This week’s featured Iowa native is one of the tallest of the tallgrass prairie plants. Like ox-eye, sawtooth sunflower, common sunflower, and its close relative cup plant, compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) is a member of the aster family with yellow flower heads. Its great height makes it easy to distinguish from the other yellow asters. Generations of people have used the plant to help find their way. Several photos of compass plant are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Happy new year to the members of the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrate Rosh Hashanah.  

Today’s wildflower offers some of the most striking colors on the tallgrass prairie in late summer. Blazing star, also known as button snakeroot, gay-feather, or prairie blazing star, is closely related to the rough blazing star that Bleeding Heartland featured last year.

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I’ve been on a prairie flower kick this summer, and today’s installment continues the trend. Several woodland wildflowers Bleeding Heartland featured last year are now blooming along Iowa trails and meadow edges, so if you’re walking or bicycling in a wooded area, keep your eyes open for the yellow blossoms of common evening primrose, wingstem, and cutleaf coneflower. I’ve seen some goldenrods flowering lately too.

Speaking of yellow flowers, I enclosed a bonus photo below of big bluestem on a restored prairie in Dallas County. Big bluestem is the “star component of the Big Four native grass species that characterize the tallgrass prairies of central North America.”

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The tallgrass prairies that once dominated the Iowa landscape contained many different milkweed plants. Even now 17 milkweed species can be found in our state, and diverse habitats like the Duke Prairie in Clinton County contain half a dozen or more milkweeds. I rarely see any other than the common milkweed, which grows in countless farm fields and along thousands of roadsides.

I recently visited a prairie restoration area in Dallas County, where I saw whorled milkweed for the first time. Several pictures are after the jump. As a bonus, I included a picture of seed pods on a butterfly milkweed plant from the same prairie patch. Bleeding Heartland featured butterfly milkweed flowers earlier this summer.

Speaking of bright orange blossoms, I also enclose below a picture of an enormous trumpet vine growing in the heart of the Dallas Center business district. I love stumbling on a native plant thriving in an unlikely location.

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Like last week’s featured cup plant, today’s Iowa wildflower can be found in prairies and has bright yellow flower heads. Several pictures of ox-eye in bloom are after the jump. As a bonus for the UNI purple-and-gold fans in the Bleeding Heartland community, I included a shot of spiderwort, which was growing not far from these ox-eyes at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge.

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This week’s featured wildflower is particularly valuable for insects and birds in prairie habitats, because its leaves hold small pools of water, even long after the flowers are gone. Cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is blooming now in central Iowa. I’ve enclosed several pictures of this striking yellow flower after the jump.

I highly recommend a visit to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City (Jasper County) at this time of year. Dozens of prairie plants are flowering. It’s a perfect half-day trip.

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Today’s featured wildflower is blooming not only in prairies all over Iowa now, but also in many gardens. In fact, I took the enclosed photos of purple coneflowers at Clive Elementary School in Windsor Heights, my alma mater and the site of the 2004 and 2008 Iowa caucuses for my precinct. If you’re into natural or herbal remedies, you may recognize this plant’s scientific name: Echinacea purpurea.

Several photos of purple coneflowers are after the jump. As a bonus, I’ve included recent pictures of two other summer wildflowers Bleeding Heartland featured last summer: partridge pea and American bellflower. They are among my favorite Iowa native plants. Keep an eye out for them along bike trails.

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Today’s featured flower is one of the most recognizable tallgrass prairie flowers. You might also find it blooming along Iowa roadsides or bike trails between June and September. I’ve enclosed a few photos of yellow coneflowers below, along with a one picture of a different Iowa wildflower it closely resembles.

Incidentally, if you drive through eastern Iowa on I-80 you are likely to see patches of bright orange butterfly milkweed to the side of the highway.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Here’s your mid-week open thread: all topics welcome. Today’s featured Iowa wildflower is spiderwort, a purple mystery to me when I noticed it near a patch of Prairie smoke in bloom about six weeks ago. Thanks to Bleeding Heartland user conservative demo and others who identified it.

