I've Discovered The Secret To Time Travel!

It's already mid-June. Where did Spring 2010 go? There were so many plants that I had hoped to see in flower this year that have already done their thing. Given that the average lifespan of a human male is approximately 72 years, I only have approximately 38 more seasons to see the spring wildflowers. Sort of depressing, really. Therefore, I've developed a means of time travel to allow me to see the spring wildflowers at various times during the year. All you've got to do is spend April in Missouri/Arkansas, May in Indiana/Ohio, and June in northern Wisconsin.


Take, for example, the genus Trillium. After seeing Trillium pusillum var. ozarkanum, Trillium recurvatum, Trillium sessile, Trillium viride, and Trillium viridescens in Arkansas and Missouri in April, I saw Trillium flexipes, Trillium grandiflorum, Trillium recurvatum, and Trillium sessile blooming in Indiana in May. I was sure I had seen the last of the Trillium flowers for the year, when this week in Superior, Wisconsin, I saw Trillium cernuum in bloom, shown above.


Castilleja coccinea has a long blooming period in this part of the country. Regardless, I have now seen it flowering in Missouri in April and now in Superior, Wisconsin in June (above).


It's been a productive year for finding Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens in flower. I saw this stunner this year first in Arkansas in April, then in Ohio in May, and this week (June) in Superior, Wisconsin (shown above). If I continued my travels north, I could find this species blooming as late as August at the northern extent of its range!


Although Cypripedium acaule blooms in the Chicago Region until mid- to late-June, I was pretty sure I had missed it this year... until I spent time in the Northwoods of Wisconsin this week. Above, it is shown in bloom on June 10 at Erickson Creek Forest and Wetlands State Natural Area in Douglas County, Wisconsin.


When I saw Clintonia borealis in northern Indiana on 26 May 2010, it was already finished flowering and the characteristic "bluebead" fruit were beginning to form. Again, all I had to do to turn back the clock was to go north. This week, it was blooming in profusion in Douglas County, Wisconsin, as shown above.

Okay, so it isn't really time travel, but I'm doing everything I can, given my limited time for botanizing, to essentially slow down the progression of spring. Until a time machine really is created, following plants as they flower from south to north is the best I can do.

Castilleja Diversity

I recently added a new post on Through Handlens and Binoculars about several species of Castilleja that we encountered on our trip to Colorado last July.


Click here to check it out!

Boreal Highlights

I had the opportunity to spend the last week in Superior, Wisconsin, working on a boreal forest and black spruce-tamarack swamp restoration with Andrew Blackburn, Josh Brown, Nick Gressick, Nicole Kalkbrenner, and Gary Walton. This is the same site at which we last year found the first state record for Wisconsin of Canadanthus modestus (click here to see my post on that find). Below are some highlights from our visit last week.

This is Viola novae-angliae, a species of boreal forests in Wisconsin that is also known from Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Gary mentioned that it used to be state-listed in Wisconsin; it is common at this site.

Vicia americana is a plant found in a variety of upland habitats in Wisconsin. It is also known from much of North America.

I saw Maianthemum trifolium (=Smilacina trifolia) for the first time ever on this trip. We first saw it in a roadside bog near Wascott, Wisconsin. At our site, it was growing in Sphagnum spp. within the black spruce-tamarack restoration area. It is known from all provinces in Canada, as well as from New England and a handful of northern states in the United States.

Rubus pubescens is an herbaceous, thornless raspberry species of bogs, conifer swamps, boreal forests, lowland forests, sedge meadows, and pine barrens. It is found in nearly every county in Wisconsin, as well as throughout most of Canada and the northern United States.

This is the beautiful sedge Eriophorum angustifolium. This cotton grass is known from the northern half of North America, as well as from a few southwestern states. It grows in a variety of wet habitats.

You may have seen my recent post on this species, Castilleja coccinea. At this site in Superior, Andrew and I found just a single Indian Paintbrush plant. In Wisconsin, this species is found in boreal forests, lowland forests, prairies, and on sand dunes.

We saw numerous sedges on the site, but one of my favorites has to be Carex castanea. Chestnut Sedge, as it is known, is only found in a few northern counties in Wisconsin. It can be found throughout northeastern North America in cedar swamps, mesic conifer-hardwood forests, conifer forests, and mesic meadows.

Corydalis sempervirens is found throughout the eastern United States and Canada, as well as in Alaska and Montana. It is endangered here in Indiana and is rare in the Chicago Region; this was the first time I've ever seen this species. Rock Harlequin is found in sandy soil following a disturbance (fire, scraping, etc.), and it doesn't persist long in the absence of disturbance. In Wisconsin, it is found on cliffs and in savannas. We found it on the site in a burned area.

Last year at the site, we saw Corallorhiza maculata; this year, Gary and Nick found Corallorhiza trifida, a new one for me. In Wisconsin, this species is found in boreal, upland, and lowland forests. Its North American range is generally the northern two-thirds of the continent.

The Fields are on Fire

On May 18, Tony and I were at the Clark and Pine East Nature Preserve, more commonly known as "Bonji." The Bonji site is now an Indiana Dedicated State Nature Preserve, though it consists of formerly mined sand dunes. A rare and unique flora persists at this heavily impacted site, and aditional restoration efforts are underway to control invasive species.

As we drove along, we noticed that the low ridges appeared to be ablaze... a sure sign that the Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea) was in bloom.

Moving closer, we could almost feel the warmth of this flaming gem. We just had to take a quick break from work to take some photos. It is a scene like this that gives me a sense of what the great Hoosier botanist Charlie Deam must have felt when he was taken to the prairies at 17th and Whitcomb Streets in Gary for the first time by the great Chicago Region botanist Floyd Swink in the late 1940s. "When he was shown the Indian Paintbrush stretching for blocks into the distance, he said: 'I have collected in every township in the state of Indiana; I am now in my eighties; this is the finest Indiana natural area I have ever seen in my life.'" (Swink and Wilhelm 1994. Plants of the Chicago Region.)

Moving closer, you can see the georgeous flowers...

Ahh... yes... those georgeous, green flowers.

As you probably know, the "paintbrush," which can range from white (in forma alba) to yellow (in forma lutescens) to scarlet red (in forma coccinea) is actually a series of brightly colored, lobed bracts. The flower is the yellowish-green structure above each bract. If you look closely, you'll see two broad, rounded calyx lobes (sometimes with colored tips), a protruding bilabiate corolla with a galeate upper lip, and an exserted style/stigma.

While most of the bracts on the plants that we saw were orange in color, a few scattered plants had scarlet-colored bracts.

The genus Castilleja was named in honor of Spanish botanist Domingo Castillejo; the specific epithet coccinea obviously comes from the bright red bracts. Castilleja coccinea is somewhat parasitic on the roots of other plants, and can be found throughout much of eastern North America. Native Americans made a tea from the flowers that was used as both a love charm and a poison (don't get any ideas, Commander).