# Wildflowers



Best of Bleeding Heartland's original reporting in 2023

Before Iowa politics kicks into high gear with a new legislative session and the caucuses, I want to highlight the investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, and accountability journalism published first or exclusively on this site last year.

Some newspapers, websites, and newsletters put their best original work behind a paywall for subscribers, or limit access to a set number of free articles a month. I’m committed to keeping all Bleeding Heartland content available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. That includes nearly 500 articles and commentaries from 2023 alone, and thousands more posts in archives going back to 2007.

To receive links to everything recently published here via email, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter. I also have a free Substack, which is part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Subscribers receive occasional cross-posts from Bleeding Heartland, as well as audio files and recaps for every episode of KHOI Radio’s “Capitol Week,” a 30-minute show about Iowa politics co-hosted by Dennis Hart and me.

I’m grateful to all readers, but especially to tipsters. Please reach out with story ideas that may be worth pursuing in 2024.

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Recap of Iowa wildflower Wednesdays from 2023

Photo by Kara Brady of Lesser yellow lady’s slipper (Cypripedium caleolus), found in Jones County

Guest authors carried the load for most the twelfth year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series. Although I have been getting around pretty well (despite a catastrophic ankle fracture in early 2022), the pace of Iowa political news was relentless in 2023. In part for that reason, I spent less time on trails and prairies than I would have liked. Turning that around is on my list of New Year’s resolutions.

I can’t express how grateful I am for the outstanding contributions of guest authors and photographers. In alphabetical order: Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Kara Grady, Beth Lynch, Bruce Morrison, Diane Porter, Leland Searles, and Kenny Slocum. Thanks also to the friends who allowed me to publish some of their images in my own wildflower posts, and to Bleeding Heartland user PrairieFan for highlighting the devastating impact of chemical trespass on many native plants.

This series will return sometime during April or May of 2024. Please reach out if you have photographs to share, especially of native plants I haven’t featured yet. The full archive of posts featuring at least 250 wildflower species is available here. I have also compiled links to several dozen posts that covered many plants found in one area, rather than focusing on a single kind of wildflower.

For those looking for wildflower pictures year round, or seeking help with plant ID, check out the Facebook groups Flora of Iowa or Iowa wildflower enthusiasts. If you’d like a book to take with you on nature outings, Lora Conrad reviewed some of the best wildflower guides last year. A book featuring plants native to our part of the country is probably more reliable than the plant ID app on your phone.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Bidens

Lora Conrad lives on a small farm in Van Buren County.

Bidens. Whether you call them Bur Marigold or Beggarticks or one of a dozen different common names, they are all Bidens varieties. One year an explosion of many bright yellow flowers but another year, nary a one. That is a characteristic that Bidens cernua and Bidens aristosa have in common…along with making awns with multiple points all the better to grab anything hairy or clothed that walks by.

These are the two Bidens I see the most in Van Buren County. B. aristosa and B. cernua both have lovely bright yellow rays. However, they look different enough to tell them apart on the basis of the flowers alone, as shown in this side by side comparison. (Each is discussed separately below.)

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Full archive: Iowa wildflower Wednesday nature walks

Bleeding Heartland authors have featured about 250 plant species since I launched “Iowa wildflower Wednesday” in 2012. You can find most of those posts in this archive, alphabetized by common name from alumroot to zigzag goldenrod.

But not every post in the wildflower series focuses on one or two kinds of native plants. Many chronicle the author’s visit to a park, prairie, natural area, or wooded trail, where they may have photographed a dozen or more species. When I’ve updated the archive, I haven’t linked to every post that includes one picture of, say, spring beauty or Culver’s root or rattlesnake master.

For this piece, I compiled links to all of the Bleeding Heartland posts that survey a range of plants in a given area, arranged by season. I hope these links will help readers who are wondering which flowers may be blooming at different times of the year, or are trying to identify a plant they saw on their own nature walk. By the way, Lora Conrad reviewed many guides to Iowa wildflowers, shrubs, and trees.

Words can’t convey how grateful I am to guest authors who have showcased corners of Iowa that are unfamiliar to me, from Shimek State Forest (southeast) to Motor Mill (northeast) to the Loess Hills (southwest) and the Little Sioux River valley (northwest).

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Northern Monkshood

Katie Byerly of Cerro Gordo County is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

I’d like to say that my goal is to see all the wildflowers of Iowa—preferably when they are in bloom. I’m not even sure if that goal is measurable, but I do like to hunt for wildflowers that I haven’t yet seen. I’m still new enough to the wildflower hunting game that I’m am not even aware sometimes of what I should be hunting for.

In 1978, the Northern Monkshood (Aconitum noveboracense) or Northern Wild Monkshood was placed on the federally threatened plant list. I read about monkshood in 2021 on a kiosk at Backbone State Park in Delaware County, Iowa. This kiosk set in motion my three-year quest to find the rare species.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: October stragglers

Most Iowa wildflowers have gone to seed by now. But I’m always intrigued by the plants that keep blooming long after others. So I ventured out on yet another unseasonably warm day to photograph late bloomers in the prairie planting along the Windsor Heights trail, immediately behind the Iowa Department of Natural Resources building on Hickman Road.

I’ve been impressed by how well this patch has been managed over the past decade or so. It’s mostly free from the invasive plants that took over the onetime Eagle Scout project about a quarter-mile away on the Windsor Heights trail (near where Rocklyn Creek runs into North Walnut Creek).

The patch behind the Iowa DNR building is most colorful over the summer, but I enjoy watching the succession of wildflowers blooming, from golden Alexanders in the spring to rosinweed and wild bergamot in the summer to the last of the asters in the fall. There’s plenty of parking near the building, if you can’t access the area on foot or by bicycle. The Windsor Heights trail is paved and flat, for those who struggle with uneven ground.

I took all of the photos enclosed below on October 4.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: The magic of monarch waystations

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.

Sitting down outside the crystal store in Amana, my eye was drawn to a sign half-hidden across the way. It was not studded with sparkly jewels, or advertised by bright colors, but nevertheless, I was pulled from my seat with curiosity to investigate. And I experienced a surge of joy when I realized what the sign was for: it was telling me of the Monarch Waystation planted right in front of the store, an array of wildflowers I had barely noticed moments before.

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Monarchs on my mind

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery–a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

Every summer we enjoy the monarch butterflies in our pastures and acreage, from their first arrival to their final departure. And each a different generation!

There are so many amazing mysteries in the natural world, and these iconic butterflies are right at the top of the list.  According to MonarchWatch.org, over the summer there are three or four generations of monarch butterflies, depending on the length of the growing season. Each female lays hundreds of eggs, so the total number of monarch butterflies increases throughout the summer. Before the end of summer, there are millions of monarchs all over the U.S. and southern Canada.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Woodland wonders at Lake Macbride

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. The University of Iowa’s Facilities Management website has more information about Macbride Nature Recreation Area in Johnson County.

“And this is called the Mother Oak.”

Land manager Tamra Elliott and I stood together beneath the white oak’s branches, which were so heavy with leaves that they drooped towards the ground. “People kept telling me that it was dead or dying. But I knew it was alive. Our team worked to open up the canopy around it and it came back to life.”

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Illinois bundleflower

Leland Searles works for Meskwaki Natural Resources as an Environmental Specialist Senior. He continues his efforts as a consultant and owner of Leeward Solutions, LLC, a business that offers services in ecological planning and design, field identification and inventory of plants, and natural stream restoration. For more information, see Leeward’s website at http://www.leewardecology.com. All photos of Illinois Bundleflower featured here are Leland’s work and are published with permission.

Illinois Bundleflower (Desmanthus illinoensis) is a somewhat misnamed plant that includes parts of Iowa in its range. While it is found in Illinois, the center of its distribution might be in southern Kansas or Oklahoma. It grows from Mexico north to the Dakotas and east to Illinois and Mississippi. Further east, it occurs as a “species waif,” a plant that requires human management to survive or else disappears in a few generations because it is poorly adapted. Perhaps “Central Plains Bundleflower” would be more apt.

In Iowa, Desmanthus illinoensis has been recorded in four southeastern counties, using the maps at the Biota of North America Project (BONAP), five central Iowa counties, and a brace of counties in the southwest, northwest, and west. It seems to be unevenly distributed, although the gaps may mean only that no herbarium specimens have been collected in those counties.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Compass plant

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.

On stems up to 12 feet tall, the yellow blossoms of Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum) tower over other wildflowers. Down below, the roots reach into the earth as deep as 16 feet.