The spiderwort family contains many plants, including the dayflower Bleeding Heartland featured last year. I am not sure whether the pictures below depict Tradescantia ohiensis (Ohio spiderwort) or Tradescantia virginiana (Virginia spiderwort). Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie by Sylvan Runkel and Dean Roosa lists Ohio spiderwort as common in our state. It typically blooms from June through August, but I took the pictures below in late May, near the Meredith bike trail between Gray’s Lake and downtown Des Moines.

Speaking of pretty bluish/purple flowers, this week I’ve finally seen some American bellflowers blooming. That’s one of my Iowa summer favorites.

Since last week’s featured flower was strangely white, stem and all, I wanted to include a splash of color today. After the jump you can find several photos of butterfly milkweed, a gorgeous prairie plant that is easy to grow from seed in gardens. As the name suggests, butterflies love the bright orange flowers. The plant is more striking than the common milkweed that’s more prevalent along Iowa roadsides.

I also included below some pictures of elderberry shrubs, which are blooming in Iowa now. I saw tons this week on the Windsor Heights bike trail, the Clive Greenbelt trail, and the Jordan Creek trail in West Des Moines. Some people collect the elderflowers to make cordial. I’ve never tried it but have heard it’s tasty. The flower clusters can also be battered and fried. Later this year, the dark purple, almost black elderberries can be used in baked desserts or turned into syrup or tincture that may boost immunity.

Finally, I enclose a photo of a white flower I haven’t been able to identify. If you recognize this plant, blooming now in wooded areas of central Iowa, please post a comment in this thread or send an e-mail to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. UPDATE: Twitter user Lynzey515 suggests that the mystery flower is White avens (Geum canadense). That looks like a strong possibility.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

This week’s featured native plant is unusual in several ways. Lacking chlorophyll, Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is not green at all. It’s mostly white, inspiring the common names ghost flower or ghost plant. I thought it was a fungus on first sight. In addition, Indian pipe “is more of a parasite,” using a fungus to draw nutrients from nearby plants. Several pictures of this strange wildflower are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Iowa’s grape and wine industry has grown rapidly during the past decade, with dozens of commercial wineries all over the state. But if you look carefully along roadsides and bike trails throughout Iowa, you may find this week’s featured wildflower in bloom. Try to remember where you saw it, so you can go back for ripe wild grapes later this summer. Last year, everything bloomed early in Iowa, and I saw bunches of wild grapes in mid-July. Typically the fruit is not ready to pick and eat until later in the summer. With this year’s cold spring, the wildflowers are all behind schedule.  

As a bonus, I enclosed pictures of poison ivy in bloom after the wild grape shots below. Yes, poison ivy is considered an Iowa wildflower, although no one’s going to plant it as an ornamental.

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I’m cheating a bit this week, because while the featured wildflower is a bona fide Iowa native, I took the enclosed photographs at a butterfly garden in Windsor Heights, not in a natural woodland setting. In contrast to the unassuming littleleaf buttercup and sweet cicely profiled the last two weeks, Columbine has spectacular blossoms and is therefore popular in gardens. It can be found in the wild throughout Iowa as well. In past years, I’ve seen it growing along the Bill Riley bike trail in Des Moines.

The columbine that is native to Iowa looks quite different from the blue columbine that is the state flower of Colorado, but both plants are in the buttercup family.

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This week’s featured wildflower usually starts blooming in central Iowa in May and can sometimes be found in June. The small white flowers may resemble other native plants, but the licorice smell that emerges when you rub the leaf or stem is unmistakable. Several photos of Osmorhiza longistylis, commonly known as sweet cicely, anise root, wild licorice, longstyle sweetroot, or sweet anise, are after the jump.

I hope some Bleeding Heartland readers will help identify two colorful flowers I’ve featured below as well. Although I found them on a restored prairie patch, I’m not convinced they are native to Iowa.

