Note from Laura Belin: Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa wildflower Wednesday series is going on winter hiatus and will return sometime in the spring of 2025. You can find all past posts focusing on specific plants here, and posts featuring many wildflowers found in one natural area here.

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.

I hear explosions from the kitchen. Snappy sounds, like popcorn popping. 

However, these are not popcorn. They are Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis) seeds ricocheting against the inside of a brown paper bag.

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.

Rising above the dead leaves and grasses, a golden wand swept upward in the woods. It could easily be overlooked. It made me think of some slender animal, unfamiliar, perhaps mythical, standing on its hind legs to look in wonder at where it had found itself.

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.

If I indulge my fantasy, I imagine asters as sentient beings, each with its own personality. If that were the case, then Willow Asters (Symphyotrichum praealtum) would be aristocrats, with their subtle lavender petals, slender leaves, and graceful poses.

If she were a lady, she would host gracious, elegant parties by a lake. Suitors would long for her attention.

There are indeed beings who visit her every hour of the day. She is always attended by bees, butterflies, and myriad other insects.

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.

Walking a damp trail at the woods edge, I’m surrounded by flowers. Pink and purple clusters of blossoms dangle from low branches and brush my face.

This is Groundnut (Apios americana), a native flowering vine of North America. It creates a magical feeling, like a lovers’ bower in a fantasy.

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

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

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.

So small and hiding. You could walk right past them. But look down into the long grasses, and you’ll see their tiny blue faces looking up at you.

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.

Ohio Spiderworts (Tradescantia ohiensis) wake me up when I look out the window. Although only a few flowers are open at a time, the bright golden anthers play against their color-opposite purple petals. My eyes shimmer.

It’s a morning-only vision. Around noon the flowers close up tight. As if to say, “Come back tomorrow.” For the rest of the day, spiderworts are simply green, easy to overlook.

But next sunrise, a fresh crop of purple-petaled blossoms opens. From the center of each flower, slender columns reach up. These are the reproductive parts of the flowers.

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.

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.)

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.