This week’s featured plant is so easily overlooked that I failed to notice its flowers in my own yard for more than ten years. But once I learned to recognize wild chervil (Chaerophyllum procumbens), it seemed to pop up everywhere.

This “somewhat weedy” member of the carrot or parsley family is native to much of North America. Wild chervil is not spectacular like its relative Golden Alexanders, or even as eye-catching as Sweet Cicely, both of which bloom around the same time in the spring.

I took all of the enclosed pictures in Windsor Heights within the past few weeks.

I’ve rarely featured flowering trees for this series. I’m making an exception today for Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra), which is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The tree is sometimes known as horse chestnut, buckeye, American buckeye, or stinking buckeye because its leaves give off “a strong fetid odor when crushed.”

The blossoms of Ohio buckeye are distinctive, and once you learn to recognize them, you’ll know where to come back in the fall to collect the round, smooth seeds.

Elizabeth Garst once told me that during one of her grandfather Roswell Garst‘s visits to the Soviet Union, his Russian host gave him a buckeye for good luck. He was surprised to learn some Americans follow the same tradition. According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s website, “Pioneers carried a buckeye seed in their pockets to ward off rheumatism.” Wood from the tree was often used to carve children’s cradles or artificial limbs, “because it is light, easily worked, and resists splitting.”

I enclose below some pictures of buckeye trees now flowering in Clive and Windsor Heights.

Early spring wildflowers are mostly gone now, but if you venture into wooded areas during the coming week, you may find lots of Jack-in-the-pulpits, sweet William, sweet Cicely or aniseroot, false rue anemone, wild geranium, Missouri gooseberry, and Virginia waterleaf blooming. Buds are open on many May apples/umbrella plants and wild ginger too, but you have to bend down and look under the leaves to see them. Unfortunately, the invasive garlic mustard is also flowering and developing seed pods. If you see it when you are out and about, try to pull it up by the roots and throw it away in a garbage bag. (If you leave garlic mustard on the ground, the plants can take root start growing again.)

Longtime followers of this series know I have a soft spot for wildflowers that might not be particularly “showy” but are tough as nails, thriving in some inhospitable habitats.

Littleleaf buttercup (Ranunculus abortivus) falls into that category. Native to almost all of the U.S. and Canada, this “somewhat weedy” plant can grow in “open woodlands, woodland borders, areas along woodland paths, degraded meadows, banks of rivers and ditches, pastures and abandoned fields, edges of yards, vacant lots, grassy areas along railroads and roads, and waste areas.”

Also known as littleleaf crowfoot, small-flowered buttercup, or kidney-leaf buttercup, these plants are easily overlooked among more striking spring bloomers. The flowers are small, and the foliage often blends in with surrounding plants.

Except where otherwise noted, I took all of the enclosed pictures near our home in Windsor Heights.

Today’s featured plants are among the few wildflowers I could identify before I embarked on the journey that led to the Iowa wildflower Wednesday series. I grew up calling them dogtooth violets. More often, I hear others use the common name white trout lily. Alternative names include thousand leaf or white fawnlily.

Erythronium albidum is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. According to Wildflowers of Iowa Woodlands by Sylvan Runkel and Alvin Bull, dogtooth violets are “found throughout the state in rich moist woodlands, especially in bottomlands with open woods.” The Illinois Wildflowers site notes,

An abundance of this plant indicates that a woodlands has never been subjected to the plow or bulldozed over. White Trout Lily is one of the spring wildflowers that is threatened by the spread of Alliaria petiolata (Garlic Mustard) in wooded areas.

Picking these flowers kills the plant, so leave them alone. Runkel and Bull write that the bulbs underground used to be a common food source for American Indian tribes. I’ve never tried to dig them up.

Dogtooth violets are “one of the first woodland flowers to bloom in the spring,” but they don’t last as long as some other early bloomers. In my corner of Windsor Heights, the dogtooth violet flowers have come and gone, whereas I still see lots of violets, rue anemone, and spring beauty. I took all of the enclosed pictures in mid-April.

Iowa didn’t experience much severe winter weather this year, but the political climate was harsher than at any other time in living memory. After writing up too much bad news these past few months, I’m glad to revive Bleeding Heartland’s weekly wildflower series. Click here for the full archive of posts featuring more than 140 native plants and a few plants of European origin that are now widespread here.

Downy yellow violet (Viola pubescens) is native to all of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. In Iowa, you may see it near homes as well as in wooded areas. Except where noted below, I took most of the enclosed pictures not far from our house in Windsor Heights. However, most violets I see in people’s yards are purple or the white color variation of that flower, the common blue violet. Less often, you may find striped white violet, a separate species.