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Last week’s featured Iowa wildflower is striking enough to catch your eye from a moving car or bicycle. This week, I decided to focus on a flower that is easily overlooked, even from a short distance. Littleleaf buttercup, also known as littleleaf crowfoot or crowfoot buttercup, is found in 44 states and across most of Canada. In central Iowa, it typically blooms in April or May. Several photos are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

It’s a busy day at the state capitol, where lawmakers struck final deals on education reform, expanding Medicaid, commercial property tax cuts, K-12 school funding and other state spending. I will need some time to sort through what’s being voted on in the rush to adjourn. Bleeding Heartland will cover final results from the 2013 legislative session in a series of posts beginning tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, here’s your mid-week open thread, featuring a stunning spring wildflower. I found several patches of prairie smoke along the Meredith bike trail between Gray’s Lake and downtown Des Moines. Photos are enclosed below, along with a couple of plants I need help identifying. UPDATE: Thanks to Bleeding Heartland user conservative demo for identifying the purple flower as spiderwort, an Iowa native.

If you’ve walked in the Iowa woods lately, chances are you’ve seen some spring beauties in bloom. Over the weekend I saw hundreds of them along the Bill Riley bike trail in Des Moines and in the oak savanna area of the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City.

Several pictures of this lovely flower are after the jump, along with a couple of mystery wildflowers I need help identifying. If you know what they are, please post a comment in this thread or e-mail desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I’m happy to report that last week’s light blanket of snow does not appear to have harmed most of the spring wildflowers in central Iowa. Since the snow melted over the weekend, I’ve seen blooms and buds on many wildflowers while walking or bicycling in the Des Moines area. You can find a lot of spring beauties along the Clive Greenbelt trail and Sweet William (phlox) along the Sycamore trail, which connects the Inter-Urban trail with the Neal Smith trail by Saylorville. I wonder whether the frost short-circuited the dogtooth violets, though, because so many leaves were out before the snow, yet I’ve hardly found any blossoms since then.

This week’s featured flower is toothwort, a common woodland flower across Iowa and most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. A few photos are after the jump, along with a bonus shot of wild geranium leaves. If you find those, come back a few weeks later to spot a very pretty woodland flower.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I had planned to relaunch Bleeding Heartland’s weekly wildflower posts in late March, but Iowa’s native plants are way behind schedule during this year’s ridiculously cold spring. Even a week ago, the only wildflowers blooming in my corner of the word were bloodroot and dandelions. Just in the past few days, we’ve noticed the first spring beauties, Dutchman’s breeches, and dogtooth violets. My goal for this year is to focus on species I didn’t feature in 2012.

This week’s installment is rue anemone, an early spring woodland flower with unusual features. Its leaves start out brown before turning green, its blossoms have no petals, and it blooms for quite a long time. Photos are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

MAY 2 UPDATE: Much of Iowa is under a winter storm warning today. I’m concerned about how the snow and freezing rain might affect the spring wildflowers. I hope I’ll have bluebells to feature in a week or two!

As expected, President Barack Obama nominated Thomas Perez this week to run the U.S. Department of Labor. Media Matters posted “myths and facts” about the labor nominee here. Adam Serwer summarized Perez’s record and commented that Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa is “chief” among the nominee’s “political enemies.” Other Senate Republicans who have criticized Perez include David Vitter of Louisiana and Jeff Sessions of Alabama. John Gramlich commented in Roll Call,

Perez succeeded in blocking Republican-backed voting laws in South Carolina and Texas that his division deemed racially discriminatory. He pressed racial profiling charges against Joe Arpaio, the Republican sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who is among the most divisive figures in the national immigration debate. His handling of a legal agreement with the city of St. Paul, Minn., in a lending discrimination case has drawn condemnation from Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who has called it a “quid pro quo” and a “shady deal.”

Senate criticism of Perez so far has come primarily from Grassley and the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department and is seen as one of the more-partisan panels in the chamber. Perez’s nomination to the Labor Department will not come before the Judiciary Committee, however. It will come before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is the top Republican.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri has put a procedural hold on Gina McCarthy’s nomination as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Spring is just around the corner, so Iowa wildflower Wednesday will return to Bleeding Heartland soon. Meanwhile, enjoy some gorgeous wildflower photos from southern California at La Vida Locavore.

