Tag: Ozark wildflowers

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Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The race is on. The spring ephemeral Ozark wildflowers blooming now are in a race with the trees. They want to put out their leaves for the summer.

Most spring ephemerals grow on the forest floor. All summer the trees shade this area making it hard for plants growing there to get enough light to photosynthesize. Certainly there isn’t enough light for a plant to make seeds.

Edible seeds on American Elm
Unless the tree has showy flowers like redbuds or dogwoods, people don’t think about trees having flowers. Many trees like elms, oaks, hickories and walnuts are wind pollinated so their flowers are tiny. The pollen clouds are noticed because they cover everything with a yellow film. These elm seeds are called samovars and are edible. I found them a nice snack, if I could reach them.

Trees Race Too

Many trees are wind pollinated. Leaves slow down the wind and the pollen. This yellow cloud coats the leaves instead of the pistils waiting to be pollinated. So the maples, ashes, willows, oaks and black walnuts are busy trying to bloom before the leaves too.

American elms are rare here due to Dutch elm disease. I’d found some down by the river in bloom. One even had branches low enough for me to get a picture or two.

On a recent walk I found the seeds on these trees. Since they were listed in “Foraging the Ozarks” as edible, I tried a few. They are bland, but a nice snack. Elms make lots of seeds so eating a few won’t hurt.

Nearby the green ash were blooming. November’s flood washed out my favorite ones, but I did find a few young ones I could get pictures of.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like Spring Beauty
Spring Beauty is a spring ephemeral. It forms large colonies in moist ground. I have seen it carpet lawns in town as well.

Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The trees were expected. So many wildflowers weren’t. Beautiful spring beauties lined the road and the path along the river. Rue anemones are just opening. Blue violets are having trouble growing up through the sand leaving their flowers sandy.

Redbuds are blooming. Fragrant sumac is opening. Virginia bluebells are getting ready. Rose verbena has its purple pink bouquets out along the road.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like rose verbena
This native wildflower, Rose Verbena, blooms all spring and summer. It is a low growing plant and would be a nice groundcover. It is one of the earliest bright wildflowers blooming along the roads.

Time Frustrations

Now is the time to go hiking to find, admire and photograph all the Ozark wildflowers blooming. It’s also time to get the garden ready and to start planting early crops like peas, turnips, kohlrabi, mizuna and more.

Trying to do both is frustrating.

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GKP Writing News

Foraging the Ozarks

I am not much of a forager. However, the Carduan Chronicles is forcing me to learn more about foraging. One book to read is “Foraging the Ozarks” by Bo Brown.

Ozark Survival

One of the ships in the Carduan Chronicles lands in a Ozark ravine. Those on board are stranded and must learn to live on this strange, new planet.

An immediate need is food. The Carduans must discover which plants growing wild in a ravine and old pasture are edible and which parts of the plants taste good.

Dandelions food on Carduan world
One of the first edible plants easy to find in the spring is the dandelion. Although it is an import from Europe and occasional near creeks and pasture edges, it could be found by the Carduans. Both the flowers and leaves are edible. The root can be roasted and used for a coffee substitute.

As a Writer

I am a gardener, not a forager. Many years ago I wrote a Nature Note column for a local paper and met an old woman who had grown up foraging. She introduced me to several so-called weeds that were good to eat.

Most of these plants were brought over from Europe and grow wild. But they prefer disturbed places like gardens and lawns. They are rarely found out on the hills and in the ravines.

Most foraging books focus on these common plants. I needed to learn about the others. “Foraging the Ozarks” is a book including many of these other plants.

amazing pawpaw cluster
One of my favorite wild edible is the pawpaw in late summer/early fall. Unfortunately for the Carduans, the pawpaw is a tree. However, sometimes the ripe fruits aren’t eaten before they fall to the ground.

The Next Step

It’s fine to read about these edible plants. The problem is that I must rely on someone else’s opinion about them.

This leaves me looking for and taste testing these wild plants. I’ve found many of them before taking pictures for my Dent count Flora project. Now I’m looking them up again to take a nibble of leaves and fruit. Many do have edible roots, but I hate to dig the plants up.

A final consideration is the size of the plants. The Carduans are only four inches tall. Trees might present very big problems for them.

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First Spring Hike

The grass is starting to grow hinting at mower time coming. The wayside speedwell and early cress are blooming in the yard. So I went on my first spring hike looking for the earliest wildflowers.