According to John Pearson of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Viola pubescens are the only yellow violets native to our state. The Minnesota Wildflowers site has botanically accurate descriptions of the foliage, flowers, and seeds. Common yellow violet or smooth yellow violet are alternate names for this plant.

One of my blogging new year’s resolutions for 2016 was to publish more work by other authors, and I’m grateful to the many talented writers who helped me meet that goal. After the jump I’ve linked to all 140 guest posts published here last year.

I encourage readers to consider writing for this site in 2017. Guest authors can write about any political issue of local, state, or national importance. As you can see from the stories enclosed below, a wide range of topics and perspectives are welcome here.

Pieces can be short or long, funny or sad. You can write in a detached voice or let your emotions show.

Posts can analyze what happened or advocate for what should happen, either in terms of public policy or a political strategy for Democrats. Authors can share first-person accounts of campaign events or more personal reflections about public figures.

Guest authors do not need to e-mail a draft to me or ask permission to pursue a story idea. Just register for an account (using the “sign up” link near the upper right), log in, write a post, edit as needed, and hit “submit for review” when you are ready to publish. The piece will be “pending” until I approve it for publication, to prevent spammers from using the site to sell their wares. You can write under your own name or choose any pseudonym not already claimed by another Bleeding Heartland user. I do not reveal authors’ identity without their permission.

I also want to thank everyone who comments on posts here. If you’ve never participated that way, feel free to register for a user account and share your views. If you used to comment occasionally but have not done so lately, you may need to reset your password. Let me know if you have any problems registering for an account, logging in, or changing a password. My address is near the lower right-hand corner of this page.

Bleeding Heartland’s weekly wildflower series has grown far beyond what I envisioned when I published the first Iowa wildflower Wednesday in March 2012. The search for material has taken me to many parks and nature preserves I’d never explored and connected me to some incredible photographers and naturalists, including Eileen Miller, Leland Searles, and Marla Mertz.

Many readers have told me the wildflower posts are among their favorites at the site. For a long time I’ve been meaning to collect all of the links in one place.

After the jump you’ll find the common and scientific names of nearly 150 species featured here so far. The date next to each plant’s name links to a post with multiple photographs. I would not have been able to identify most of these plants five years ago. Before my son’s interest in Jack-in-the-pulpits inspired me to start learning more about native plants in 2009, I could not have identified even a dozen of them.

I will continue to update this index once Iowa wildflower Wednesday returns during the spring of 2017. UPDATE: As of the summer of 2019, this series has featured more than 200 plant species.

Continuing a Bleeding Heartland tradition, I’m closing out the wildflower series with assorted pictures of asters, many of which bloom well into the Iowa autumn. Heath asters and calico asters were featured in last year’s final wildflowers post, New England aster the year before. I included a few more views of that colorful plant today, along with pictures of a white and yellow species commonly known as Frost aster, Hairy white oldfield aster, or Awl aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum). The plant is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains.

Other members of this family you may find blooming across Iowa in the fall include flat-topped aster, blue wood or heart-leaved aster, and sky blue aster.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Iowa wildflower Wednesday will return in the spring. Click here for the full archive (five years of posts).

People sometimes ask when I’m going to run out of native plants for this series. The answer is not for a very long time. I already have a list of about three dozen species I hope to cover in 2017. Most have not been featured before on Bleeding Heartland, because I never caught them at the peak blooming time, or wasn’t happy with my photographs, or ran out of Wednesdays in the appropriate season. Look for several posts by guest authors next year as well. I’m actively seeking volunteers to capture a few deep pink or red flowers that tax my limited photography skills, such as the purple poppy mallow, cardinal flower (red lobelia), and wild four o’clock.

Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz presents an unusual wildflower that lacks chlorophyll. You can view her earlier contributions to Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower series here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Venturing into the woods in late summer is not common for me, as the prairie whispers my name. A quick walk in the woods might just be a good change of pace. Hiking boots on and a camera over my shoulder, off to the woods I go. Within a few short feet of a walking trail, my eyes immediately zoomed to the ground…a snow white flower? mushroom? fungus? Kneeling to take a closer look, the flower appeared to be a fungus. My eyes gaze around the forest floor to see a few more tiny, white looking, flowers and some have tinges of color. Flower or fungus? Being easily entertained, I photographed in every way shape and form in hopes that some would help me to define this unique “something”.

What appeared to be a strange looking fungus, had all of the aspects of a true flower. Not green, but white; a clammy feeling to the touch and waxy petal looking leaves that alternate up the stem. Some were in clumps and some were singled out. Some bowed and some stood straight up. Some had a pink tinge of color and some had a dark purple to black tinge around the petal looking leaves. Some had little yellow-looking flowers within the top of the plant. After an hour of photographing and digging out the old reliables of resource books, all of these observations pointed in the direction of the Ghost Plant, also known as Indian pipe and fairy smoke. Mystery solved!…almost.

