marsh fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; white wild indigo (Baptisia alba macrophylla), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; common wood sedge (Carex blanda), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.  Thanks to Sherry Rediger and Andrew Hipp for helping make this blog post possible this week.

The Fault in Our (Shooting) Stars

“Cherish your science but understand it as a finite guide to the immensities of time and space…Look far. Dance with the world rather than try to explain it away. Consider the boat, not just the planks. Seize knowledge. Ask hard questions. But know, too, that your intellect is a small window and that its views can be surprisingly incomplete. Feel deeply.” — William J. Broad.

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What a week it is shaping up to be on the tallgrass prairie! Rain and cool weather are bringing out the blooms. Small white lady’s slippers are in their full splendor. Like tiny white boats floating in a sea of grass.

The first bright pops of hoary puccoon show up along the trail.

Nearby, another pop of orange. An immature female eastern forktail damselfly. So common—and yet so welcome right now.  Emergence of dragonflies and damselflies has been slow this spring, due to the cool, wet weather.

Cream wild indigo doesn’t mind the cool conditions. It jumps right into its opening act.

The wild hyacinths add their delicate scent and good looks in washes of lavender across the prairie.

So many beautiful prairie wildflowers blooming this week, you hardly know which way to look. And oh, the juxtapositions! This blue-eyed grass is swirled into an embrace by wood betony.

While nearby, a butterfly conducts surveillance runs across the low grasses and forbs.

But the literal star of the prairie stage this week is Dodecatheon meadia. The shooting star.

 

Its pink clouds of flowers are so unusual. Look at that bloom shape!

Now, think “tomato blossom.” Or the blooms of eggplants and potatoes. Similar, no?

Shooting star is a tease. She beckons bumblebees with her good looks. They zip by, then pause, perhaps shocked by all that floral abundance. Buzz in for a closer look.

What the bumblebees don’t know right away is this: Shooting star has no nectar reward. The only “fault” in this star to speak of! Nonetheless, you can see this bumblebee in the photo below stick out its tongue. Looking for nectar? Grooming itself? Or perhaps letting me know it is time to quit taking photos?

As the bumblebee clings to the underside of the bloom, it vibrates its strong wing muscles. They emit a high-pitched buzz. This causes the pollen to be shaken out of the anthers onto the underside of the bee. The process is known as “buzz pollination” or “sonication.” Honeybees can’t do it. Their muscles aren’t strong enough.  Which emphasizes the need for native bee conservation, doesn’t it?

Can you see the pollen in the photo below? Like yellow dust.

As the bumblebee moves on, it carries some of the pollen with it, cross-pollinating other shooting star flowers as it visits each one. Bumblebees also eat pollen, and feed to their bumblebee young.  Click on  this great video for more info that’s been helpful to me in understanding the process.

Watch the shooting stars. Listen to what they have to tell us.  They are another reason to care about the natural world and all its creatures.

Then pause.

“Dance with the world rather than try and explain it.”

Make a wish.

*****

The opening quote from William J. Broad’s The Oracle was taken from Flora of the Chicago Region by Gerould Wilhelm and Laura Rericha.

All photos and video this week are from The Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: (top to bottom) small white lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium candidum);  hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens); common eastern forktail damselfly (Ischnura verticalis), female; cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata) and bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata); cream indigo (Baptisia bracteata) with bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata) in the background; wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides) blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium albidum) with wood betony (Pedicularis candadensis); possibly American snout butterfly (Libytheana carinenta) although the “snout” isn’t clear;  constellation of shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) with bumblebee performing buzz pollination (note the tongue sticking out!); shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) with bumblebee (unknown species) vibrating out the pollen; shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) close up; video of shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia) waving in the breeze. 

10 Reasons to Hike the Prairie This Week

“The pleasure of a walk in the woods and the fields is enhanced a hundredfold by some little knowledge of the flowers which we meet at every turn.”–Mrs. William Starr Dana

*****

Buckets of rain have doused the prairie to life in the Chicago region. Color it technicolor green. Even under cloudy skies.