Disappointment

The upper Meramec River is a short hike away. Usually I find harbinger of spring there.

Not this year. This year the river bank is totally different after the big flood that came through the end of last year.

Debris in the bushes marked the high water mark. It was over five feet up. Fallen logs were swept away through much of my hiking path. Sand was left behind.

Dreams of crossing onto the gravel bar in the center of the river were mostly cancelled. The river had cut into its bank, toppling trees and leaving sheer drops of four to ten feet into deep pools. This summer’s swimmers with their small children may not want to stay here this year. Already the party crowd has gone elsewhere as the far gravel bank is now inaccessible.

first spring hike find: American Elm flower
American elms aren’t doing well in my area of the Ozarks. Those near the house have all died. A few hang on in the river floodplain. My first spring hike was timed well as these trees were blooming. I was lucky to have a branch within reach to get a few pictures.

Only One Flower

A few spring plants are trying to force their way up through the sand. Some of the dirt areas are still clear. However, I found no early wildflowers.

Silver maples grow along the river. They had finished blooming. I don’t worry much about getting pictures of them as the flowers are thirty feet over my head.

The American elms had washed away in the area I had found. There does seem to be others further down and these trees were in bloom. One branch was even within reach of my walking stick-hooked on the end.

Later On

This first spring hike was mostly exercise and looking around. My next forays along here will hopefully find other flowers in bloom.

Some, like Virginia bluebells, rue anemone, false rue anemone, Confederate violets, are nice to see again. Another, Virginia waterleaf, is one I need more pictures of. I’ve found it along here in the past, but my return trips were thwarted by stinging nettle. Perhaps the flood swept most of these away. I can hope.

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Fall Parade of Asters

Most of the sunflowers have gone to seed. They are replaced by the fall parade of asters painting the roadsides white to blue to lavender.

Although fall is not my favorite season as it is a reminder winter is close behind, the parade of asters is lovely. Wild ones may not be as big or showy as garden varieties, but they are prolific.

One of the small white heath asters
Several asters have large sprays of half inch flowerheads. Some are lavender. This one is white. I’m not sure which one this is – yet.

Which Is Which?

Like the sunflowers, asters are difficult to identify. They are like the sunflowers in that they have a ring of ray flowers surrounding a disk of tube flowers.

In the summer, the fleabanes started blooming. These look a lot like an aster, but their rays are very thin and numerous. Heath asters are the same size and similar in color, but their rays look fat and are a single ring fewer in number.

When I take pictures of the asters, there are several important ones, if I want to identify the aster. There is the flower, but the cup under the flower is important too. The leaf matters as some clasp the stem, others have long petioles. The petioles may have wings.

The first larger aster in the Ozarks parade of Asters
Spreading aster is the first larger aster to bloom along my Ozark gravel road. The flower heads are a bit over an inch across spread out along the several stems reaching out across the ground. The heart-shaped leaves clasp the stems. The cup under the flowerhead is light green and smooth with a few darker green bits.

Some leaves are long with a sharp point. Others are heart shaped. Some plants have basal leaves growing from the ground and stem leaves hanging on the flower stalks. Others have only stem leaves.

Stems are important. Some are smooth and shiny or grooved. Occasional hairs adorn some stems. Short fuzz lines others. Longer fuzz makes the stems look soft and white.

highlight of the parade of asters
New England Aster is a tall plant, up to six feet, with numerous branches topped with flowers. It is sold through nurseries. I enjoy seeing it growing along my Ozark gravel road where the ground is a bit moist. Many pollinators including bumblebees tromp over the many tube flowers sipping nectar.

Admiring the Parade of Asters

The identity of the different asters matters for my Dent County Flora project. However, the asters are worth looking at for their beauty.

My favorite is the New England Aster with its deep purple rays and golden disk. There were lots of these along the road for years until it got mowed too often. They are making a comeback this year.

All of the many asters, large and small, make my fall walks pleasant.

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Montauk State Park Trip

One thing about dairy goats is how they tie you to home. My free day begins at the end of morning chores and ends with the beginning of evening chores. That made my Montauk State Park trip short.

There were several reasons for going to the park. Somehow, they never added up enough to take a whole day. This time the need to get away from the unending “To Do’ list was enough.