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Kara Grady’s Annual Prairiestomp Across Iowa

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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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Meet the baneberries

Luther College Associate Professor Beth Lynch took all the photos featured in her latest essay.

This post is about two closely related plant species that can be confusing for the novice to identify. Both of them grow in the forests of Iowa, though red baneberry (Actaea rubra) is far more common.

Red baneberry is one of those forest wildflowers that is never abundant, but I can pretty well count on finding it when I walk through shady hardwood forests of Iowa. The plants are about 1 to 2 1/2 feet tall and have compound leaves that are divided into 3 to 5 leaflets; each leaflet is then divided again into more leaflets that have coarse teeth along the margins and are pointed at the tip.

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The surprise of the large-flowered beardtongue

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. At 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 13, Kara will give a presentation for the Loess Hills Wild Ones Chapter: Fall Wildflowers of Iowa. Click here to register.

“Here, Kara.”

I peer at my dad’s phone screen. It shows something vaguely familiar from scrolling many times through the Iowa Wildflowers app. “Huh. It’s some kind of penstemon. Where did you find it?”

I’m more than a little surprised that he even has a picture. When my dad goes walking, he’s usually buried in his phone and never really seems interested in flowers. But this one caught his eye, and after trying to tell me where it was (and me failing to understand), we set out together to find the mystery flower.

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Notes from a prairie tour across Iowa

Kenny Slocum is the naturalist and natural resource manager for the Clayton County Conservation Board. This piece was first published on Clayton County Conservation’s website.

RAGBRAI celebrated it’s 50th ride this year, and once more I got to enjoy just a snippet of the mayhem when I shuttled some friends to Iowa’s west coast before returning their vehicle to the finish line.

I must admit I did feel a slight pang of FOMO (fear of missing out) when I watched the massive herd of cyclists depart from Sioux City. I got myself a decent bike this spring but I wasn’t quite up to the task of riding all 500+ miles across the state just yet. Plus, I’d thoroughly enjoyed last year’s KAGPAI and wanted to do it again with a little more time.

Come Sunday morning, all the bikes were on the road and I was ready to start my own adventure. I wanted to get a little mileage under my belt, and give the dew a little time to dissipate, so I made my first stop about an hour down the road at Prescott prairie in Cherokee county. Right away, the prairie magic began.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Blueflag Iris

Katie Byerly of Cerro Gordo County is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

I remember the first time I saw a wild iris in a prairie wetland. I had no idea wild irises existed and wondered who took the time to plant an iris a mile from a road. Since then I have found Blue Flag or Blueflag Iris (Iris Virginica)—also known as Wild Blueflag Iris, Southern Blueflag, or Virginia Iris—in many marshes, wet ditches and even flooded woodlands.

Still, finding a wild iris is always still a pleasant surprise.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: False Solomon's seal

I’ve been wanting to feature False Solomon’s seal for a long time. Eileen Miller pointed out a colony of these plants on a visit to Dolliver Memorial State Park in Webster County, I believe in 2015. They were not blooming yet, and I have never found the species close to my Polk County home base, where I could check on it at various stages of development.

Jo Hain came to the rescue this year. An active member of the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group, she regularly visited a group of false Solomon’s seal in Cerro Gordo County and forwarded many pictures. All of the photographs below are by Jo.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Wild Four-O'Clock

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery–a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

Wild Four-O’Clocks (Mirabilis nyctaginea) are from the Four-O’Clock family (Nyctaginaceae). This perennial native plant is common throughout Iowa, and sources describe it as preferring drier conditions and soil, particularly disturbed sites. All of our pasture populations in southeast O’Brien County are along the fence line next to the gravel road that borders our pastures and acreage.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Jacob's Ladder

Lora Conrad lives on a small farm in Van Buren County.

The many soft blue flowers shining through the green on the forest floor in early spring just might be a lovely native spring blooming perennial you don’t want to miss: Spreading Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans).

In Iowa, its common name is just Jacob’s Ladder, as it is the only species of the Polemonium genus native to this state. It also has common names of Greek Valerian and Creeping Polemonium. The Polemonium genus is a member of the Phlox family. The Greek Valerian name is a transfer of a name used for a similar plant in the Polemonium genus in England by Europeans in the Americas.

The name Jacob’s Ladder refers to the leaves. Early Europeans believed they resembled Jacob’s Ladder in the biblical story of Jacob’s dream about a ladder leading to heaven. Though that may be a bit over the top, the little plant is “heavenly,” and the common name has stuck for this species and another two members of the Polemonium genus.

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Experiencing Iowa's beautiful northern Loess Hills on foot

Patrick Swanson has been restoring a Harrison County prairie.

Over Memorial Day weekend this year, I joined the third installment of the LoHi Trek, a multi-day hike through the Loess Hills organized by Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development and other partners. 

I joined the inaugural LoHi Trek in 2021 through Monona County, and offered my reflection on that journey in an earlier Bleeding Heartland post

I missed last year’s trek and the follow-up “mini LoHi” hike in the fall. When the organizers announced that this year’s hike would be traversing the northern reaches of the Loess Hills in Plymouth and Woodbury Counties, visiting areas I hadn’t seen before, I jumped at the opportunity. 

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Wild Lupine

Kenny Slocum is the naturalist and natural resource manager for the Clayton County Conservation Board.

Lupine and I have a complex relationship. Despite the fact that some variants are indigenous to Iowa, I had to leave home to learn to recognize it.

After college, I moved to Western Montana where I first became acquainted with the genus. Following my term with the Montana Conservation Corps, I bounced up and down the Rocky Mountains, the Black Hills, the Colorado Plateau… Everywhere I went, lupine was there to greet me. Always a crowd-pleaser, a colony of lupine on a hillside brings an incredible splash of color to the summer meadow wherever the geography.

As with so many other plants, it took me a long time to realize I didn’t have to leave Iowa to find it. I would have needed to take a road trip out of my native Scott County, though. Especially in search of the true Iowan lupine.

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Iowa’s orchids are disappearing, leaving behind more questions

Kara Grady is an amatuer botanist and wildflower enthusiast based 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.

“I think I’ll put a cage around it.”

It was a beautiful blue day in the middle of May, and Chris Edwards and I were both staring at the one lesser yellow lady slipper blooming in his family’s woodland plot. While I stared in utter rapture, Chris looked slightly grim, and perhaps for good reason. This is the last clump of the slipper that still exists since his grandparents bought the woodland in 1963. He blames ravenous deer for their disappearance.

Hungry deer are just one of the many challenges Iowa’s orchids face in their struggle for survival.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: False Gromwell

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery–a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

False Gromwell (Onosmodium molle occidentale), sometimes known as Western Marbleseed, is often overlooked, yet common in Iowa. The range map in An Illustrated Guide to Prairie Plants, by Paul Christiansen and Mark Muller, shows it in at least half of our counties. It’s likely much more common than that.

I find it mostly in dry to gravelly hillsides or upland prairie and even roadsides. I suspect Iowa’s western counties are the most reliable hosts for the native forb.

I remember the first time I saw false gromwell. it was here in southeast O’Brien County along side a dirt road abutting a small natural area donated to the county by a local landowner. I noticed the plant, not the flowers (it was well past their latest blooming time of mid-July). This plant’s leaf structure is really quite attractive—or at least the form and stature are attention getting.

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Book review: The Revolutionary Genius of Plants

How can plants move without muscles? How do their root systems explore the soil? How do they adapt to changes in the environment, and sometimes survive extreme challenges such as fire or drought?

Stefano Mancuso explores those and other questions in The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior. The book isn’t new (first published in 2018), but it was new to me after my brother gave a copy to one of my children.

Although the book doesn’t directly discuss prairie and woodland habitats that have inspired most of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower content, Mancuso’s provocative theories are relevant to Iowa’s native plants as well.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Edible Valerian

Katie Byerly features yet another native plant I’ve never seen. She has a knack for finding the rare ones! Katie is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

Is Edible Valerian (Valeriana edulis) edible or not? Valerian is also called Tobacco Root. According to the Montana Plant Life website, some Native Americans cooked the root for two days before eating it. The same site notes, “It has a very strong and peculiar taste that is offensive to some people but agreeable to others.”

Minnesota Wildflowers compares early European accounts of the carrot-like taproot to the usual discussion on lutefisk—meaning you either like it or hate it. I doubt anyone is currently baking valerian root in the ground for days to avoid hunger, but do note that it is poisonous raw.