When I planned to feature these wildflowers the day after the presidential election, I was hoping the country–if not Iowa–would have something to celebrate today. Prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya) is a spectacular plant and seemed fitting for the occasion of Americans electing the first woman president.

I stuck with the plan because beautiful things will continue to exist, even after a narcissist with ugly impulses becomes the world’s most powerful man.

Prairie blazing star is native to a bunch of states that voted for Donald Trump yesterday and a few that voted for Hillary Clinton.

Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz presents more Iowa wildflowers I’ve never seen “in real life.” I highly recommend her previous contributions to this series: Showy orchis and Queen of the Prairie. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This spring, Iowa wildflower Wednesday featured a very small, and more commonly known woodland orchid, the Showy Orchis. It is a notable early spring find, and I always look forward to visiting the woodlands for its appearance.

Some of us don’t trek the woodlands in the fall as often, as the prairies and vibrant blooms of roadsides keep us forever in awe and discovery. Late August, September and October are great times to visit the woods, and if you are looking for orchids, a sharp eye and delicate step bring fascinating finds. Iowa’s fall woodlands hold a few inconspicuous and rare little orchids. Oval ladies’-tresses (Spiranthes ovalis) and Autumn coralroot (Corallorhiza odontorhiza) are two of the most common.

Long after most woodland or prairie wildflowers have gone to seed, many aster species are blooming well into the autumn across Iowa. One of the prettiest is blue wood aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), also known as heart-leaved aster, common blue wood aster, or broad-leaved aster.

This plant is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains and thrives in “moist to dry deciduous woodlands, woodland borders, areas adjacent to woodland paths, thinly wooded bluffs, shaded areas along streambanks, and rocky wooded slopes.” I took the enclosed pictures in mid-October along the driveway that leads from 45th Street to the Bergman Academy (old Science Center of Iowa building) in Des Moines.

This year’s unseasonably warm autumn weather inspired me to feature a plant today that typically blooms in the summer. Several colonies of Purple giant hyssop (Agastache scrophulariifolia) were in peak flower six to eight weeks ago along the Meredith bike trail between Gray’s Lake and downtown Des Moines.

This member of the mint family is native to much of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes it as a plant of “special value to native bees, honey bees and bumble bees.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service guide for this species notes that goldfinches and hummingbirds are also attracted to the flowers, and the plant is a “popular ornamental,” since its height (up to five or six feet) “makes it a good choice as a background against fencing.” It thrives in moist soil and can handle full sun or partial shade.

Purple giant hyssop is a close relative of blue giant hyssop, also known as anise hyssop, which Bleeding Heartland featured last year. According to the Minnesota Wildflowers website, purple giant hyssop has a green calyx (the “cup-like whorl of sepals” that holds the flower) and green on the underside of leaves, while blue giant hyssop has a blue-violet calyx and a “whitish” color on the underside of its leaves. Iowa naturalist and photographer Leland Searles gave me an easier tip: crush a leaf. If it smells like licorice, you’ve found anise hyssop.

What’s on your mind, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: Some exceptionally sad news caught my eye recently:

A new investigation by the Associated Press and the USA Today network found that in the first six months of 2016, children aged 17 or younger “died from accidental shootings — at their own hands, or at the hands of other children or adults — at a pace of one every other day, far more than limited federal statistics indicate.” Alaska and Louisiana had the highest rates of accidental child shooting. A separate feature in the series focused on three incidents that killed two teenage girls and seriously injured another in Tama County, Iowa.

Government research on accidental gun deaths is nearly non-existent, because more than two decades ago, the National Rifle Association persuaded Congress to defund gun research by the Centers for Disease Control.

Meanwhile, the AP’s Scott McFetridge reported last week on the growing hunger problem in Storm Lake. The problem isn’t lack of jobs–the local unemployment rate is quite low–but a lack of livable wages. Iowa-born economist Austin Frerick mentioned Storm Lake and other towns dominated by meatpacking plants in his guest post here a few months ago: Big Meat, Small Towns: The Free Market Rationale for Raising Iowa’s Minimum Wage.

I enclose below excerpts from all of those stories, along with some good news from the past week:

The African-American Hall of Fame announced four new inductees, who have done incredible work in higher education, criminal justice, community organizing, and the practice of law.

Planned Parenthood marked the 100th anniversary of the first birth control clinic opening in the country on October 16. Click here for a timeline of significant events in the organization’s history.