Almost all the Iowa wildflowers have finished blooming for the year, so this weekly series will go into hibernation until next spring. After the jump I’ve enclosed photos of asters, among the last native flowers you may see during an Iowa autumn. The last picture is of a frost aster, so named because it may continue blooming even after the first frost.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

In a departure from the other Bleeding Heartland wildflower posts, this week’s installment doesn’t feature any native plants in bloom. Instead, I’ve enclosed some photos I took during a recent visit to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City. The refuge is perfect for a day trip or half-day trip in central Iowa. Even if the weather’s not ideal for walking on one of the trails, the Prairie Learning Center has a lot of good indoor exhibits, plus an excellent bookstore for anyone interested in native plants, birds, insects, or mammals. After the jump I’ve enclosed pictures of cup plant and big bluestem.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I’ll post a presidential debate discussion thread this evening. Meanwhile, here’s a mid-week open thread: all topics welcome.

Today’s featured wildflower is cutleaf coneflower, which has floppy yellow flowerheads resembling wingstem but very different stems and leaves. Some photos are after the jump, along with a picture of ripe elderberries, a treat for Iowa wildlife in the late summer and early fall.

I scheduled this week’s open thread to go up early, because I will be away from my computer observing the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. All topics are welcome.

After the jump I’ve posted photos of common sunflower, one of the most eye-catching late summer wildflowers in Iowa. You may have seen it blooming along roadsides. As a bonus, I enclosed pictures of berry clusters from a greenbrier plant, which I’d never seen before this year, to my knowledge.

More than a dozen plants in the smartweed family are native to North America, according to the database at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Texas. Some smartweeds are found in aquatic habitats, but the plants featured after the jump are found in fields, gardens, or along city roads and sidewalks.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Blazing star used to be “abundant in native prairie landscapes” but “have been reduced to fragmented populations due to conversion of prairie to agricultural fields and urbanization.” All of the photographs posted below were taken at a small prairie planting near Gray’s Lake in Des Moines.

This is an open thread; all topics welcome.

Most people refer to today’s featured wildflower as “evening primrose,” but the name “common evening primrose” distinguishes Oenothera biennis from dozens of other evening primrose species that are native to North America. Common evening primrose blooms all over Iowa from mid- to late summer, along roadsides and bike trails as well as on prairies. Several photos are after the jump, along with a bonus picture of some berries from the nightshade plant Bleeding Heartland discussed in July.

I’ll post a new discussion thread on the Democratic National Convention later this evening. Comments on any other topic are welcome in this open thread.

Like goldenrod, featured at this blog a couple of weeks ago, wingstem is one of several yellow wildflowers blooming in woodlands, meadows and along streams throughout Iowa in the late summer. Several pictures of this distinctive plant are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Full disclosure: today’s featured wildflower is on Iowa’s noxious weed list under the name “horse nettle.” However, Carolina horsenettle is native to most of the United States, including Iowa. A few photos of this flower in bloom are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Today’s featured wildflower is goldenrod, a common sight along roadsides and bike trails throughout Iowa and most of North America. Because goldenrod typically blooms in late summer, hay fever sufferers often attribute allergies caused by ragweed to this pretty plant instead. Photos are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

American bellflower has been blooming in Iowa for almost two months already, but you may still find some flowering in wooded areas or near streams up to the first frost. Several photos of this star-shaped flower are after the jump. Today’s bonus native plant is cattail, a common sight in wet ditches or near Iowa ponds and lakes.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Few Iowa wildflowers are more “showy” than the trumpet vine. Pictures of this gardener’s favorite are after the jump, along with a video of a man performing the late Kate Wolf’s lovely song “Trumpet Vine.”

I’ve also included a bonus wildflower that is native to Europe but now widespread in North America: apple mint. UPDATE: Or possibly spearmint (see clarification below).

This is an open thread; all topics welcome.

