Kara Grady is a wildflower enthusiast living in eastern Iowa. Her work has been published in the Erythronium newsletter of the Iowa Native Plant Society. When she’s not going on rare flower adventures, she can be found reading the latest botanical books or attending prairie seminars.
First off, I need to thank Kenny Slocum for letting me borrow his “KAPAI” branding. It wasn’t until I read his “Notes from a prairie tour across Iowa” and related “KAGPAI” articles (for “Kenny’s Annual Great Prairiestomp Across Iowa”) that I realized I had done my own prairie tour, featuring some of the most niche ecosystems Iowa had to offer.
Mine began in late April with an hour-long trip to the Hamilton-Tapken Prairie Preserve north of Onslow (Jones County). It was a hopeful attempt to find pasque flowers, the flowers that led to Ada Hayden meeting her lifelong mentor and friend Louis Pammel. But I missed them and instead ended up roaming the brown hills fruitlessly. Instead, I stumbled upon a single cluster of early blue violets, one of the host plants of the endangered regal fritillary butterfly.
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