Drake University Biology Professor Thomas Rosburg will receive this year’s Lawrence and Eula Hagie Heritage Award from the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Rosburg is a legend among Iowans who care about native plants, wetlands, and prairie restoration.

You don’t need to venture into a high-quality prairie or wooded area to find today’s featured plant. Tall boneset (Eupatorium altissimum) grows well on sunny or partly shaded ground in a range of habitats: “open woods, thickets, prairies, along railroads, [or] waste areas.”

Sometimes known as tall thoroughwort, this member of the aster family is native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains.

Some trivia before we get to the photographs: according to the Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden website, the 40-some plant species with Eupatorium as the first part of the Latin nomenclature (including common and tall boneset) are “named after the Persian general Mithridates Eupator who is said to have used plants as a medicine and in his personal quest to become insensitive to poisons.”

Over the last few years, this weekly series has inspired me to visit many natural areas for the first time on the hunt for new (to me) Iowa wildflowers, such as wild blue sage, dwarf larkspur, and wood betony. Today’s featured plant was hiding in plain sight, barely a quarter-mile from my home. I’d noticed it before this summer, but for some reason assumed it wasn’t native and never learned its name until a couple of months ago.

Tall blue lettuce (Lactuca biennis) is native to most of Canada and the United States. Sometimes called blue wood lettuce, biennial blue lettuce or woodland lettuce, the plant thrives in shady, wet habitats, including woods, swamps, and stream banks. I took all of the enclosed pictures on the Windsor Heights and Urbandale bike trails, which run along North Walnut Creek.

Iowa naturalist Eileen Miller and I became acquainted through our shared appreciation for wildflowers. Her longstanding fascination with insects inspired her to learn more about the native plants these animals use to feed and reproduce.

Members of the Raccoon River Watershed Facebook group (open to anyone, not just central Iowans) are regularly treated to Eileen’s spectacular pictures of insects and arachnids, such as: an Eastern Comma caterpillar making a shelter, a crab spider guarding her egg sac, a wolf spider carrying spiderlings on her back, some Giant Ichneumon wasps drilling into a dead tree to lay their eggs on larvae of Pigeon Horntail wasps, a male giant water bug carrying eggs on his back, or a little planthopper winged adult emerging from the last nymph stage.

I recently asked Eileen to share some of her favorite pictures of insects feeding on and/or pollinating Iowa wildflowers. Thirteen gorgeous shots are enclosed below.

Eileen’s past contributions to this blog featured golden corydalis, hoary puccoon and fringed puccoon, marsh marigold, snow trillium, hepatica, blue cohosh, pasque flower, and yucca. Two years ago, she provided material for a post about unusual native fungi.

Last week’s featured wildflowers stand out, even in a colorful summer prairie landscape. In contrast, you could easily walk past flowering spurge (Euphorbia corollata) without spotting them. The species is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains and grows in a wide range of habitats. But although flowering spurge isn’t a rare plant, I don’t recall noticing it before this summer.

I took the enclosed photos in late August and early September where the edge of woods meets a restored prairie in Dallas County.

Most thistles growing along Iowa roads or fields are invasive plants. Bull thistle and Canada thistle are on Iowa’s noxious weeds list.

But if you’re lucky, you may see a thistle that belongs in our state’s wooded or prairie habitats.

Tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum) is native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. Its seeds are a “staple” food for the eastern or American goldfinch, Iowa’s state bird.

I took the pictures enclosed below in late August and early September on a restored prairie in Dallas County.

Today’s featured plant was a new discovery for me a few weeks ago. Its tall, branching stems with many delicate flowers compelled me to pull over my bicycle, despite being hungry for breakfast at the downtown farmers market.

Biennial gaura (Oenothera gaura) is native to much of North America east of the plains states. As its name suggests, the plant has a two-year cycle, developing a “a rosette of basal leaves” during the first year and flowering the next year. You are most likely to find it in “tall grass prairie, woodland openings and river banks.” Biennial gaura thrives in full sun but “tolerates many kinds of soil.” Its alternate name biennial beeblossom testifies to the plant’s appeal to various insect pollinators.

I took the enclosed photos along the Meredith bike trail in Des Moines, close to the southeast end of Gray’s Lake.

Since last Wednesday’s post featured a woodland plant with blossoms that are easy to miss, I thought it would be fun to go to the other end of the Iowa wildflowers spectrum today. Rosinweed (Silphium integrifolium) grows in prairie habitats in most of the plains and Midwestern states. These tall plants with large yellow flower heads are bound to catch your eye when they are blooming.

Rosinweed (sometimes called wholeleaf rosinweed) is one of four Silphiums. Bleeding Heartland has profiled two of the others: compass plant and cup plant. The last Silphium is prairie rosinweed, also known as prairie dock. The website of the Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minnesota has a handy comparison chart.

