Get Your Botany On!

There are four species of orchids with extant populations in Indiana that can be considered to be saprophytic and/or hemi-parasitic. They li...

Good call, Susan! It is Fragile Fern, a plant whose taxonomic status is not treated consistently by our many authors. Closely related and/or...

Good call, Mary. It is Ranunculus testiculatus , also known as Ceratocephalus testiculatus , Bur Buttercup. In the eastern U.S. it grows alm...

Many interesting ferns can be found growing on rocky outcrops, but one of my favorite common ferns has to be Dryopteris marginalis (Margina...

This common member of the Poppy family nearly always eludes my camera. It flowers briefly and the tepals fall of early and easily. Today I w...

Good call, Phytophactor and Scott. It is "ranunculaceous," and Scott is correct, it is Ranunculus fascicularis. This plant is espe...

Early spring on wooded slopes can be delightful when Hepatica starts emerging. In northeast Indiana, it is flowering abundantly on rich slop...

Dan, Dan, the orchid man McDowell, my mentor for all things botanical, is fond of saying, "Peter, the neat thing about orchids is they ...

Pondberry (Lindera melissifolia) is a federally endangered shrub, and Missouri has just one population on the Arkansas border at Sand Pond C...

Even in Indiana, March isn't too early for some good botany. Last weekend, Lee Casebere and I headed to southeastern Indiana in search o...

In early spring botanists get itchy feet and head out to find the first blooms of the season. Unfortunately, they are initially met with sta...

I was reading Shrubs of Indiana by Weeks and Parker when I realized that I had never taken the time to find and appreciate the female flower...

"Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line." Henry David Thoreau Silvery Spleenwort, Athyrium the...