The only location I have found edible Valerian is in the native prairie in Wilkinson Pioneer Park in Rock Falls (Cerro Gordo County). In north Iowa and at Wilkinson Park, this plant is one of the first taller fluorescence to appear in the spring. While short and almost hidden yellow star and blue-eyed grasses are blooming close to the ground, edible Valerian pop up to one to four feet above early spring prairie flowers.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Spring mix from Johnson County

The combination of a late spring and a busy legislative session delayed the return of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series, but I’m excited to kick off the twelfth year with a lovely collection of photographs.

Johnson County Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass supplied all of the images featured below. She took the pictures in April and May on various Johnson County conservation properties, including the Phebe Timber and Kent Park, as well as in other parts of the county, such as the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville.

I’m presenting the photos in roughly the order one would see these flowers, from the earliest to appear along trails or in wooded areas to those that bloom once spring is well underway.

If you have images to share or would like to write a guest post for the wildflowers series, please reach out to me. I welcome commentaries showcasing one species, especially a plant that hasn’t yet been featured here. But it’s also fun to see pictures of many wildflowers found in one location. Essays about transformations, whether in your back yard or some larger area, are always popular with readers.

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Iowa naturalist B.O. Wolden remembered

B.O. Wolden (1886-1968) was a prolific naturalist, an amateur botanist, and an advocate for conservation. Born to pioneers in rural Emmet county, Olaf witnessed drastic ecological changes during his lifetime as European Americans reshaped the tallgrass prairie bioregion. For nearly forty years, Olaf shared his observations of the natural world in a regular newspaper column called Nature Notes.

The Observer: The Life and Writings of Bernt Olaf Wolden was written by Amie Adams in partnership with the Iowa Master Naturalist Program and Emmet County Conservation. The book contains a biography of B.O. Wolden (written by Adams) and a selection of 100 of Mr. Wolden’s “Nature Notes.” Readers will learn about Iowa’s natural history and this fascinating Iowa naturalist. Copies are available for purchase online and at the Emmet County Nature Center. All proceeds support conservation and nature education in Emmet county.

Please enjoy the following excerpts from the book.

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Recap of Iowa wildflower Wednesdays from 2022

The eleventh year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series was the most difficult for me by far. A catastrophic ankle fracture early in the year made it hard to get out on the trails and prairies that have provided most of my source material over the years.

I’ve never been more grateful for the guest authors and photographers who helped me keep the series going most weeks. In alphabetical order: Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Paul Laning, Bruce Morrison, Diane Porter, Leland Searles, and Kenny Slocum. Thanks also to Kurt Meyer for highlighting monarch and Baltimore checkerspot butterflies, which need native plants to thrive.

This series will return sometime during April or May of 2023. Please reach out if you have photographs to share, especially of native plants I haven’t featured yet. The full archive of nearly 300 posts featuring more than 240 wildflower species is available here.

For those looking for wildflower pictures year round, or seeking help with plant ID, check out the Facebook groups Flora of Iowa or Iowa wildflower enthusiasts. If you’d like a book to take with you on nature outings, Lora Conrad reviewed some of the best wildflower guides last year. A few were co-authored by Sylvan Runkel, whose biography I wholeheartedly recommend. A book featuring plants native to our area is probably more reliable than the plant ID app on your phone.

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The Baltimore checkerspot and the turtlehead

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

It’s human nature to regard your home community as special, distinctive, or unique in one way or another. I’ve always seen my rural community in this light, although some claims to fame are rather small.

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On gratitude and Sylvan Runkel

This post was supposed to be a book review.

I bought a copy of Sylvan T. Runkel: Citizen of the Natural World at the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat in September, thinking it would be perfect to review for my Iowa wildflowers series. Runkel co-authored some of the best Iowa wildflower guides, and I’ve used Wildflowers of Iowa Woodlands and Wildflowers of the Tall Grass Prairie countless times.

Co-authors Larry Stone and Jon Stravers both knew Runkel and interviewed many of his friends, relatives, and former colleagues while researching their biography. As expected, I learned a lot about how the famous conservationist grew to love the outdoors and became passionate about native plants and natural landscapes.

The book also struck a chord with me as I’ve been coping with the most physically challenging year of my life.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Autumn in southeast O'Brien County

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery – a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

I’ve heard many folks express that autumn is their favorite season. It has always been mine. 

Even as a youngster, when any sane kid would tag summer as a fav (for obvious reasons), I’d still long for autumn. The fall season had a siren song about it; maybe it was too short, leaving you wanting…longing for more; frost in the air, colors everywhere, and harvest time. But more than likely, it was all those things plus what young kids long to spend time for outdoors in autumn. 

"Yellow Ave, Up the Road from Donnie's Place" - photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Baldwin's ironweed

Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on My Gaia, a Substack 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.

When the first people walked on the tall grass prairie of North America, they found Baldwin’s Ironweed (Vernonia baldwinii). It can grow almost anywhere the sun shines, including on dry, rocky soil. It’s important for feeding butterflies, moths and especially native bees.

The blooming top looks like a natural bouquet of about a dozen flowers plus some buds that haven’t opened yet. Each one of what looks like individual flowers is actually a smaller bouquet, made up of 20-or-so tiny florets. (Floret = little flower.)

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Flowers of Octobers past

Some years, I find wildflowers still blooming this far into autumn. But I haven’t been out with my camera lately, and everything’s gone to seed along the wooded trail where I often walk my dog.

So I dove into my files and pulled out a selection of wildflowers I’ve found in October. I took most of these pictures in 2016, when unusually warm weather seemed to extend the blooming period for some species (and inspired me to spend more time on my bicycle).

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: White wild indigo

Katie Byerly shares another spectacular series of wildflower photos from northeast Iowa. Katie is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

What is your favorite wildflower? I enjoy so many that it’s a hard question to answer. I do know that whenever I see White wild indigo (Baptisia alba macrophylla), I can’t help but smile.

Let me share a few reasons why this is one of my favorite wildflowers.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Coralberry

Lora Conrad lives on a small farm in Van Buren County.

Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) is a deciduous shrub that is native to the Eastern U.S. and much of the Midwest, including Iowa. Its common name describes its fruit or drupe. Other names used for it include Buckbrush and Indian Currant. It is a member of the Honeysuckle plant family. It is more common in southern Iowa, as shown on this map from the Biota of North America Program (BONAP).

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Allium canadense (Wild onion or Wild garlic)

Lora Conrad lives on a small farm in Van Buren County.

Allium canadense is known by many common names: wild garlic, meadow garlic, wild onion, Canadian onion.

Whatever name you use, this wild Allium is the one you are most likely to find in Iowa. It is not a ramp and not a nodding onion. Several other wild Alliums are native to Iowa (including Allium stellatum, which is also called wild onion), but those are not very common.

This map from the Biota of North America Program (BONAP) shows the native range of Allium canadense in Iowa.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: The ant and the trillium

Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on Birdwatching Dot Com.

Last week I found a big black ant rushing across my kitchen counter. Tightly clenched in its jaws was a Prairie Trillium seed, which was attached to a cream-colored swoop. The ant kept darting under the edges of objects. I tried to get it into view so I could get a picture. But the ant was too quick and agile for me.

I prodded at the seed with a toothpick, but the ant would not let go. We battled this way for a minute. I tried not to harm the ant, but clearly I was causing it aggravation. Ultimately it dropped the seed and disappeared into a crack at the edge of the sink. At least now I could study the seed.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Fringed puccoon

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery – a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

My first experience/introduction to Fringed Puccoon (Lithospermum incisum) was somewhat embarrassing—to me, anyway. We had just moved to our present acreage in southeast O’Brien County and I was taking inventory, trying to figure out what was there and what “could” be there.

My only acquaintance from the Borage family (Boraginaceae) was Hoary Puccoon (Lithospermum canescens). I found none here. Since I’d seen it in many locations within 15 to 20 minutes of our new home, I was disappointed.

However a prairie friend of some years had recently suggested the ground I described (gravel hillside mostly) would work for fringed puccoon. She offered to send me a handful of seed from her prairie near the Loess Hills. I gladly accepted and found a spot on top our north pasture’s east facing slope, that was mostly brome. I marked it and figured next year we’d see what comes of it.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Flowers of Augusts past

The ankle I severely fractured in January continues to interfere with my wildflower outings. Although I’m able to walk a couple of miles now, I have limited range of motion, which makes it hard to cover much distance on uneven ground like unpaved trails or prairies. My ankle flexion is still too limited for me to feel comfortable doing the long bike rides that used to provide lots of material for this series.