I took the enclosed pictures at either the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City (Jasper County) or at Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids (Carroll County). You should be able to find plenty of rosinweed blooming at either location over Labor Day weekend.

This week’s featured plant is a species I learned to identify only a few weeks ago. Far from the most impressive flowers you’ll see blooming in moist habitats during the summer, smooth hedge nettle (Stachys tenuifolia) “is easy to overlook,” since it “tends to be rather small-sized and non-descript.” This member of the mint family is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. I took all of the enclosed pictures along the Windsor Heights or Urbandale bike trails.

The foliage of smooth hedge nettle strongly resembles that of American or Canada germander, which grows in similar wet places and was the focus of a Bleeding Heartland post last month. At first glance, the flowers are hard to tell apart too, but hedge nettle blossoms have an upper lip that is absent on germander flowers.

Some hedge nettle species are also known as woundwort. That name may ring a bell, because General Woundwort is a memorable character from the fantastic adventure story Watership Down. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, make time to read Watership Down sometime. That book has been one of my favorite novels since I read it as a child. My kids enjoyed it too when we read it together a couple of years ago.

The tiny white flowers on today’s featured plant aren’t the most impressive-looking blossoms you’ll find in late summer, but they are in a family of “deer-resistant pollinator magnets.”

Virginia mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Also known as common mountain mint, these plants thrive in a range of moist habitats and are “not fussy about soil texture.” A wide range of insects pollinate the flowers, but mammals tend to avoid the fragrant foliage. The strong mint smell is unmistakable when you crush a few leaves. I took these pictures a few weeks ago at Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids and next to the Meredith bike trail in Des Moines, close to the southeast parking lot at Gray’s Lake.

Scroll to the end of this post for two bonus shots of a much more “showy” wildflower. I was sad to learn that the native range of Royal catchfly (Silene regia) does not extend to Iowa. However, this plant with bright red flowers can be cultivated here and reportedly attracts hummingbirds. I found these growing in one of the plantings at a Gray’s Lake parking lot.

Large yellow flowerheads are abundant this time of year along roadsides and on almost any Iowa prairie, even small remnants or restoration projects. You may find cup plants, compass plants, yellow coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, brown-eyed Susans, rosinweed (soon to be featured at Bleeding Heartland), Jerusalem artichokes, common sunflowers, Maximilian sunflowers, or today’s plant.

Ox-eye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Also known as false sunflower, oxeye sunflower, smooth oxeye, or sweet smooth oxeye, it has a longer blooming period than many prairie flowers. The shape of the leaves and the raised flower centers, which are yellow or orange, help distinguish ox-eye from other members of the aster family with yellow flowerheads. Ox-eye grows in wooded areas and on disturbed ground as well as in prairies.

A huge colony of ox-eye is thriving at a rest stop on the north side of I-80 near Bettendorf (Scott County), where I took most of the enclosed pictures in July. As a bonus, I included a few shots of goldenrod plants with an unusual feature.

Whether you are a novice or seasoned professional, finding a “new” species is exciting for nature-lovers. Many thanks to Leland Searles for sharing this essay and beautiful photos. -promoted by desmoinesdem

At the end of a hot, dusty day on the gravel roads of Marion County, I braked the Honda van to a stop at a t-intersection. I had pushed hard to finish as many miles of roadside survey as possible, stopping each quarter mile to note the vegetation on each side of the road. Mostly I saw brome and reed canary grass, wild parsnip and wild carrot, giant ragweed and sheep fescue. Often enough there were stands of Jerusalem artichoke or common milkweed.

The t-intersection brought a decision. Do I drive a half mile on the county hardtop to a short, unnamed gravel road, one that I missed two days earlier, and have a look? I could see it from the stop sign: a sea of crop land on either side, an old fenceline leading a quarter mile to a farmstead. Not a big deal. Time to go home.

Sometimes a whimsical curiosity emerges, gently, gaining force, wanting recognition. I drove the half mile, turned and rolled twenty feet to a stop, looked out the window onto the fence and soybeans that were almost neon in the yellowing light. Not much here.

Curiosity again. What’s ahead in fifty feet? The accelerator moved gently down. Another stop. Brome grass out the driver’s window, the fenceline on the other side. Something between me and the fence, a native sedge, already gone to seed, its yellow leaves standing out among the darker grasses. Probably Carex grisea. Not very interesting. I should head home.

Like last week’s featured wildflowers, today’s plant thrives in wooded areas and has delicate, faint pink flowers. Pointed-leaf tick trefoil (Desmodium glutinosum) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. I found the colony pictured below near the main road through Maquoketa Caves State Park (Jackson County).

