Smooth Camas: White and Green Saskatchewan Wildflowers

Smooth Camas with fly.  © SB

A stand of Smooth Camas blooms in a wet hollow by the side of the road, stems of white, green and yellow flowers swaying gently in the wind.

Another first for me — I've never seen this prairie and parkland wildflower before, and was lucky to see so many at once. (The flowers usually appear in June, so I'm glad these native plants were still showing off their display in mid-July.)

These lily-shaped flowers grow on stalks a foot or two tall — typically in moist areas, though in some dry meadows, too — and, from my (limited) observation, seem to be highly attractive to insects of all kinds!

One of my guides (Royer/Dickinson) calls this plant, with its graceful, arching stalks of flowers, White Camas, and its formal name is Zigadenus elegans. This guide says this Camas is slightly poisonous to humans and livestock, while the related dry-hillside Death Camas or Zigadenus venenosus — no surprise with a name like that! — is very poisonous.

Close-up of single Smooth Camas flower.  © SB

Smooth Camas with mosquito  © SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Smooth Camas

Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: July 13 and 14, 2014.  

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Harebells in the Dew: Back to Blue

After so many bright Saskatchewan wildflowers, here's one of my favourites: Delicate blue-purple Harebells. These bell-shaped flowers come in a range of shade — to me, the colour varies a lot depending on the light. As all colour does...

In the shade, Harebells look far more intensely vibrantly blue than they appear in bright sunshine.A lovely contrast with all the yellows of summer!

Harebell, in dappled light, with early morning dew  © SB

Early morning Harebells.  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia)

Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: July 14, 2014.  

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Narrow-leaved Sunflowers

This week, near Regina, Saskatchewan, I saw a patch of Narrow-leaved Sunflowers in a sheltered hollow. I didn't realize at first that's what they were — but the pictures tell the story, displaying this species' typically narrow and slightly folded greyish-green leaves

Narrow-leaved Sunflowers  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Narrow-leaved Sunflower (Helianthus maximilianii) 

Location:  Condie Nature Refuge, Near Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: August 22, 2014. 

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Green Bog Orchids: tough to see, but truly orchids!

Green Bog Orchid  © SB

Some flowers cry out for a close-up view, and none I've seen have cried louder than Saskatchewan's native Green Bog Orchid.

Unlike some prairie orchids, which appear glamourous and bright (at least in photographs), the Green Bog Orchid looks subdued and shy, and its green flowers don't look at all exciting — or like actual flowers —  until you get really, really close and realize, Yes! It's an Orchid! 

I had help with that. Someone else found a few orchid plants in a wet area, and kindly pointed them out to me. Even then, I wasn't sure what I was looking at until I got down on my hands and knees to peer at the green stalk, and saw that it really was covered in orchid flowers.

The four or five Green Bog Orchid plants that I saw earlier this summer were at most about one foot tall, and the individual flowers, only millimetres wide. No perfume, no colour but green (with a slight yellow tinge on the lip). And to me, highly exotic in their inconspicuous restraint.

Close-up of Green Bog Orchid flower.  © SB

It was difficult to photograph an entire Green Bog Orchid plant because of other vegetation in the area, with which these orchids blended wonderfully well... Below, the best of the lot — an enhanced image, with the background dulled and the brightness of the orchid stalk and lower leaves slightly increased.

For more on these orchids, see Saskatchewan Wildflowers, or Manitoba's Native Orchid Conservation.

Green Bog Orchid - full plant.  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Green Bog Orchid (Platanthera aquilonis, formerly Platanthera hyperborea)

Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.  

Photo Date: July 13, 2014.  

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Wild Purple Flowers: Smooth Asters

I find identifying composite flowers difficult, but from my guides, Smooth Asters are the most likely Asters in my area, so that's what I'm guessing these lovely blue-purple prairie wildflowers must be.

Smooth Asters, with blueish-purple ray florets (no, those aren't really petals)
and yellow disk florets (the centre part).  © SB  

Close-up of Smooth Aster's centre disk florets    © SB  

By any name, these Asters are beautiful, and they are great late wildflowers with which to enjoy nature photography. I've found them blooming from July through September around the Condie Nature Refuge, north of Regina, Saskatchewan.


Prairie Wildflower: Smooth Asters
Location: Near Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Date: August 22, 2014.

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Broomweed — grass-high, golden Prairie wildflower

Broomweed   ©  SB

The wind gusts grew stronger, and the prairie flowers I'd been trying to photograph tossed back and forth.

But at my feet, protected in low grass, Broomweed — a tiny golden wildflower — stayed (relatively) still.

Broomweed is so tiny and this stand was so small that I hadn't even noticed the golden, grass-high flowers until the wind gusts came.