This week, I struck out looking for the plants I had hoped to feature. So I dove into my files and pulled out a selection of wildflowers I’ve found in August over the past six years.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A visit to the Hansen Wildlife Area

Katie Byerly shares photos of more than a dozen plants flowering in Cerro Gordo County’s Hansen Wildlife Area. Katie is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

Thanks to Dave and Patty Hansen, Cerro Gordo County has a new beautiful community prairie! This spring the Hansen Wildlife Area was opened to the public, and as part of the celebration the North Iowa Nature Club toured the prairie with Dave and Patty has our guides.

The Hansen Wildlife Area is located on B20 north of Clear Lake, Iowa between Cardinal and Dogwood. It is already well marked with the usual brown sign and right away to a small parking area.

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Monarchs merit royal care

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

Who doesn’t love butterflies, especially monarch butterflies?

Let me share several verbal bouquets I encountered in reading articles about monarchs. “Showy looks.” “Extraordinary migration.” “One of the natural world’s wonders,” and, “one of the continent’s most beloved insects.” Unfortunately, I also came across some very troubling terms, like “endangered,” “vulnerable populations,” “declining precipitously” and “teeter(ing) on the edge of collapse.” Suffice to say, it all captured my attention.

Monarchs have been in the news a great deal lately. Appropriately so.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Rattlesnake master

Learning to identify some native plants can be challenging even for experts. But today’s featured species is, in the words of the Minnesota Wildflowers website, “a no-brainer,” since rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) is “a unique plant” and “startlingly different than most native plant forms.”

I’ve mostly seen rattlesnake master in prairie plantings, but according to Illinois Wildflowers, it’s “easy to grow” in sunny areas and “isn’t bothered by foliar disease nor many insect pests.” The species is native to about two dozen states east of the Rocky Mountains.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: American bellflower (Tall bellflower)

This week, I’m returning to one of my all-time favorites. I have a better camera now than when Bleeding Heartland featured American bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum) seven years ago, and these plants are easily accessible to me along wooded trails in Windsor Heights or Urbandale. Although I’m getting around reasonably well six months after severely breaking my ankle, I’m still not up to bike rides or very long walks.

Also known as tall bellflower, American bellflower is native to most states east of the Rocky Mountains. In Iowa, it usually starts blooming in early July, and you can often find some of the flowers well into the late summer. A couple of times I’ve even seen one of these plants blooming in October.

According to the Illinois Wildflowers website, “Habitats include moist to slightly dry deciduous woodlands, disturbed open woodlands, woodland borders, and thickets. This plant is often found along woodland paths, and it appears to prefer slightly disturbed areas.”

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A thriving farm prairie strip

Early this month, Lee Tesdell invited me to the Prairie Strips Field Day he hosted at his family’s century farm in northern Polk County. I’ve visited many prairie restorations in progress, but this was my first encounter with a prairie strip in the middle of rowcrops.

Lee has long employed conservation practices on his farm and is five years into his prairie strip project. Every year, he finds new native plants in the corridor.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Fragile fern

Lora Conrad profiles a delicate native plant that is often overlooked.

Cystopteris protrusa (formerly C. fragilis var. protrusa) is variously called Southern Fragile Fern, Creeping Fragile Fern, Lowland Brittle Fern, and Southern Bladder Fern, as well as just Fragile Fern which we will use here. It is a relatively easy fern to identify as it grows in early spring and grows in soil, not on rock ledges.

Once you have seen the structure of the frond, you are likely to recognize it in the future. It is found in oak and hickory woodlands, both high quality natural habitat and significantly degraded woodlands. It is widely distributed in Iowa as documented by this BONAP (Biota of North America Program) map dated 2014.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A visit to the Rock Creek Wildlife Area

Katie Byerly shares photos of more than 20 plants flowering in northern Iowa’s lovely Rock Creek Wildlife Area. Katie is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube.

Last week I was fortunate to have time off on a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the low 80s. So on June 29, I loaded up my two yellow labradors, Prairie Dog and Meadow, and headed to the Rock Creek Wildlife Area five miles south of Osage (Mitchell County).

I was introduced to the Rock Creek area last summer while attending a Master Conservationist Course sponsored by the Iowa State University Extension Office. The mycountyparks.com website describes the area as 160 acres of wetland, restored prairie, upland and riparian forest with Rock Creek flowing through the central part of the area.

Be warned: after parking in a typical small county park parking lot, you have to cross Rock Creek by foot. The two previous trips I had made to Rock Creek the water was ankle deep and there are large rocks you can maneuver on to avoid wet feet.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Striped white violet

After severely fracturing my ankle in January, I don’t walk easily on uneven ground, so didn’t get out to photograph wildflowers as often as usual this spring. Fortunately, I was able to find plenty of this week’s featured plants in my own back yard.

Striped white violets (Viola striata) are not nearly as prevalent as common blue violets (Viola sororia), but they are found throughout Iowa and in about 20 states in the eastern part of the U.S. They are sometimes known as striped cream violet or pale violet. According to the Illinois Wildflowers website, “This species doesn’t invade lawns because its stems are too long. It is relatively easy to cultivate in gardens.”

I usually start seeing striped white violets in April, but this year’s cold spring delayed the blooming period by several weeks. I took all of the photographs enclosed below (except one) between mid-May and early June in Windsor Heights.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Sedges

Leland Searles is consultant and owner of Leeward Solutions, LLC, a company that offers regulatory and non-regulatory environmental services. For more information, see Leeward’s website at http://www.leewardecology.com. All photos of sedges enclosed below are Leland’s work and published with permission.

You have walked on them, looked at them, maybe even pulled the seed stem to nibble on the tender base, as though it were a grass. But it isn’t.

Sedges are an important, often overlooked group of native plants. In Iowa there are at least 125 species belonging to one genus, Carex.

Carex sedges often are overlooked because they look so much like grasses. And with wide variation in their appearance and very tiny details, they are a daunting group of plants to learn. But with patience, those details also lead to small moments of awe and wonder at the different symmetries and adaptations of each.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A prairie home remnant in O'Brien County

Bruce Morrison is a working artist and photographer living with his wife Georgeann in rural southeast O’Brien County, Iowa. Bruce works from his studio/gallery – a renovated late 1920s brooding house/sheep barn. You can follow Morrison on his artist blog, Prairie Hill Farm Studio, or visit his website at Morrison’s studio.

When we found the acreage here in southeast O’Brien County 20 years ago, it was the perfect fit for us. We had a few trees and a small bit of wooded habitat with nice spring ephemerals, and some great hillside gravel slopes with actual native prairie remnants, something that has become less easy to find in Iowa.

This little spot may not be on the super quality charts, but even places like ours are disappearing much too frequently. The photographs shown here depict a little piece of what once was, when prairie habitats covered most of what is now Iowa.

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Favorite wildflowers of Iowa's 2022 Democratic ticket

For this post-primary election edition of Iowa wildflower Wednesday, I asked all of Iowa’s Democratic nominees for federal or statewide offices about their favorite wildflowers.

The candidates could choose any flowering plant. It didn’t have to be a native species or one that tends to bloom in Iowa around this time of year.

I’m presenting the wildflower choices in the same order the candidates appeared on the Iowa Secretary of State’s 2022 primary candidate list.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Great Waterleaf

Lora Conrad features a native perennial at different stages of development.

Great Waterleaf aka Appendaged Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum appendiculatum) is one of only two native Hydrophyllum species in Iowa. The other is Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum), which Bleeding Heartland featured here.

Great Waterleaf is a native perennial that thrives in partial shade in rich woodlands. Most photos enclosed below were made on a north facing slope of wooded land just above the Des Moines River in Van Buren County. Others were made in a similar site in Lee County. According to BONAP, it is found more in the eastern two-thirds of Iowa.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: The Croton Unit of Shimek State Forest

Join Lora Conrad for a walk through the Croton Unit of Shimek State Forest to photograph and identify plants growing in this “premier woodland wildflower location.”

“Shimek State Forest is located in Lee and Van Buren counties in southeast Iowa. The forest served as a base for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s and 1940s, where they planted thousands of acres of hardwoods and conifers for demonstration purposes. Named after early Iowa conservationist Dr. Bohumil Shimek, the forest offers bountiful outdoor recreation opportunities… ”

So goes the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ understated introduction to Shimek State Forest which is 9,448 acres spread across five forest units.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday returns: Wild plum

I’m kicking off the eleventh year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower series a little later than usual, for two reasons. First, unusually cold weather in March and April delayed many plants’ blooming period by several weeks.

In addition, I severely fractured my ankle in January, requiring surgery, ten non-weight-bearing weeks, and ongoing physical therapy. Although I’m getting around with a cane now, I don’t walk well on uneven ground, which limits my wildflower spotting.

