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

The American lotus (Nelumbo lutea) is a big, bold, beautiful aquatic wildflower.

However, like all shallow water dwelling plants, it presents with an inconvenience: accessibility. I have several funny stories of coming home wet and muddy (and sometime shoeless) after hunting marsh-loving wildflowers. Because the American lotus thrives in quiet backwaters of rivers and edges of lakes and ponds, I have considered myself lucky anytime I find one blooming close enough to a dock or water’s edge to snap a picture. Otherwise, up close observations of the plant require a boat or wading.

This July, I kayaked what locals call Kaster’s Cover in Ventura, Iowa. This is the smaller section of Clear Lake on the east side of McIntosh State Park.

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

There are two ways a person could start an article about Mountain Death Camas (Zigadenus elegans). One introduction could include words like dangerous, poisonous, and fatal! And the other would involve words like striking, stunning, and uniquely beautiful. Let’s start with the beautiful part first.

THE BEAUTY

The flowers of Death camas have six papery white petals (or in the case of Death camas – tepals). The striking star-shaped flowers are about a 1/2-inch across. Each petal has an olive green, heart-shaped gland near its base. When the flower opens, these glands present as a lovely circle on the flower, often with an inner yellow fringe.

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

It’s a legume, it’s a bush, it’s an insect pollinator and bird habitat, and in the Midwest it’s a native wildflower.

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

Tall and slender, it seemed so out of place. Water parsnip (Sium suave) grows along the edges of lakes and marshes and in wet prairies. In Wilkinson Park the prairie trails are often wet so it makes sense that water parsnip grows there. But mixed in with all the other usual prairie wildflowers at Wilkinson, like blazing stars, cinquefoils, and milkweeds, it does look misplaced.

This is an image of water parsnip in July 2018 at Wilkinson Park in Rock Falls, Iowa. I recall it being the only parsnip growing there at the time. Now at least a dozen water parsnip plants grow at this spot.

Katie Byerly of Cerro Gordo County is also known as Iowa Prairie Girl on YouTube. Click here to watch her video on American white water-lily.

The water-lily doesn’t need much of an introduction. If you’ve seen a large white flower floating on a body of water, chances are that flower was an American white water-lily (Nymphaea odorata).

These plants like still or slow-moving water—usually a shallow lake, pond, or marsh with a mucky soiled bottom. Water-lilies will form colonies and cover a large surface of water. Their brilliant white flowers are scattered on the water like polka dots with their shiny lily pads surrounding them.

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

Apparently I take Wild licorice (Glycyrrhiza lepidota) growing in my “neck of the priairie” for granted. A map on the Iowa Wildflower app indicates that wild licorice grows in 22 of Iowa’s 99 counties, mostly in western Iowa. My home county, Cerro Gordo (north central Iowa), is on the eastern edge of this species’ known locations.

I find wild licorice growing in my favorite place to look for wildflowers: Wilkinson Pioneer Park in Rock Falls.

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

I participated in the first annual “LoHi” Loess Hills organized hike in 2021. During that adventure in the western hills of Iowa, many of us learned to shout out PENSTEMON GRANDIFLORUS!!! when someone spotted a Large-flowered Beardtongue.

Doug Chafa, one of our group leaders, taught us this. He learned it from a college professor. I wonder who taught her. She sounded like someone I would have loved to explore a prairie with. Walking the land, all the while shouting out wildflower names with excitement and enthusiasm.

I’m not good at using the scientific names of plants. I understand their importance, but I prefer the common names—or better yet, the not-so-common names. The name somebody’s great great (great?) grandmother called it centuries ago.

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

Several years ago I gave a presentation called “The Wildflowers of Wilkinson Park” at an assisted living. For one woman in her 90s, the images of Spring Cress (Cardamine bulbosa) stirred up fond memories. She was grinning from ear to ear and teary eyed as she reminisced, “We lived next to that area (before it was a park) and my mother would pick spring cress for our supper.”

I wonder now if she often thought about her mother and spring cress or if the images triggered a forgotten memory.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.

Katie Byerly closes out this year’s series of wildflower posts with an aster that blooms in the autumn. You can find her on YouTube at Iowa Prairie Girl. -promoted by Laura Belin

I was walking a narrow, heavily canopied trail at the Lime Creek Nature Center in Mason City when I first noticed Common blue wood aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium).