As a bonus, I included two photos of a non-native plant with much brighter pink flowers, which I saw recently in a seep (wet area) at Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids (Carroll County).

Following Marla Mertz’s post last week about a spectacular and rare prairie plant, I wanted to feature some unassuming wildflowers common in a range of wet habitats.

Nine species of germander are native to North America, but according to John Pearson of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, only one (Teucrium canadense) is native to Iowa. (Pearson added that other kinds of germander may be found in gardens.)

Sometimes called American germander or wood sage, Canada germander often grows in ditches, at woodland edges, or next to streams. I took all of the enclosed pictures along North Walnut Creek, near where the Windsor Heights bike trail passes under College Drive.

Side note for nature lovers riding RAGBRAI next week: please keep an eye out for Milkweed Matters volunteers handing out common milkweed seed balls for bicyclists to cast in unmowed ditches along the route. Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed plants to reproduce.

We now return to your regularly scheduled edition of Iowa wildflower Wednesday.

Monarch butterfly enthusiasts have prepared more than 50,000 balls containing common milkweed seeds for riders participating in next week’s Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). As its name suggests, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is the most prevalent among the 17 types of milkweed found in Iowa. However, the use of genetically-modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans greatly diminished common milkweed on Iowa cropland. “Kelly Milkweed” Guilbeau and a friend scattered some milkweed seeds while doing RAGBRAI in 2014, then prepared about 2,000 balls of seed to hand out during last summer’s ride across Iowa.

Elizabeth Hill, who manages the Conard Environmental Research Area at Grinnell College, has collaborated with Guilbeau on the Milkweed Matters initiative, greatly expanded this year. I wish them every success; driving around Iowa last week, I saw huge stands of wild parsnip along too many roadsides.

I enclose below two pictures of common milkweed blooming, as well as a press release explaining where riders can pick up seed balls to toss in unmowed ditches along the RAGBRAI route, which runs across southern Iowa from July 24 through 30.

You can learn more at the Milkweed Matters website and receive regular updates on Twitter (@milkweedmatters) or Facebook. Butterfly fans can find more good links at the Monarchs in Eastern Iowa website. Although I’m not skilled at identifying butterflies, I enjoy the occasional “butterfly forecasts” by the Poweshiek Skipper Project.

P.S.- Hill will always have a special place in my heart as the accidental godmother of Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa wildflower Wednesday series.

Many thanks to Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz for these views of a spectacular native plant. In case you missed it, check out her first contribution to this series, featuring the much smaller (but still striking) showy orchis. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The prairie presents her Queen! The Queen of the Prairie, Filipendula rubra. Filipendula: from Latin filum for “thread” and pendulus for ‘hanging,” in reference to the small tubers strung together by the fibrous roots. Rubra: from Latin, meaning “red”. The panicle of pink flowers and buds exudes her beauty in the month of June.

To some observers, one may think of cotton candy. She stands high above any prairie grasses and forbs this time of year, and your eyes can’t help but make a connection with this beauty.

Today’s post is dedicated to Mike Delaney, whose birthday is July 6. The founder of the Raccoon River Watershed Association has been a tremendous advocate for Iowa’s water, soil, and native plants and animals. He was a key lobbyist for a wild turtle protection bill that was a bright spot in an otherwise dismal legislative session for the Iowa environmental community. Mike has helped organize Citizens for a Healthy Iowa and the Iowa Conservation Voters PAC.

I took all of the pictures enclosed below at a prairie Mike has been restoring on farmland he bought in Dallas County during the late 1980s. The biodiversity on this relatively small patch of land along the Raccoon River is phenomenal. I tried to capture some wider views in the last three photos.

This week’s featured plant is White wild indigo (Baptisia alba var. macrophylla or Baptisia lactea). Also known as largeleaf wild indigo or white false indigo or prairie false indigo, the plant is native to most of the Midwest and plains states.

Happy Independence Day to the Bleeding Heartland community! Enjoy the day safely, and please remember that amateur fireworks can not only hurt people, but also cause distress for war veterans suffering from PTSD.

It’s less hot today than usual on July 4, which will make walking with Jennifer Konfrst and other Democrats in this afternoon’s Windsor Heights parade much more pleasant. If you went to any parades this weekend, please share your anecdotes. I urge Democrats to wear sunscreen, comfortable shoes, and a t-shirt with a positive message. Don’t be rude to any political adversaries, and don’t respond in kind if heckled by Republicans. My go-to answers to parade watchers insulting me or candidates I support include, “My dad was a Republican” or “It’s a free country” or “Happy Fourth of July!”