The upshot is that I will probably rely on guest authors and photographers even more than last year. Please let me know if you have pictures to share, especially of plants I haven’t featured yet. (Click here for the full archive, featuring more than 200 species.) Some spring or early summer bloomers which have yet to be introduced to Bleeding Heartland readers include Jacob’s ladder, false Solomon’s seal, and Four o’clock.

I also welcome guest posts showcasing a favorite trail, park, or nature area, with pictures of different plants that may be blooming on a given day or weekend. Restoration success stories like last year’s contributions by Kenny Slocum and Grinnell College students are also well received.

This week’s featured plant is a shrub or small tree. Wild plum (Prunus americana) is native to most of the U.S. and Canada. Also known as American Red Plum, these plants can thrive in a range of habitats, from roadsides to woodlands to open fields or prairies. The Illinois Wildflowers and Minnesota Wildflowers websites have botanically accurate information about various parts of the trees.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Hoar frost

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: I’m interrupting the winter hiatus of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series to bring you some lovely images by a new guest photographer, Paul Laning. He first shared these pictures in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group, which has remained active this winter.

I’ve had professional training in photography and design and been taking pictures since 1978. I take many nature photographs, but hoar frost is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy my art.

I took the first five pictures with my cell phone near Buffalo Center (Winnebago County). I shot the last with a Canon EOS in Clear Lake.

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Recap of Iowa wildflower Wednesdays from 2021

It’s hard to believe Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series is ten years old. I could not have made it through this year without assistance from guest authors and photographers. Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Tommy Hexter and Jacy Highbarger, Elizabeth Marilla, Marla Mertz, Bruce Morrison, Leland Searles, Kenny Slocum, and Patrick Swanson wrote a total of fifteen posts during 2021. They and others (Kim El-Baroudi, Janette Foust, and Mary Riesberg) also contributed photographs to several of my posts.

One of my new year’s resolutions is to visit more state parks or wildlife preserves, and get out to Mike Delaney’s restored Dallas County prairie more regularly. The last couple of years I haven’t gone wildflower hunting as often as I did before the pandemic.

This series will return sometime during April or May of 2022. Please reach out if you have photographs to share, especially of native plants I haven’t featured yet. The full archive of more than 250 posts featuring more than 220 wildflower species is available here.

For those looking for wildflower pictures year round, or seeking help with plant ID, I recommend the Facebook groups Flora of Iowa or Iowa wildflower enthusiasts.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Fall berries and seeds

As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m wrapping up the tenth year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series. I’m so grateful to the guest authors who contributed posts and photographs this year: Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Tommy Hexter and Jacy Highbarger, Elizabeth Marilla, Marla Mertz, Bruce Morrison, Leland Searles, Kenny Slocum, and Patrick Swanson.

Iowa wildflower Wednesday will return sometime during the spring of 2022. Please let me know if you would like to write about any one plant, or group of plants that thrive in a similar habitat, or special place or trail. Anyone on Facebook can connect with nature lovers year round in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts group, which now has more than 5,300 members.

To close out this year’s series, Lora Conrad contributed nine photographs of berries or berry-like fruit that can be found on plants in Van Buren County at this time of year. All but one are native to Iowa.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A fungal takeover

Elizabeth Marilla is a mental health worker, writer, picture-taker, hiker, and mom living in Iowa. Connect with her on instagram at iowa.underfoot.

Wildflowers were a gateway to Mycophilia for me. Until very recently, I could only name and identify the most famous mushrooms I might wish for while walking around looking at wildflowers: Morel, Chanterelle, and Chicken of the Woods.

This post is dedicated the members of the Prairie States Mushroom Club, who warmly welcomed me into this bottomless new pastime during the pandemic, and who have very generously taught me many new things about the fungal biodiversity of Iowa–in particular Sarah, Glen, Roger, Marty, and Dean. These folx spotted some of the mushrooms pictured below. There are no additional forays planned for this year, but all fascinated newbies (as well as those with years of expertise) are welcome to join the club again next spring.

This post is also dedicated to the vigilant, patient, and devoted administrators of the Iowa Mushrooms Facebook page, total strangers who have been great teachers, helping me identify so many scrappy little specimens at all hours of the day and night! Impassioned beginners desperately need people like them. Luckily, it appears that the mushroom-loving community includes many genius laypeople, as well as quite a few very cool scientists.

Pictured below are ten of my favorite mushrooms found and photographed in southeast Iowa this summer and fall, with friends and often with my 3-year-old daughter. I have included a few of her recent mushroom drawings at the bottom of the post.

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An affair with the landscape

Bruce Morrison shares some of the northwest Iowa landscapes he has photographed or painted. Top image: “View From Brian’s Overlook- Sunrise No.1” – (NW Clay County – photograph – © Bruce A. Morrison)

When my wife and I moved to our little acreage in northwest Iowa nearly 20 years ago, I had already experienced a lifetime of love and reverence for the Landscape. I can still remember my summers as a youngster on the Des Moines River, which I lived above in Fort Dodge, and almost daily hikes down the railroad tracks to a friend’s farm west of town – where the Lizard Creek spread below their “night pasture”, as they called it…and met downstream with the north fork where the Chicago Northwestern track crossed the waterway’s junction.

The hillsides above the creek were favored respites to lay on in the summer sun and dry off after a swimming hole visit or after wading a good fishing hole; and many times just to watch the valley’s pair of Red-tail Hawks magically hanging in the air high overhead. The views always left me wanting to hold them fast in my memory; it was an emotion I never shook.

“Red-tail Migration” – (pencil drawing – © Bruce A. Morrison)

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Remembering Neal Smith

I was so sorry to hear that former U.S. Representative Neal Smith passed away on November 2 at the age of 101. Iowa’s longest-serving member of the U.S. House represented Polk County in Congress for 36 years, rising to the third-ranking position on the powerful Appropriations Committee. He had tremendous knowledge and wisdom. Having grown up poor during the Great Depression, he sought to use government to improve people’s lives.

I didn’t know Smith well but I always enjoyed seeing him at Democratic events, most recently at a Polk County or Third District event in 2018. The last time we spoke on the phone was in the summer of 2019, when I was working on a piece about the first passage of the Hyde amendment. At the age of 99, Smith recalled details about that 1976 House floor vote clearly.

Of all the events canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the one I was saddest about was the planned celebration of Smith’s 100th birthday at Drake University in March 2020.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Missouri goldenrod

Distinguishing goldenrods is a tricky business, even for plant experts. For this post, I am relying on the insight of Leland Searles. He reviewed a few of my photographs and worked through “the key for genus Solidago” to arrive at Missouri Goldenrod (Solidago missouriensis). Leland ruled out Canada goldenrod “because it has green leaves almost to the ground instead of withered leaves from midstem to base; it appears not to have any hair below midstem; and the compound flower heads are large, larger than I’d expect for Canada Goldenrod.”

You might find Missouri goldenrod in a range of habitats, including “black soil prairies, clay prairies, dolomite prairies, hill prairies, limestone glades, prairie remnants along railroads, and thickets in upland areas.” But I took all of the pictures enclosed below in a drainage area next to a Windsor Heights school parking lot.

As Illinois Wildflowers points out, this species (like most goldenrods) is “easy to grow.” In an open prairie, it may form “large spreading colonies.” But even a few plants (as in the small space I photographed) will likely attract a wide range of pollinators.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: American Burnweed

Lora Conrad profiles a weedy native plant that favors disturbed ground.

Known variously as American Burnweed or Fireweed or Pilewort, Erechtites hieraciifolius (Senecio hieraciifolius is an earlier synonym) is found throughout Iowa as well as states east of Iowa. The names burnweed and fireweed result from its penchant for occurring in recently burned areas.

Why the other common name? Well, some indigenous peoples extracted oil from the plant and used it to treat piles, also known as hemorrhoids, thus the moniker pilewort.

It is a native summer annual in much of the U.S., as well as Central and South America. With its penchant for disturbed soil, you may see it sprinkled about or exploding in great numbers in recently disturbed soils, replanted prairies, roadsides, open woods, and renovated wetlands. It follows human habitation and disturbance of the soil. While considered “weedy,” it is not invasive. It tends to fade away as new plantings get more established. Despite its obvious appreciation for replanted prairies and native status, it is not listed in the UI “Iowa Prairie Plants” online.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Jumpseed

If you’ve walked near the woods or on a shady trail in the late summer or fall, you’ve probably passed by today’s featured plant, but you may not have noticed it. Jumpseed is native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. This member of the buckwheat family thrives in shade or partial shade, especially near woodlands or thickets. It may “be more common in woodlands with a history of disturbance.” Its small flowers don’t attract much attention.