Katie Byerly has a knack for finding rare native plants. She’s also on YouTube at Iowa Prairie Girl. -promoted by Laura Belin

Serious birders compile a “Life List.” A list of all the bird species they have ever encountered.

When I seriously started studying Iowa wildflowers three years ago, I soon realized that finding a fall gentian is considered a bonus during a wildflower search. I remember being thrilled finding my first bottle gentian. As I added more gentian to my “life list”–cream, stiff, and downy–it began to seem as if the elusive fringed gentian, which inspired so many, was eluding me.

Finally this August, I was so pleased when I stumbled upon a fringed gentian in a wonderful little fen located in the southeast corner of Cerro Gordo County. It turned out to be Lesser fringed gentian (Gentianopsis virgata), sometimes known as smaller fringed gentian.

Katie Byerly has a knack for finding unusual wildflowers. She also posts regularly on her Iowa Prairie Girl YouTube channel. -promoted by Laura Belin

During a camping trip in Floyd County with my son’s Boy Scout troop, I was pleasantly surprised to find this miniature blazing star growing everywhere on the dry clay hills of the Fossil and Prairie Park Preserve, located one mile west of Rockford on County Road B47.

Cylindrical blazing star (Liatris Cylindracea) is also known as Cylindric, Barrelhead, Dwarf or Ontario blazing star.

Katie Byerly shares her images of an amazing plant that she calls, “The Giant in the Wildflower World.” promoted by Laura Belin

Purplestem Angelica (Angelica atropurpurea) towers over the other wildflowers at Wilkinson Park in Rock Falls, Iowa. It creates a beautiful background border to the wild roses blooming at the same time. These giant plants also stand in line along the edge of the Shell Rock River creating a unique view to the river from the park and visa versa river into the park.

Purplestem Angelica can be found in the northern counties of Iowa, and as you drive into Minnesota, you may see it in many moist ditches and river edges.

Katie Byerly shares her knowledge and photographs of yet another wildflower I’ve never seen in the wild. -promoted by desmoinesdem

In his book The Secrets of Wildflowers, Jack Sanders calls Gentians the Royal Family of Wildflowers. Gentians are named after King Gentius, who ruled as the last Illyrian King from 181 to 168 BCE. It is believed that Gentius discoverd medicinal value from the plant and used it as an antidote to poison and in the dressing of wounds.

If we follow the belief that Gentians are the royal family of the wildflowers, I’d like to imagine the handsome King Fringed Gentian ruling his flower kingdom with his beautiful pale Queen Cream Gentian at his side. His brother Prince Bottled Gentian leads the flower army and is known for his strength. And then there is their rigid cousin Duke Stiff Gentian … he is often overlooked as part of the Gentian family as he quietly rules his northern counties.

Katie Byerly shares her images of a rare wetland plant she researched and photographed this summer. -promoted by desmoinesdem

“It’s pinstriped!” was a comment regarding my picture of Grass of Parnassus, posted in the Iowa Wildflower Report Facebook group. Its green-veined petals makes this plant easy to identify. . . if you can find it.

Marsh Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia glauca), also called Fen Grass of Parnassus or Bog-Stars, grows in wet calcareous habitats like fens, open ground water seepage areas, and wet prairies. The Minnesota Wildflowers and Illinois Wildflowers webpages both comment on the rarity of these habitats and subsequently this flower. Calcareous means to contain calcium carbonate occurring on chalk or limestone, and that’s exactly where I found my grass of Parnassus.

Nature enthusiast and talented photographer Katie Byerly shares images of a gorgeous and rare native plant. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Finding a new wildflower is always a treat. I was treated this spring when a wildflower friend, Ken Plagge, called to tell me that he had found a Small white lady’s slipper at Wilkinson Pioneer Park in Rock Falls (Cerro Gordo County). Also called White moccasin flower, Small white lady’s slipper (Cypripedium candidum) is a native orchid often associated with the words “rare” and “threatened.” It is found in prairie fens and wet/mesic prairies.

However, the treat did not end there. Ken and I soon found out from the Cerro Gordo County Conservation team that this flower’s presence had never been recorded at Wilkinson Pioneer Park. A short 24 hours after first seeing the plant, we were meeting with Mark Leoschke, a state botanist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, to help document the white lady’s slipper’s existence in Rock Falls.