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Thanks to media coverage picking up on the Iowa DNR’s recent warning about wild parsnip, last year’s post about that hazardous plant and poison hemlock has become the most-viewed edition of Iowa wildflower Wednesday. This weekend’s follow-up with more pictures of wild parsnip has become the most-shared Bleeding Heartland piece about wildflowers, which is ironic, since very few of more than 125 posts in this series have featured European invaders.

Some people confuse wild parsnip with golden Alexanders, a North American native with small yellow flowers. But the plants look quite different, and golden Alexanders tend to boom earlier in the year than wild parsnip.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources put out a warning this week about an invasive and poisonous plant that has become prevalent in the state.

Though not native to North America, wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) is has spread across most of our continent. I see massive stands near I-80 and I-35 on the west side of the Des Moines area, as well as along lots of country roads.

Many Iowans googling wild parsnip have landed on my post from last year about this plant and the notorious poison hemlock. On my way home from scoping out prairie wildflowers in Dallas County yesterday, I decided to take more pictures of the plant, along with other flowers you may see blooming close to it this time of year.

Canada Day is coming up this Friday, July 1, so the time seems right to feature a plant named for our neighbor to the north. Canada milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis) is native to most of North America. Sometimes just called milk vetch or Canadian milk vetch, it “makes a great garden plant and is adaptable to any reasonably well-drained soil, fixing nitrogen into the soil and providing erosion control,” according to the Minnesota Wildflowers website.

I saw these “robust” plants for the first time last week in the prairie patch along the Windsor Heights bike trail, behind the Iowa Department of Natural Resources building on Hickman. You may have to hunt for them, because they are tucked away among taller plants, including tons of black-eyed Susans and quite a few yellow or gray-headed coneflowers.

At the end of this post, I’ve enclosed two pictures of another wildflower I recently discovered on disturbed ground just west of where the Meredith bike trail passes under Fleur Drive in Des Moines. A friend tentatively IDed these pretty little flowers as Canada frostweed (Helianthemum canadense), a native plant that was new to me. However, according to the Iowa DNR’s John Pearson, these are Moth mullein (Verbascum blattaria), an “uncommon non-native” found across much of the U.S. and Canada.

Today’s featured flower is native to most of North America and prevalent in Iowa wooded areas. Anise root (Osmorhiza longistylis), also known as longstyle sweetroot or wild licorice, typically blooms in April and May in central Iowa. The plant is a close relative of sweet Cicely. In fact, I did not realize these were separate species until Eileen Miller mentioned the fact a couple of months ago. For me, words from the Minnesota Wildflowers website ring true: the hairy stems of sweet Cicely “are the most noticeable difference.” The Illinois Wildflowers website explains the distinctions as follows:

Aniseroot (Osmorhiza longistylis) can be distinguished from many similar species in the Carrot family by the anise fragance of its foliage and roots. This species closely resembles Sweet Cicely (Osmorhiza claytonii) and they are often confused with each other. However, Sweet Cicely has only 4-7 flowers per umbellet, while Aniseroot has 7-16 flowers per umbellet. While the fruits of these two species are still immature, the persistent styles of Sweet Cicely are 1.0-2.0 mm. in length, while the persistent styles of Aniseroot are 2.0-3.5 mm. in length. The foliage and roots of Aniseroot have a stronger anise scent than those of Sweet Cicely, and its root can be used as a substitute for black licorice.

Except where noted, I took most of the pictures enclosed below in Windsor Heights during the month of April.

Top photo by Wendie Schneider, used with permission. Click here for more of her prairie ragwort pictures, taken in Story County in May 2016.

Most of Iowa’s spring wildflowers have gone to seed, and summer flowers are blooming or well on the way. In the last couple of days, I’ve seen buds on common milkweed and the first elderflowers starting to open. Steer clear of wild parsnip, which is blooming near some Iowa trails and roadsides. That plant can cause a horrible, blistering rash.

Today I’m catching up on a native plant I saw for the first time in April during a visit to Dolliver Memorial State Park in Webster County. Prairie ragwort (Packera plattensis) is native to most of North America and is sometimes known as Prairie groundsel.

I’m always grateful when Iowa naturalist Eileen Miller shares her photography on this blog. Bleeding Heartland readers have seen her incredible eye for detail in wildflowers such as golden corydalis, hoary puccoon and fringed puccoon, marsh marigold, snow trillium, hepatica, blue cohosh, and pasque flower. She also once contributed a post featuring unusual fungi.