Many plants are known by variety of common names. Oddly, jumpseed seems to have no other common names, but several scientific names refer to the same plant. Illinois Wildflowers explains, “Jumpseed (Antenoron virginianum) has a history of taxonomic instability – scientific synonyms include Polygonum virginianum, Persicaria virginiana, and Tovara virginiana.”

I took all of the pictures enclosed below near my Windsor Heights home in September or October.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Flower of an hour

After showcasing many native plants last week, I decided to focus today on a non-native member of the mallow family. Flower of an hour (Hibiscus trionum) has spread widely across most of the U.S. and Canada. While many consider it a weed or pest, some people grow it as an ornamental. You may find it near roadsides or in residential yards.

I’ve seen more of these plants than usual this year, because a street improvement project in my Windsor Heights neighborhood tore up a lot of curbs and sidewalks. The disturbed ground was perfect habitat for non-native plants. Like velvetleaf/buttonweed, seeds from flower of an hour “can remain viable in the soil for several years, if not decades,” according to the Illinois Wildflowers website.

Capturing usable photos was more challenging than I expected. I often saw these blossoms while walking my dog. But many times, when I came back later the same day, the flowers were gone. Jackie Carroll explained on the Gardening Knowhow website that flower of an hour “gets its name from the pale yellow or cream colored blossoms with dark centers that only last a fraction of a day and don’t open at all on cloudy days.”

Lora Conrad came to the rescue again with lovely pictures she took in Van Buren County.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A late summer walk on the prairie

Instead of focusing on one plant this week, I’d like to share photographs from my September 12 visit to Mike Delaney’s prairie in Dallas County. Mike’s property has provided source material for lots of Bleeding Heartland posts over the years, most recently this summer’s features on showy tick trefoil and starry campion.

Every time I explore the area, I find something I hadn’t seen before. You’d never guess this land next to the Middle Raccoon River was in corn and beans for decades before Mike spent about 25 years restoring the prairie.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Siberian Cranesbill

I was excited to find a patch of “new” (to me) wildflowers near the banks of North Walnut Creek a few weeks ago. Since I wasn’t familiar with these small pink flowers, I posted a few photos to the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group. Lora Conrad quickly identified the plants as Siberian Cranesbill (Geranium sibiricum).

As the common name suggests, this species originated in Eurasia, not North America. Although I usually showcase native plants for Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower series, today will be one of my occasional exceptions.

Minnesota Wildflowers offered tips for distinguishing Siberian Cranesbill from the similar-looking native Bicknell’s Cranesbill. As Lora explained, the plant I photographed has single flower stalks, is hairy, and blooms in August and September—all signs pointing to the introduced species. The habitat (partial sun, loamy soil, near disturbed ground) is also consistent with where this species often thrives.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Cream gentian

Katie Byerly features a delicate plant that blooms in the late summer.

There are more than 400 gentian species globally, with most growing in the mountains in Europe. In Iowa one might be lucky to find seven different species of gentian. Six of those have brilliant bluish purple flowers. Then there is Cream Gentian (Gentiana alba), also called Pale, Plain, or Yellow Gentian. Cream gentian flowers can be an off-white creamy color, or a yellowish white or a greenish white.

No matter what color you find, all flowers share the greenish yellow venation on the petals.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Common evening primrose

I have a soft spot for native plants that can thrive in some of the least hospitable environments. The natural range of common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) covers most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, and you’re as likely to find it by roadsides or in vacant lots as near woodland edges, prairies, or streams. These plants typically start blooming in July, but you may see some flowers as late as October.

Sometimes known as weedy evening-primrose, German rampion, hog weed, King’s cure-all, or fever-plant, common evening primrose has been used medicinally for hundreds of years. Its seeds are used to produce evening primrose oil, which many take for various health conditions. My midwife recommended that I take evening primrose oil toward the end of my first pregnancy to help ripen the cervix.

The roots and parts of the plants are edible as well, though I’ve never tried cooking them. I took most of the pictures enclosed below in Windsor Heights or Urbandale in early September.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Starry campion

I usually visit Mike Delaney’s Dallas County property to check out what’s growing on the prairie he’s been restoring for more than 25 years. But on my last visit, Mike pointed me toward an area in the woods where I could find some lovely wildflowers. I believe this was my first encounter with starry campion (Silene stellata) in bloom.

These distinctive plants thrive in “light shade or partial sun, mesic to dry conditions, and soil containing loam, clay-loam, or a little rocky material,” according to the Illinois Wildflowers website. Favored habitats include “rocky woodlands, wooded slopes, savannas, shaded banks of rivers, meadows near wooded areas, and cemetery prairies.”

I took most of the pictures enclosed below on the wooded slope near Mike’s prairie in late July.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Horse nettle (Carolina horsenettle)

Today’s featured plant is native to North America and has become widespread in Iowa, but is also on our state’s primary noxious weed list. By some accounts, horse nettle (Solanum carolinense) originated in the southeast U.S. and is “adventive” in much of the Midwest. Others say the plant (sometimes called Carolina horsenettle, bull nettle, or devil’s tomato) is native to the prairie that once covered most of Iowa.

Either way, you wouldn’t want to grow horse nettle deliberately. It can be aggressive, especially “in disturbed sites around developed areas,” according to Illinois Wildflowers. It’s also toxic to most mammals, including humans. So if these plants appear on your property, you may want to dig them up to avoid spread.

I took the pictures enclosed below near woodland edges in Windsor Heights, Clive, and Urbandale between late June and late August.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Bloody Run blooms again

Kenny Slocum is the naturalist and natural resource manager for the Clayton County Conservation Board. -promoted by Laura Belin

Bloody Run County Park already had a lot going for it when I began working for the Clayton County Conservation Board in 2015. The unassuming 135-acre park outside of Marquette, Iowa has held a special place in the hearts of trout fishermen for decades.

Bloody Run Creek, for which the park is named, is one of Iowa’s few official Outstanding Waters, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources designation reserved for water bodies with exceptionally high quality. The name conjures up evocative imagery of battles won and lost in ages past. Indeed, local folklore offers an array of colorful etymologies and, fact-based or not, they speak to the rugged valley’s longstanding appreciation and respect from the people who know it best.

Unfortunately, it is now ground zero for a modern battle between industrial agriculture and environmentalists.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Speaking for the prairie

Tommy Hexter ‘21 and Jacy Highbarger ‘22 wrote this post. The authors are co-founders of Grinnell College’s chapter of Herbicide-Free Campus; Poweshiek Soil and Water Commissioner (former), and student members of Too Much Grass student-initiative at Grinnell College.

In the spring of 2021, a group of excited Grinnell College students, along with faculty and staff, acted on a student initiative called “Too Much Grass” and came together to create a 5,200 square foot prairie in the most prominent location on campus, Mac Field.

In collaboration with the College Center for Prairie Studies and the recently-founded Herbicide-Free Grinnell, chapter of the larger organization Herbicide-Free Campus, Too Much Grass aims to remove unnecessary lawn areas on campus and plant prairie seeds in their place. The hope is to create a place where future Grinnellians for generations to come will loaf through the planting and ponder the meaning of these deep perennial roots in Iowa soil.

In just three months, this project has already sparked interest in another planting on campus scheduled for September.  

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Showy tick trefoil

I’m excited to write about showy tick trefoil (Desmodium canadense). I’ve wanted to feature these plants for at least five years, but I never caught them the right time. Last weekend I was excited to find many plants blooming next to the Dallas County prairie Mike Delaney has been restoring for more than 25 years.

Also known as hoary tick-trefoil or Canada tick-clover, showy tick trefoil is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. A wide variety of pollinators visit its flowers or feed on its foliage.

Although showy tick trefoil flowers are beautiful, you may not want to cultivate them in a garden, because its seedpods are notorious for sticking to clothing or animal fur. According to Illinois Wildflowers, this plant’s preferred habitats “include moist to mesic black soil prairies, moist meadows along rivers, borders of lakes, thickets, limestone glades, and areas along railroads where prairie remnants occur.”

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Common mullein

Common Mullein, Great Mullein and Woolly Mullein are all names for the same plant, a non-native weed introduced from Europe in the early 1800s. It has spread so widely that it is now considered naturalized. Common mullein can be found in all 50 states, and even though it is a weed, it is not pesty (at least not in Iowa).