Montauk Mill
The Montauk Mill is open during the summer, a time I’ve never been to Montauk State Park. Looking in the windows and reading the brochure, it look interesting.

The Grist Mill

Montauk was a small community that grew up near the big springs forming the headwaters of the Current River. The water allowed a grist mill for grinding corn and wheat to operate. Several mills were built and destroyed until the present one was built in 1896.

The mill is intact, but no longer operates. Over the summer, tours go through. This is fall, so the mill was closed during my Montauk State Park trip.

Montauk spring
The blue of the water in Montauk spring is from dissolved limestone. Karst springs flow through limestone often dissolving large amounts of stone to form caves.

Montauk Springs

Fifty-three million gallons of water flow out of the springs every day. This flow goes out to form the Current River.

Because the water has a constant cold temperature, it’s used for a trout hatchery. The river is stocked with rainbow trout and is very popular with fishermen and women. Opening day, March 1st, draws hundreds to thousands of fishermen to kick off the season.

trout seen during Montauk State Park trip
Montauk State Park is one of three rainbow trout hatcheries in Missouri. The trout are stocked in places around the area as well as in the Current River. These are two of many I saw, most of dinner size.

Wild Plants

Montauk State Park trip fisherman with trout
Wandering around near the Montauk springs, I came out on the river where these men were fishing. One caught a trout.

I’m not a fisherman, although my father tried hard to hook me into the sport. I am interested in wild plants. This is one of the big draws for me for a Montauk State Park trip.

Some years back I found a fire-on-the-mountain along a parking lot. I needed more pictures of it. This time the fire-on-the-mountain was elusive. However, I found a new plant totally new to me and a yellow coneflower along with some more familiar plants.

One other thing I found out. Monday is a good day to visit as the weekend crowd has gone home. That made it a lovely quiet escape from my unending list.

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Eating Jerusalem Artichokes

The yellow orange flowers of Jerusalem artichokes are along the roads now. My garden patch is just beginning to bloom. This winter’s menu plan includes eating Jerusalem artichokes.

Wild and garden chokes are not the same even though they are the same species. There are several big differences.

Jerusalem artichoke flowers
Like all the flowers in the Aster family, these flowers are really a ring of ray flowers forming the petals and small disk flowers producing the seeds. These are wild Jerusalem artichoke flowers as I can’t get up high enough for the garden ones, although they are the same as I’ve seen other years.

Wild Plants

All the plants along my road are five or six feet tall. They have an array of flowers at the tips of their stalks. The leaves look like spear heads as the petioles have wings and the leaves are triangular with a long taper.

According to Samuel Thayer’s book “Nature’s Harvest” the wild tubers are long, fat tubers. I’ve never dug any up, so I don’t know.

blooms precede eating Jerusalem artichokes
The top of the cattle panel is just below this picture. One of the twines broke and I had to replace it pushing the Jerusalem artichoke stalks up as I went. They are heavy! About frost I will cut the stalks off half way as the goats love the leaves. They don’t take killing frost, only light ones. Over the winter each plant can be dug for the sackful of tubers extending several inches below the surface. It’s impossible to find all of them so next year’s crop will grow here.

Garden Plants

Growing Jerusalem artichokes in the garden is challenging because of is their height. Thick two inch diameter stalks tower over my head. I haven’t measured them, but they are close to ten feet tall. Their roots aren’t deep enough to support this height.

My patch is lined on each side by cattle panels. A rope surrounds the patch with twine running between the panels to help support these huge plants. It’s a nuisance to have them fall over.

These plants bloom about two weeks later than their wild cousins. Each has fewer flowers on the ends of their stalks.

Eating Jerusalem artichokes from the garden is challenging too. These tubers are knobby with tight creases. Dirt clings to them and fills every crevice.

When I dig the tubers after frost, I have a bucket of water with me. First I shake and rub off all the dirt I can. Then I dunk them in the water and shake off more mud. Once in the kitchen I resort to an old toothbrush and often snap the knobs off the main tuber.

Eating Jerusalem Artichokes

Maybe someday I will sample the wild tubers. The description of them makes them sound a lot like the garden ones I grow, but smaller.

I find my tubers can be used like water chestnuts in stir fry or added to stews. Cooked they turn soft and taste a bit sweet. One plant produces lots of tubers, so my garden has a big supply.