Eileen became an expert on wildflowers by virtue of her fascination with insects. If you or a child in your life are into bugs, I highly recommend joining the Raccoon River Watershed Facebook group, where Eileen sometimes posts unbelievable insect photo series, such as an Eastern Comma caterpillar making a shelter, some Giant Ichneumon wasps drilling into a dead tree to lay their eggs on larvae of Pigeon Horntail wasps, a male giant water bug carrying eggs on his back, or a little planthopper winged adult emerging from the last nymph stage.

Today I’m excited to share Eileen’s description and pictures of a plant and insect that are “the classic example of a plant and animal obligate symbiotic relationship where each organism requires the other to survive.”

I’ve never seen Yucca glauca, commonly known as yucca or soapweed yucca. Iowa is on the eastern edge of this plant’s native range, and in our state, yucca is found only in the Loess Hills. According to Charlie McDonald of the U.S. Forest Service website,

As the name implies, the crushed roots of soapweed yucca produce a lather that makes a good soap or shampoo. The lathering substances called saponins are found in many plants, but are exceptionally concentrated in yucca roots. The dried leaves of soapweed yucca can be woven into baskets, mats, or sandals. The strong coarse leaf fibers can be extracted to make cordage.

Of the approximately 120 kinds of wildflowers Bleeding Heartland has featured since March 2012, none look more like a Dr. Seuss creation than Geum triflorum.

Native to most of western North America and the upper Midwest, these plants are among the earliest to bloom in prairie landscapes. They can continue to produce flowers into the summer. However, the common names prairie smoke and old man’s whiskers are drawn from the appearance of Geum triflorum seedpods (technically achenes)–not from the pink or pale red blossoms on the flowering stalks.

I took the pictures enclosed below in mid-May along the Meredith bike trail in Des Moines. Several colonies of these unusual plants can be found along the southern edge of the trail, just west of where it passes under SW 9th Street.

Like last week’s featured plant, Dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne) was a new addition to my wildflower “life list” recently. I went hunting for it at the Woodland Mounds Preserve in Warren County on a tip from Marla Mertz. (By the way, her guest post about showy orchis is a must-read if you missed it earlier this month.)

Sometimes known as spring larkspur, dwarf larkspur is native to more than 20 states east of the Rocky Mountains. I enclose below more pictures of this species, which is “quite hardy and very adaptable to home gardens,” according to garden writer Gene Bush.

This week’s featured wildflower eluded me for years. The Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge has some plantings near the nature center, and I’ve seen the seed pods during the summer, but every spring I miss the blooming period. Good fortune struck on the way home from the downtown Des Moines farmers market last Saturday. Approaching Gray’s Lake on the Meredith bike trail, I saw some bushy plants with ivory-colored flowers. John Pearson of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources later confirmed the ID as Cream wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata), also known as cream false indigo, longbract wild indigo, and plains wild indigo.

This “exquisite perennial” has been described as “a spectacular specimen in the flower garden.” Cream wild indigo is native to most of the Midwest, plains and southern states. I enclose below more pictures of this “showy and attractive” prairie plant.

I am thrilled to have Marla Mertz share her stunning pictures and description of a native plant I’ve never seen “in real life.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

When someone comments about an orchid, what do you envision in your mind; beauty, grace, delicate, romantic, exotic, tropical? Seeing beautiful orchids in a gardening center or store, I always have to stop and look at each individual one. If I were to a choose one I don’t think I could…each one is more beautiful than the other. It becomes very personal and sometimes it takes a connection to one over the other.

Did you know that Iowa has 32 species of native orchids? According to Bill Witt, author of “Iowa’s Wild Orchids,” an article written for the Iowa Natural Heritage magazine, “Orchids are among the most prolific of all families in the plant kingdom. Over 20,000 species inhabit almost every imaginable habitat to be found between the polar ice caps, from cold, alpine regions to the deserts. Iowa’s orchids, too have matched themselves to just about every available niche, from the white oak swamps of Muscatine and Lee counties to the dry, windswept Loess Hills of Monona and Plymouth counties.”

In 1995, I had the great opportunity to extend my career as the Naturalist for Marion County, Iowa. I had only been working out of the Cordova Park office a short while when a very kind gentleman stopped by to introduce himself and extend an invitation to come to his Christmas tree farm the following spring. He didn’t hold back his welcoming gesture and enthusiasm, and it wasn’t an invitation to see the trees, it was an invite to introduce me to a special woodland orchid growing on his farm called the Showy orchis.

This venture and the gentleman’s enthusiasm inspired a 20 year affair with the Showy orchis. I located one beautiful orchis at Cordova Park, which, unfortunately met its demise with some timber management and clearing. I didn’t know that the plant’s demise would create such personal turmoil. Over the course of the next 19 years I have tromped the earth at Cordova Park searching for more of these hidden treasures. Naturally, some come and go due to successional changes, but I have never located more than five in a year.