Of all the Iowa wildflowers, this plant has some of the most fun nicknames, including Cowboy Toiletpaper, Quaker’s Rouge, Torch Flower, Flannel Plant, Tinder Plant, and Aaron’s Rod.

If you are a wildflower enthusiast, someone not familiar with common mullein may ask you, “What is that tall fuzzy plant that I saw on the side of the road?”

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: American or Canada germander (wood sage)

Although much of Iowa is in drought, one plant that thrives in moist habitats seems to be abundant this year, at least in central Iowa. American germander (Teucrium canadense), also known as Canada germander or wood sage, often grows in “moist thickets, ditches, woodland edges, [or] along streams.” I usually see it blooming by July 4, and the flowering period lasts for at least a month.

According to John Pearson of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Teucrium canadense is the only germander species that is native to Iowa. Eight other species of germander are native to North America, and gardeners may grow some of them successfully in our state.

I took most of the pictures enclosed below near North Walnut Creek, which runs through Urbandale and Windsor Heights.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: American lopseed

A plant I’d never noticed before showed up on my doorstep (literally) this summer. Once flowers began to appear in late June, I posted a few pictures in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group I created last year. A member of that community quickly identified the mystery plant as American lopseed (Phryma leptostachya).

As the name suggests, American lopseed is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. These plants can also be found in California. The Illinois Wildflowers website notes that this species (sometimes known simply as lopseed) “prefers a sheltered location that provides light to medium shade, moist to mesic conditions, and a rich woodland soil with abundant organic matter.”

How did these wildflowers suddenly turn up in an area I have watched closely for 20 years? According to ecological consultant Leland Searles, birds may have carried the seed to my yard, or animals may have tracked it in on their hooves or paws.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: What is that plant, flower, or fruit?

Lora Conrad reviews nine useful resources for plant identification in Iowa.

Whether you are new to learning about Iowa wildflowers and native shrubs and trees or have been studying them as a hobby for some years, you are sure to see a plant or flower that you just can’t identify. Before posting a question for the experts on your local wildflower or flora Facebook page, you might want to see what you can learn about the plant and determine yourself.

Three types of resources are widely available: plant identification applications for a smart phone, public web pages from authoritative sources, and books. Each source can be useful but not always sufficient.

The purpose of this article is to compare the reference books that have helped me most in identifying plants in the woodlands, prairies, waysides, river banks, and roadsides of Iowa, as well as in my untamed yard. These are recommendations from a determined wildflower enthusiast—not from a botanist. So with that caveat, please read on.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Bugs on native plants

Elizabeth Marilla is a mental health worker, writer, picture taker, hiker, and mom living in rural southeast Iowa. Connect with her on instagram @iowa.underfoot. -promoted by Laura Belin

Wildflower love and layperson learning, often nurtured by the wisdom shared on Iowa wildflower Wednesdays, has led to closer looks at lots and lots of plants, and subsequently to my wondering amateurishly at the beings the wildflowers host and nourish–basically bugs I’ve ignored for way too many years!

Many mornings I hike with my daughter. We take pictures, get silly, find mushrooms (and slime molds), stomp around. Her questions are getting much smarter than mine, and if she miraculously naps in the afternoon, I often spend that time learning about flowers and bugs from far smarter folks than I, hoping I will be able to answer her questions when she awakes.

Below are a few things we have wondered about together this spring and summer. If anyone would like to share what they know about these native bug/flower relationships in the comments, add bumble bee IDs, or correct any errors, I very much welcome learning from other enthusiastic Iowans.

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Finding a path for people and wildlife in the Loess Hills

Patrick Swanson takes over this week’s edition of Iowa wildflower Wednesday. -promoted by Laura Belin

Earlier this month marked the first of what I hope to be a more common event in western Iowa: an organized multi-day hike through the Loess Hills. 

Conceived and orchestrated by Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) and other partners, the Lo(ess) Hi(lls) Trek, as it was called, gave about 30 folks the opportunity to walk a route through and between conservation lands in Monona County. Golden Hills RC&D recently posted an excellent day-by-day synopsis of the LoHi Trek, so I won’t recap the details here.

As a participant, I would like to offer some of my reflections on this journey.  

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Honewort (Canadian honewort)

Today’s featured wildflowers are the opposite of “showy.” If you’ve spent any time in the woods or near woodland edges, you’ve probably walked by these plants without noticing.

Honewort (Cryptotaenia canadensis), sometimes known as Canadian honewort, is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. Like bedstraw, wild chervil, enchanter’s nightshade, and Virginia stickseed, honewort plants have tiny white flowers and thrive in shady wooded habitats.

Deer don’t care for honewort plants, but according to the website of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas, “Its young leaves and stems may be used as a seasoning like parsley or as a boiled green; the roots may be cooked and eaten like parsnips.” However, “Caution is advised because many similar species of the carrot family are deadly poisonous.” I have never attempted to eat any part of honewort plants. I’ll leave them for the many kinds of insects that are attracted to the flowers or feed on the foliage.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Green dragon

Marion County Naturalist Marla Mertz presents an unusual plant native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. You can view Marla’s past contributions to Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series here. -promoted by Laura Belin

There be dragons out in our Iowa woodlands! Many of us who like to walk the woodland trails and explore are probably familiar with Jack-in-the-pulpits. Jack has a lesser-known cousin. The Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) appears to be a tropical, exotic plant with its bloom hidden with surrounding foliage. This fragile plant has been known to be quite rare, but I feel that is changing within our landscape.

The first part of the scientific name comes from the Greek words aris, a kind of arum, and haema, meaning “blood”. Dracontium is from the Latin meaning “of the dragons,” probably because of the deeply divided leaves.  

Green dragon is a native perennial herb and can be found throughout Iowa, except in the northwest. The plants grow in fertile, slightly acidic, and moist soil within shady woodland areas that are protected from livestock.

The photos enclosed below were taken at Cordova Park, on the north side of Lake Red Rock in Marion County along the Karr Trail.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Wild grape (Riverbank grape)

If you’ve walked along a woodland edge or near running water lately, you may have encountered a perennial woody vine that is “very valuable as a source of cover and food to many insects and animals.”

Wild grape (Vitis riparia) is also known as riverbank grape, because it often grows near rivers or streams. According to the Illinois Wildflowers site, it can do well in prairies near woods or water sources and thrives on disturbed ground, such as areas near railroads. Minnesota Wildflowers notes,

Some consider Riverbank Grape a weedy pest, sometimes creating dense masses and smothering other plants and even small trees. Though it can become aggressive along woodland edges and other disturbed areas where seed is spread, it is typically better behaved in the shadier riverbanks and mature forests where it competes well with other forest species.

I took most of the pictures enclosed below along North Walnut Creek in Windsor Heights in late May.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Ground ivy (Creeping Charlie)

My editorial bias is to feature wildflowers that are native to Iowa or at least to North America. But I make some exceptions for non-native plants that are prevalent here.

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), more commonly known as creeping Charlie, is an invasive species with origins in Eurasia. European settlers brought these plants to this continent, probably for use in creating medicines. According to the USDA’s Forest Service website, this species was reported in Indiana as early as 1856 and in Colorado in 1906, “suggesting its westerly introduction and/or migration did not occur recently.”

Illinois Wildflowers lists preferred habitats: “floodplain forests, semi-shaded areas along rivers, powerline clearances in woodland areas, cemeteries, lawns and gardens, and miscellaneous waste areas.”

Most Iowans who are familiar with creeping Charlie know it as a “common lawn weed problem.” The University of Illinois Extension notes,

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Horsetails and Scouring rushes

Leland Searles is a photographer and ecological consultant with expertise in botany, hydrology, soils, streams, and wildlife. -promoted by Laura Belin

The horsetails and scouring rushes (genus Equisetum) are rather odd plants on the Midwestern landscape, because they look like nothing else. They are related, by their genetic makeup and reproductive means, to the ferns. Occasionally, scouring rushes grow in dense colonies in the roadsides, where their dark green color and parallel vertical growth are a contrast with the other plants on their margins. A few plants manage to rise in the midst of such colonies, but these plants often are very dominant in the space they occupy.

Horsetails and scouring rushes have historical uses for several tasks, and they have provided medicines for some ailments, although those sometimes contradict each other. In general, the medicinal purposes are not backed by scientific evidence – only the testimonials of herbalists and the recorded uses by ethnobotanists who studied small-scale cultural groups in North America and elsewhere.

Yet the frequent occurrence of at least two species makes them deserving of attention as a native plant species.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday returns: Cutleaf toothwort

The tenth year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower series kicks off with a plant that’s a common sight in Iowa woodlands, especially in April. Cutleaf toothwort (Dentaria laciniata), also known as toothwort, is native to every state east of the Rocky Mountains.