I’m amazed almost every day to see healthy-looking patches of wildflowers blooming despite the ongoing horrible drought in Iowa. Today’s featured plant, partridge pea, is a bright yellow presence along roadsides, bike trails, in prairies, or at the edge of woodlands. Several photos are after the jump.

As a bonus, I’ve included two pictures of sweet peas in bloom. Unlike partridge pea, the sweet pea plant is indigenous to Europe, even though it has gone native throughout the continental U.S.

This is an open thread; all topics welcome.

This week’s featured wildflower is horsemint, which is blooming like crazy along several Polk County bike trails. Also commonly known as bee balm or wild bergamot, horsemint is in the same family as oswego tea of the July 4 “red, white and blue” wildflower diary. Several photos of horsemint are after the jump.

As a bonus, I included some bunches of ripe wild grapes. I missed out on photographing that woodland plant in flower during the spring.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

It’s hard to imagine the American diet without members of the nightshade family, such as tomatoes and white potatoes. The tobacco plant, from the same family, played an important part in U.S. history too.

Growing up in Iowa, I was familiar with the term “black nightshade” from sinister-sounding voice-overs in herbicide commercials. Millions of people have heard of the poisonous nightshade berries, thanks to this summer’s animated feature Brave. But have you ever seen this wildflower in bloom? I hadn’t until recently. Follow me after the jump for a few close-up views.

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Happy 4th of July to the Bleeding Heartland community! I am celebrating the occasion with photos of red, white, and blue Iowa wildflowers. Click “there’s more” to view oswego tea, white snakeroot, and blue vervain.

The heat has been oppressive across Iowa lately. This afternoon I felt sorry for everyone in the Windsor Heights July 4 parade, including Representative Tom Latham, Representative Leonard Boswell, State Representative Chris Hagenow, his Democratic challenger Susan Judkins, and Democratic Iowa Senate candidate Desmund Adams.

I hope everyone stays safe and hydrated, and I am thinking of the veterans for whom today is a difficult holiday.

This is an open thread.

This week’s featured wildflower may have special appeal for butterfly lovers, beekeepers, and Cyclone fans. A few photos of plains coreopsis are after the jump, along with pictures of a small white wildflower I haven’t identified yet. I would appreciate input from other wildflower lovers in the Bleeding Heartland community.

This an open thread: all topics welcome. Here’s a fun bit of trivia from a New Yorker piece on London Mayor Boris Johnson:

Johnson studied classics at Oxford […] and argues that [Winston] Churchill was most effective when he used words of Anglo-Saxon rather than Latinate origin. In his book on London, Johnson points out that the rousing sentence “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender” contains only one Latinate word, its last.

An English teacher at my high school (now retired) used to correct what he called “Latin English” on students’ essays. When my brother complained, “But that’s like half the language,” this teacher said, “Write with the other half.” Maybe he was on to something.

Of the 17 types of milkweed found in Iowa, common milkweed is by far the most widespread. The use of genetically-modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans greatly diminished common milkweed on Iowa cropland, but if you ever drive or ride your bike in the countryside, you’ve probably seen this plant along the side of the road. Common milkweed grows along many city bike trails too. I’ve posted a couple of photos after the jump, along with a bonus shot of Virginia waterleaf after the flowers have gone.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I’m bending the rules today, since the dayflower originated in Asia, not North America. However, the plant has gone native throughout most of the U.S. and is common in Iowa. Dayflower spreads easily, so some gardeners consider it an undesirable weed, but it’s not as invasive as the plants on Iowa’s noxious weeds list.

This post does contain one undisputed Iowa wildflower: a Jack-in-the-pulpit with a seed pod visible where the flower used to be.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I’m posting the Wednesday open thread early today. All topics are welcome.

Daisy fleabane is this week’s featured Iowa wildflower, but since my photos didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped, I enclosed some extras after the jump too. The first bonus picture shows fruit growing on a may apple (umbrella plant), previously seen at Bleeding Heartland in April. The last two pictures are of Dame’s rocket, a pink or light purple flower that is native to Europe but commonly found across Iowa.