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Enjoying the Sunflower Parade

Each season seems to have wildflower colors more common than others. Spring is blue and pink. Fall is purple. Summer is yellow with the sunflower parade.

This begins with brown-eyed susans assisted by yellow ironweed. Then the sunflowers begin.

One of the sunflower parade
This Helianth sunflower is typical of many wild sunflowers with the smaller disk and single row of yellow rays. The leaves are normally opposite. Another group normally has alternate leaves. The disks are usually yellow.

Lots of Sunflowers

To people driving by the many sunflowers look alike. They have yellow ‘petals’ and a yellow or brown center. They are usually tall with big leaves. Even now the fields of tickseed sunflower are just another in the sunflower parade.

If you stop and look, these plants are not all the same. They are alike in that these ‘flowers’ are really flower heads with bright ray flowers surrounding a disk of small, tubular flowers. But these are different on different plants too.

Look at the leaves. Some pairs of leaves are on opposite sides of the stem. Other leaves aren’t in pairs but alternate on their way up the stem. Some have smooth edges, some tiny teeth, others large teeth.

member of the sunflower parade
This sunflower is more like the grown sunflowers with the larger brown disk and short rays. Many of the wild sunflowers produce edible seeds that are too small to bother with except for the birds.

And the Flower Heads

Some ray flowers are short and broad. Others are long and thin. There are notches in the ends of others. Even their colors are different as some are very yellow and others have orange tints.

The center flowers can be yellow or brown. They put out stamens covered with pollen. Most of these are yellow, but not all. Some make a mound. Others are flat.

Naming Sunflowers

I’ve taken pictures of the different sunflowers for years. Most of them have names like 1 Sunflower, 2 Sunflower.

There are easy ones like Prairie dock with its enormous basal leaves. Tickseed sunflower is another one as the plant has a tapered look, the leaves have big lobes and the ray flowers are broad and thin.

The rest of them are still on my list to be identified. There is a key, several in fact. They haven’t helped much. This year I am looking up pictures to compare with my pictures. Perhaps I will spend some time setting up the pictures to put on iNaturalist in the hopes someone more knowledgeable than I will know what they are.

One other thing I will do is enjoy the sunflower parade even as the asters try to take over and signal the end of summer.

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Finding Wildflowers

This is the busiest time of summer with putting food by for the winter and planting the fall garden as summer plants are ready to remove. Hiking the hills is not often on the schedule which leaves me finding wildflowers in different places.

finding wildflowers gave me this new bur marigold
Gardens attract lots of wild plants better known as weeds. Some are immediately pulled. Others are allowed to grow just to see what they are. This bur marigold turned out to be a pretty wildflower.

In the Garden

Wild plants want to grow and gardens are ideal spots. Gardens have open, rich soil. Water arrives often. Competition is minimal as vegetables get harvested regularly.

My garden hosts a variety of wild plants such as chickweed, dead nettle, dock, English plantain, wayside speedwell, two morning glories, evening primrose, chicory, bulbous buttercup and daisy fleabane. There are others and some occasional visitors such as pokeweed.

A friend asked me about a plant in her garden with lovely orange flowers. It reminds me of a marigold, but is one of the bur marigolds. There are several, but most have tiny rays people often call petals. I have pictures and will identify it later.

floating primrose flower
When finding wildflowers, the searcher needs to be on the lookout all the time. This floating primrose grows around the end of a lake put in near a house. Probably ducks or geese stopped on the small lake and dropped off the seeds. I spotted it by looking down after taking a picture of a pink rose mallow flower.

Other Places

Finding wildflowers is mostly a matter of watching for them. I love driving with no one following me as I can go slowly and look over the plants along the roads. Wild sunflowers are blooming now and I’m looking for new ones.

Across from my friend’s house is a large pond. Her ducks moved over to it. Around it are several clumps of pink rose mallow.

I’m sure these clumps were planted there. However rose mallow, the white ones, grow wild in several places. There are wild pink ones down toward where the witch hazel I visited in the spring, but that takes a morning to go to.

The planted pink rose mallows will do as examples of a color variant. So I traipsed across the road. The mallow wasn’t the only wildflower there.

The Yerba de Tajo was one I’d found at ShawneeMac Lakes. The yellow one was new. I very much doubt it was planted there. That adds floating primrose to my Dent County Flora.