In the neighboring savanna, oaks leaf out and invite exploration to see what’s emerging. They seem to say: “Go deeper in.”

So much new life all around us! Still need a push to get outside? Here are 10 reasons to hike the prairie this week.

10. Pasque flowers are going to seed, as marvelous in this new stage as they were in bloom. Maybe even more beautiful.

9. Prairie violets are out in profusion.  Not your ordinary lawn violet. These are something special.

8. Bastard toadflax spangles the landscape with white. The name alone is worth going to see it!

7. Wood betony is spiraling into bloom. Looks like a carnival has come to the prairie, doesn’t it?

6. There’s nothing quite like the smell of wild hyacinth opening in the rain. Breathe deep. Mmmm.

5. New Jersey tea—a prairie shrub—spears its way through the soil and bursts into leaf.

4. Common valerian is in full bloom this week. Such a strange little wildflower! Supposedly, it smells like dirty socks, but I’ve never gotten a whiff of any unpleasant fragrance.

3. Jacob’s ladder covers whole patches of the prairie, adding its bright baby blues.

2. Wild coffee is about to flower. Its other quirky nicknames, “tinker’s weed” and “late horse gentian” are as odd as the plant’s unusual leaves, blooms, and later, bright orange fruits.

 

1. Shooting star blankets the prairie in low-lying, pale-pink clouds. You don’t want to miss these wildflowers!  Like their name implies, they’ll be gone before you know it.

Ten very different reasons to take a hike. But I could find a hundred reasons (and not just the wildflowers) to put on a rain jacket, get out of the house, and go for a  walk on the spring prairie this week.

What about you?

***

The opening quote for this post is from How to Know the Wild Flowers (1893) by naturalist Francis Theodora Parsons, aka “Mrs. William Starr Dana” (1861-1952), a book I have long coveted and which my wonderful husband gave me for Mother’s Day.  Parsons was educated at a school taught by Anna Botsford Comstock, who is noteworthy for her role in establishing the Nature Study Movement and especially, empowering women to explore the natural world. Parsons’ life was marred by several tragedies. After the loss of her first husband, Parsons went walking with her friend, the illustrator Marion Satterlee, for comfort. From those walks, the book came about. My 1989 edition has 100 lovely black and white drawings from Satterlee, plus 25 rich color illustrations from paintings by the artist Manabu C. Saito.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby from the Schulenberg Prairie and Savanna, The Morton Arboretum (top to bottom): Rainy May day on the prairie; oaks (Quercus spp.) leafing out; pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens) going to seed; prairie violet (Viola pedatifida); bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata); wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis) in bloom; wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides) in bloom; New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus) in two different stages; common valerian (Valeriana edulis var. ciliata); Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium reptans); wild coffee from afar and close up, sometimes called tinker’s weed or late horse gentian (Triosteum perfoliatum);  shooting star  (Dodecatheon meadia).

Prairie by the Numbers

“It was, at last, the time of the flowers.” — Paul Gruchow

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Oh, what a difference a little rain makes!

Spring has arrived in the Chicago region—at last, at last! The savannas and prairies are awash in color and motion. Warblers and butterflies everywhere you look…

…garter snakes sashaying out in the bright light to sun themselves…

…and of course the wildflowers, in all their amazing complexity.

My Tuesday morning prairie team is busy updating our plant inventory, a daunting task that has run into its second season. This spring, we are looking for a hundred or so plants out of the 500 from the inventory that we couldn’t find in 2017. The last complete prairie inventory was wrapped up in 2005, so we need a check-in on what’s still here, and what has disappeared or moved into the prairie. Knowing the plants we have will help us make better decisions on how to care for the site.

This is a high-quality planted 100-acre prairie, wetland, and savanna, which is almost in its sixth decade. Some call it the fourth oldest planted prairie in North America! So we feel the heavy weight of responsibility to get our numbers right.

