Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on My Gaia, an email newsletter “about getting to know nature” and “giving her a helping hand in our own backyards.” Diane also maintains the Birdwatching Dot Com website and bird blog.

Mid-summer, yellow flowers start dominating the grassy field. But then prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya) shoots up sizzling rose-purple shafts of color, like big fuzzy light sabers, and steals the show.

Each plant makes a single spike of flowers. And there is a world of detail in that spike. Look closer.

A spike of flowers is composed of small tufts (called flowerheads), each less than half an inch wide. The topmost flowerheads come into blossom first, and the bloom progresses down the stalk like a huge burning stick of incense.

The prairie blazing star flowerhead

The flowerheads are arranged in subtle spirals along the stem.

Looking even closer… Each flowerhead is made up of several miniature individual flowers (called florets). The four to ten florets in a flowerhead are rather tightly bound together, like a bouquet.

The floret

Each floret is a complete flower. The floret is starlike, with five lavender petals. To clarify details, all but one floret was removed from this picture of a prairie blazing star flowerhead:

From the center of a floret, two lavender threads curl out into the air. The threads (called styles) are female reproductive structures. They catch pollen brought to the flower by insects. 

From a distance, the mass of styles gives prairie blazing star its fuzzy appearance. As a style emerges, it separates into two parts.

When the style first emerges, it is single and covered with pollen. As the style reaches outward, the pollen is carried away by insects. Gradually the style separates into a double structure, which by then extends far beyond the petals. Each floret has a double style.

Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds visit prairie blazing star for nectar. This is how the flower gets pollinated. A ruby-throated hummingbird is pictured here:

A good garden plant

Prairie blazing star is a perennial wildflower, native to the prairies of midwest North America. 

It is also a spectacular addition to a sunny flower garden, easy to grow from started plants or seeds. It grows 4-5 feet tall and takes up little elbow room. 

But a warning… you will have to put up with hummingbirds.