Most of my produce I’m saving is stuffed into my freezer now along with the extra roosters. Okra and one more package of chopped peppers will finish packing the freezers.

Once the fall garden is planted, maybe I can go back to hiking the hills finding wildflowers.

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Sweet Elderberry

Walking along the road the last few days, a sweet fragrance drifts by or hangs in the air. There are several sources including persimmon trees and prairie roses, but the scent of sweet elderberry is the strongest.

Elderberry plants could almost be classed as shrubs, at least the older ones. They are perennials. Unless the road crew comes by, the stems overwinter and sprout new leaves in the spring along with new canes that shoot up around them.

Hard to Miss

Even out of range of the sweet elderberry perfume, an elderberry in bloom is difficult to miss. The canes are up to six feet tall with huge umbels of waxy white flowers. Large compound leaves hanging on long petioles jut off from the canes.

The plants seem to prefer open areas near wet areas. Roadsides and edges of pastures are prime places to look for them.

sweet elderberry flowers
This elderberry grows behind the mailbox. It makes trips to get the mail a sweet experience while the flowers are open. Later the berries will grow and ripen, perfect for a few snacks, although the ripe berries don’t seem to have much flavor.

The New Miracle Plant

People seem to like think eating one special thing will cure all that ails them. Sweet elderberry is a recent target.

The berries are small, barely a quarter inch across and haven’t much flavor in my opinion. But these same berries are now being farmed, gathered from wild plants, juiced and sold for high prices as miracle plants.

Perhaps ingesting this juice will help some people. The true benefactors of this new interest are the pollinators, provided the fields aren’t sprayed.

Eating a sensible diet and getting plenty of exercise is a better way to better health. Of course, that means giving up most caffeine, alcohol, sugar and white flour which is difficult. A side benefit is losing weight and feeling better.

Place to Start

In Missouri there are plenty of Conservation Areas with walking trails. Park the wheels, put on a hat and go walking. Right now, you can follow the sweet elderberry scent along some of those trails.

Meet other Ozark plants in Exploring the Ozark Hills.

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Purple Milkweed Blooming

Missouri is home to a wide variety of milkweeds that spread their blooms over the warm months. The purple milkweed blooming along the roads and in the edges of the woods is the first of the milkweed parade.

No Milkweeds Means No Monarchs

This is what the Missouri Conservation Department keeps saying. And it is true as milkweeds are the only plants their caterpillars feed on.

Those milkweeds are fewer in number every year as the places where they grow are plowed under, sprayed and mowed. They have no modern economic value, so they are destroyed with little thought for the consequences.

butterflies love purple milkweed blooming
Butterfly gardens, especially those with milkweeds are popular for monarch butterflies. Purple milkweed, Asclepias purpurescens, is a good choice for semi shade. It is a lovely plant and very popular with butterflies, wasps, bumblebees. clearwing hawkmoths and more.

Valuable Milkweeds

Although the big push to grow milkweeds is for the monarchs, there are other reasons too. An easy dozen kinds of insects visit the flowers.

Purple milkweed blooming is a magnet. Frittilary butterflies were tromping around drinking nectar. Dodging their feet were wasps, bumblebees and bees. Another visitor is the clearwing hawkmoth that hovers like an hummingbird.

Flower or crab spiders ambush prey on the flowers. Various beetles move in. The plants attract aphids and milkweed bugs.

Perennials

Because milkweeds are perennials, they are great for erosion control. Some are very showy like the popular butterfly weed. Others need lots of space like the common milkweed that spreads into a patch. Most like lots of sun.

A huge patch of purple milkweed blooming is gorgeous. The clouds of orange, brown, yellow, white, purple, black and more butterflies shifting between the upright umbels add to the beauty.

cover for "Missouri's Milkweeds, Milkvines and Pipevines" by Dr. Richard E. Rintz
A guidebook and more to the milkweeds, milkvines and pipevines known to grow in Missouri.

Growing Places

I see purple milkweed blooming in places with some shade and moisture. The common milkweed does well in road ditches, sometimes reaching six feet fall or more. Butterfly weed likes it drier and sunnier. It is rarely over two feet tall. Water gardens or the edges of ponds and lakes is favored by pink swamp milkweed.

Green, whorled and spider milkweeds are easy to grow too. They like dry and sunny places.

Butterfly gardens need milkweeds.