Its a prairie with some beautiful blooms—and some quirky ones as well. This week, our “oohs” and “ahhs” are for common valerian (Valeriana edulis var. ciliata), a high-quality—and despite its name—uncommon prairie plant. Flora of the Chicago Region gives it the highest possible plant score — a perfect “C” value of “10.”

We’ve been hot on the trail of three more common but elusive plants that we’d missed in the spring of 2017: skunk cabbage, marsh marigold, and rue anemone.  Some adventurous members of the team discovered the skunk cabbage in April, poking through the muck in a deep gully. Now, two weeks later, it is much easier to see.

The marsh marigold listed on our 2005 inventory, a beautiful spring native wildflower…

…turned out to be a single plant, hiding among some fig buttercup (Ficaria verna) a pernicious, non-native invasive wetland species. We’ll remove the fig buttercup so it doesn’t spread across the waterway.

The missing rue anemone went from invisible to visible last week after storms moved through the area and greened up the savanna. Such a delicate wildflower!  Easy to miss unless you find a large colony.

Looking for specific plants as we’re doing now results in some serendipity. Our plant inventory team found harbinger of spring for the first time in our site’s history while looking for the marsh marigold. A new species for our site —and so tiny! Who knows how long we’ve overlooked it here.

In addition to the inventory, most of us are weeding garlic mustard, a persistent invasive plant that infests disturbed areas around the prairie. One of the perks of weeding is we make other discoveries, such as wild ginger blooms. You might flip hundreds of wild ginger plant leaves over before you find the first flower. Pretty good occupation for a warm and windy afternoon, isn’t it?

The rains also prompted large-flowered trillium to open. These won’t last long.

Look closely below behind the trillium and you’ll see the white trout lily gone to seed. All around, blooms are throwing themselves into bud, bloom, and seed production. Sometimes, seemingly overnight.

Updating a plant inventory plus a little judicious garlic mustard weeding will teach you how little you know about what is happening in your little corner of the plant world. I see plants that look familiar, but their name eludes me. It takes numerous trips through my favorite plant ID guides to get reacquainted. I also look in vain for old favorites which seem to have disappeared. (Where, oh where, is our birdfoot violet?)

Spring keeps you on your toes. It reminds you to be amazed. It constantly astonishes you with its sleight of hand; prolifically giving new species and flagrantly taking them away. And as always, there are a few surprises.

Ah. The “elusive, rare” red tulip! Where did that come from? Huh.

Just when you think you know a flower, it turns up a a little different color, or gives you a new perspective on its life cycle. To see the wood betony at this stage always throws those new to the prairie for a loop. Almost ferny, isn’t it?

Barely a hint now of what it will be when it grows up. Same for the prairie dock, tiny fuzzy leaves lifting above the ashes of the burn.

Or the hepatica, most of its petal-like sepals gone, but the green bracts now visible. Looks like a different plant than when it was in full bloom.

Pasque flower is now past bloom. As stewards, we turn our thoughts toward the first seed collection of the season and propagation for the next year. If a species is gone, or seems to be dwindling, we’ll consider replanting to maintain the diversity of the prairie.

We tally up the numbers, check off plant species. Update scientific names which have changed. But no matter how the spreadsheets read, we know one thing for certain.

What a glorious time of year it is! Spring on the prairie is worth the wait.

*****

The opening quote is from Journal of a Prairie Year by Minnesota writer Paul Gruchow (1947-2004). Worth re-reading every spring.

***

Unless noted, all photos copyright Cindy Crosby, taken at the Schulenberg Prairie and Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL (top to bottom): thunderhead moving in over the author’s backyard prairie patch, Glen Ellyn, IL;  red admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) sunning itself on the prairie; Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria); gravel two-track greening up in the rain; common valerian (Valeriana edulis var. ciliata); skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus); marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), author’s backyard pond, Glen Ellyn, IL; rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides); harbinger of spring (Erigenia bulbosa); wild ginger (Asarum canadense reflexum); large-flowered white trillium (Trillium grandiflora); prairie trillium (Trillium recurvatum recurvatum); red tulip (Tulipa unknown species); wood betony (Pendicularis canadensus); prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) emerging; hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba); pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens) fading.