According to the Illinois Wildflowers website, favored habitats “include deciduous mesic woodlands, floodplain woodlands, wooded bluffs, and upland savannas. The presence of this species in a woodlands indicates that its soil has never been plowed under or subjected to heavy construction activities.”

The site says cutleaf toothwort “can survive some disturbance caused by occasional grazing and less disruptive activities of human society,” but tends to decline when the invasive garlic mustard becomes prevalent. (Now’s a good time to pull up garlic mustard, if the soil is soft and moist. It’s been so dry in central Iowa lately that I’ve found many of the roots break off.)

Most of the photos enclosed below were taken near my Windsor Heights home. Mary Riesberg also shared pictures she took in Hancock County, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from Lee County.

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Recap of Iowa wildflower Wednesdays from 2020

I had big plans for the ninth year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series. Most of my ambitions didn’t pan out. I didn’t visit any of my favorite state parks or wildlife preserves and made only one trip to Mike Delaney’s restored Dallas County prairie, a plentiful source of material in the past. I also spent less time on bike trails in 2020, with no farmers market to ride to on Saturday mornings.

Other photographers stepped up to help. Many thanks to those who authored posts (Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Beth Lynch, Emilene Leone, Elizabeth Marilla, Bruce Dickerson, and Patrick Swanson) and those who contributed photographs for one of more of my pieces (in addition to the guest authors, Marla Mertz, Sheryl Rutledge, Leland Searles, Julie Harkey, Wendie Schneider, and Don Weiss).

Iowa wildflower Wednesday will return sometime during the spring of 2021. Please reach out if you have photographs to share, especially of native plants I haven’t featured yet. The full archive of more than 250 posts featuring more than 220 wildflower species is available here.

For those looking for wildflower pictures year round, or seeking help with plant ID, I recommend the Facebook groups Flora of Iowa or Iowa wildflower enthusiasts.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Flowering plants gone to seed

“This was my worst year ever for getting out with my camera,” I told a friend in October.

“It’s been the worst year for a lot of things,” she replied.

Most of the wildflower posts I’d planned for this fall never came together. Day after day, I kept finding reasons not to drive to a prairie or go for a bike ride on nearby wooded trails. So instead of closing out this year’s series with my own pictures of late bloomers like asters and goldenrods, I am sharing images of plants that finished flowering months ago. Katie Byerly, also known as the “Iowa Prairie Girl,” gave permission to publish the photographs enclosed below, which she took in Cerro Gordo County in early October.

Iowa wildflower Wednesday will return sometime in the spring of 2021.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Sunflowers

As November 8, 2016 approached, I prepared to profile prairie blazing star, which seemed like a fitting way to celebrate the first woman to be elected president.

This year, I was too superstitious to plan for the first post-election Iowa wildflower Wednesday. But now that Joe Biden’s path to 270 electoral votes seems clear, I want to feature one sunflower (plant from the Helianthus genus) that is native to the state in question for every batch of electoral votes Biden flipped.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A walk around my pasture

When not enjoying Lamb’s Ear and other wildflowers, Bruce Dickerson is a history professor at Indian Hills Community College. -promoted by Laura Belin

I live on 25 acres in Appanoose County. Although I’m not able to do it as often as I’d like to, I try to get in some exercise by walking around my pasture and small wooded area that I own. Not a farm, but we do have a couple of horses, and I rent pasture to my Amish farrier so there are sometimes as many as ten horses keeping the grass from getting too tall.  

Anyway, while on a walk a couple of weeks ago I came across what I believe is Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantine), also called woolly hedgenettle, in the wooded area of pasture.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Purple rattlesnake-root (Glaucous white lettuce)

Katie Byerly, also known as Iowa Prairie Girl, profiles a rare, beautiful plant native to 20 states and most of Canada. -promoted by Laura Belin

I was walking through Ada Hayden Prairie in Howard County, Iowa, the first time I saw Purple rattlesnake-root (Prenanthes racemosa). Anytime I see a new plant I find myself thinking out loud “I wonder what that is?” But the first time I saw purple rattlesnake-root, sometimes called Glaucous white lettuce, it hadn’t bloomed yet and my wondering was more like “what the in the world is that??!” And maybe a few other words too.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Wild bergamot (horsemint, bee balm)

Although autumn officially began this week, much of Iowa is experiencing summer-like weather, so I thought it fitting to feature a native plant that typically blooms from June through August. Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) can thrive on disturbed ground near roadsides as well as in high-quality prairie habitats or woodland edges. Also known as horsemint or bee balm, it is native to almost all of the U.S. and Canada.

You can often find wild bergamot growing along bike trails, and it’s a popular plant for restored prairies and butterfly gardens. Minnesota Wildflowers says of this “excellent garden plant,” “The dried leaves and flower heads are wonderfully aromatic; Bergamot oils have been used in natural healing for centuries.” A closely related plant called Oswego tea “was used as a beverage by the Oswego tribe of American Indians and was one of the drinks adopted by American colonists during their boycott of British tea,” according to the Britannica website.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Rough blazing star

Katie Byerly features an eye-catching sight on the late summer prairie. -promoted by Laura Belin

As other wildflowers are beginning to fade, Rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) is just getting started. Also called tall blazing star, this unbranched, upright plant grows to be between 2 and 5 feet tall, according to Illinois Wildflowers

Rough blazing star blossoms in a spike-like arrangement of pink to purple flowerheads up and down the stem. This spike adds wonderful electric rosy purple color to the natural scenescape.

Rough blazing star flowers start blooming at the upper tip of the plant in July. This first photo shows a monarch butterfly getting nutrients from a rough blazing star just starting to bloom.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Rough cinquefoil

The overwhelming majority of wildflowers Bleeding Heartland has featured over the past eight and a half years have been native to North America. Occasionally I’ve showcased plants that are widespread in Iowa, even though they originated on other continents.

Rough cinquefoil (Potentilla norvegica) can’t be placed definitively in either group.

Its scientific name and alternate common name (Norwegian cinquefoil) suggest a European origin. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers the plant native to most of the country.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Trumpet vine (Trumpet creeper)

While some summer wildflowers are easy to overlook, you can’t miss Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) when it’s in bloom. Also known as Trumpet creeper, this woody vine is native to most of the U.S. but “can be weedy or invasive.” I haven’t seen it displacing native plants in Iowa, though.

A “favorite of hummingbirds” thanks to its large orange or reddish flowers, trumpet vine easily attaches itself to other plants, fences, or buildings.

I took most of the pictures enclosed below this week in Windsor Heights or Des Moines.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Iowa golden saxifrage

Luther College Associate Professor Beth Lynch profiles a very rare plant, “which by historical accident is named for Iowa.” -promoted by Laura Belin

As I child, I pondered the (to me, peculiar) idea that in Victorian times at least some people believed that children should be “seen, but not heard.” Twisting that idea around, there are quite a few plants in Iowa that will rarely be seen, but it’s certainly worth hearing about them.

Several years ago, I profiled witch hazel, which certainly fits in the rarely-seen (at least, in Iowa) category. Today, I bring to you the tiny Iowa golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium iowense), which by historical accident is named for Iowa, even though it is almost never seen in Iowa.

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: A lawn-to-native plant garden conversion

Emilene Leone explains the step-by-step process to creating her “home gone wild in suburbia,” with phenomenal photographs of the flowers, birds, and insects that visit her native plant garden in Davenport. -promoted by Laura Belin

For the last two summers, I have been working on converting large sections of my home’s yard to native plant space. I’ve been documenting the process both on my own Facebook page, as well as on Casa Leone Gardens. I was invited to write a post about my project for Bleeding Heartland’s wonderful “Wildflower Wednesday” series, and I’m so happy to do so!

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Iowa wildflower Wednesday: Virginia stickseed

Today’s featured plant won’t win any popularity contests. In fact, I know people who rip Virginia stickseed (Hackelia virginiana) out of the ground as soon as they identify it anywhere on their property.

This common woodland species, sometimes just called stickseed, has unimpressive flowers that become irritating burs. The burs spawned the common names beggar’s lice or sticktight. I don’t pull up these plants like I do with garlic mustard, but I keep an eye out for them so my shoes, clothes, and dog don’t end up covered in burs.

Virginia stickseed is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. I frequently see it in the woods or near woodland edges. According to the Illinois Wildflowers site, “Stickseed prefers disturbed wooded areas and it is rather weedy.”

I took the pictures enclosed below in Windsor Heights, Clive, or Urbandale.

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