Wonders on the Prairie’s Edge

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

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If you want to get to know a flower, sit with it for an hour. Put down your camera and break out a sketchpad. I reminded myself of this truism as I marveled at the bloodroot in bloom this week. There is a large colony, right on the edges of the prairie proper. Before the prairie becomes a riot of wildflowers later in the spring, there is a chance to really focus on single species.

Little on the prairie is in flower right now, other than the pasque flowers beginning to fade, in their dreamy sort of way of saying goodbye…

…and the wood betony crinkling into the promise of bloom—soon!

Meanwhile, bloodroot is throwing a party on the prairie edges. In one sunny patch, I counted more than 500 blooms. I’ve always thought the best way to really get to know a plant is to sit with it for a while. So, I found a little bare patch in the colony and settled in for an hour with my sketchpad.

When you draw a plant –regardless of your artistic skill–you see it with new eyes.

As I sketched, I thought about some reading I did about bloodroot recently in preparation for teaching my spring wildflower classes. I ran across a scholarly, yet charming, article for the Virginia Native Plant Society from W. John Hayden at University of Richmond. The bloodroot’s life strategy, Hayden says, is “Hurry, wait, and hedge against uncertain fate.”

Because bloodroot blooms so early in the spring, Hayden tells us, it has some fascinating ways to ensure pollination. Flowering so early is risky. Bloodroot flowers close during cold, drizzly spring weather and also at night, making it tough for insects (mostly bees) to pollinate the plant.

So bloodroot hedges its bets. The third day a flower is open, Hayden says, the stamens of the flower bend inward, bringing the anthers and pollen into direct contact with the stigma. In other words, if all else fails, the flower can pollinate itself and seeds will be produced.  I looked closely at a few older bloodroot blooms, and saw what Hayden was talking about.

Pollinators were busier on this sunny day than jets over Chicago O’Hare International  Airport. Honey bees from our prairie hives regularly dropped in, probably disappointed to discover the bloodroot flower is devoid of nectar. Pollen, however, it has in spades.

Bee flies—fuzzy flies that imitate bees—were frequent visitors as well.

Plus a host of other insects that moved too fast for me to try and ID them.

As I sketched different plants in various stages of emergence and bloom, I looked closely for the first time at the way they held their leaves.

Jack Sanders, author of The Secrets of Wildflowers, compares emerging bloodroot to a mother protecting her baby with her cloak (the veiny scalloped leaf wrapped around flower stalk and bud). Apt description, isn’t it?

As I sketched one bloodroot bud, I was astonished to see it begin to unfold! I grabbed my camera. In less than 60 seconds, it went from almost closed to completely open.

 

As the bloodroot seeds drop to the ground, ants pick them up and carry them back to their nests. The seeds hold a fleshy treat called elaiosome, which the ant will enjoy. Try saying that word out loud! It sounds like a secret password for something exciting, doesn’t it? (Elaiosome!)

The discarded seed is dispersed away from the mother flower, and has fertile ground—the ant nest—to sprout from. The second vocabulary word for me of the day was myrmecochory, a tongue-twister which means simply means “seed dispersal by ants.”

In My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

The complexity and relationships of just one species of wildflower are a good reminder of Muir’s observation.

I put away my sketchpad and marvel.

How can we not?

****

Artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-)  grew up in Wisconsin, one of seven children. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and also in New York. She married Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer and art dealer. Known for her renderings of flowers, O’Keeffe died in 1986, almost completely blind at 98, but still finding ways to paint.

All photos and video copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): pasque flowers (Pulsatilla patens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), East Woods, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) with honeybee (Apis sp.), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) with bee fly (Bombyliidae family) Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) with unknown flying pollinator, Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; video of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) opening, Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; sunset, Schulenberg Prairie Savanna, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.