And by grass-high, I mean the height of the grass in the mown pathway on which I was walking, not the height of natural prairies grasses left free to grow...

As for these flowers, each are only about 3 mm high.

Sometimes what seems like a obstacle can be an advantage...I'm glad I looked down and saw these deep yellow Prairie wildflowers, with their dark narrow leaves.

Close-up of Broomweed flowers. © SB

View of Broomweed plants.  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Broomweed

Location: Near Regina, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: August 22, 2014.  

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Showy Milkweed — With Monarch Butterfly

Showy Milkweed   © SB

If my Regina, Saskatchewan, front yard was larger, I would love to fill it with Showy Milkweed plants to attract and feed Monarch Butterflies.

To me, the complex, compound flowers of Showy Milkweed are very beautiful, although the plant's growth pattern might be a bit overwhelming in a small space.

But oh, having my own Monarch Butterfly colony would be so much fun! These large, black and orange butterflies are lovely to watch, and their larva have vivid black, white and yellow stripes.

And Monarchs need all the help they can get these days. They rely on Milkweed, a plant that's not as common as the butterflies or butterfly watchers would like it to be, thanks to development and its designations over the years as a weed. (The latter is changing, with the recognition of its importance as a unique food source.)

Monarch Butterfly feeding on Showy Milkweed flowers  © SB

Monarch Butterfly larva/caterpillar feeding on Showy Milkweed leaf.  © SB

Stand of Showy Milkweed.   © SB

These photos were all taken a few years ago at Nature Regina's Native Plant Garden at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.

Prairie Wildflower: Showy Milkweed 

Location: Regina, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: July 10, 11, and 12, 2012.  

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Oxeye Daisies: Cheerful white and yellow flowers

I love the look of Oxeye Daisies in a field or along the road. Bright and fresh, they remind me of laundry hanging on the line, brisk summer mornings, days at the beach, and evenings eating crisp lemon sherbet. (And no, this photo may not be used to promote any of those — or anything else... See copyright, above.)

Oxeye Daisies   © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Oxeye Daisies  

Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: July 5, 2014.  

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Meadow Blazingstar: Late Pink Prairie Wildflower

I wonder if the Meadow Blazingstar flower I found today, almost hidden in the grass, is the last I'll see this year... It must be late in the season for this pink prairie wildflower — and I only saw one bloom where last summer, I saw many.

Late Meadow Blazingstar flower. © SB

Frowzy. That's what my mother would have called this particular Blazingstar flower. Bedraggled. Not at all at its height-of-season, brilliant-colour best. But Blazongstars always look somewhat dishevelled. Delicately so. And beautiful.

Prairie Wildflower: Meadow Blazingstar 

Location: Near Regina, Saskatchewan,  Canada.  

Photo Date: August 21, 2014.  

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American Hedysarum in Saskatchewan: Pink-purple flowers

American Hedysarum  © SB

American Hedysarum blooms in Saskatchewan in June and July, its pinkish-purple flowers drooping elegantly down along a raceme, or stalk.

These small, graceful plants grow in the grassy areas of semi-open prairies and borders of woodlands glades, say Vance/Jowsey.

I saw Hedysarum growing in patches along the open roadside and in a shady hollow near a dense bush.

And then I saw Hedysarum again, in a tangle of native prairie wildflowers (Bedstraw, Western Red Lilies, Roses) near trees at the edge of Wolverine Creek.

Hedysarum flowers shift gently in the slightest breeze, and their stalks bobbed to and fro in front of my camera...

Which was on a low, ground-sprawled tripod, in my attempt to stabilize at least one element of the photographic process.

(And that worked, for a second or two, until the prairie wind began to rustle grasses and wildflowers again, and the Hedysarum danced again.)

How lovely to walk and find flowers like these at your feet!

American Hedysarum in patch with Western Red Lilies © SB

Closer view of Hedysarum flowers. © SB

Prairie Wildflower: American Hedysarum (and Western Red Lilies) 
Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo Date: July 6, 8 and 13, 2014. 

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Orange Hawkweed: Popsicle coloured flower

Orange Hawkweed © SB

Orange Hawkweed. Just as its name
says, this plant really is a weed.

Introduced from Europe for its unusual flame-colour flowers, it now grows in moist waste areas and wherever else it's permitted. (Lawns, meadows, fields, roadsides, gardens...)

As for me, I love Orange Hawkweed's cheerful colours that range from deep red to bright Popsicle orange and yellow. (In photos and from a distance, at least... Not so much up close, as Orange Hawkweeds — to me — have a distinctive sour smell.)

And, if Hawkweed sounds too boring as a name, Royer and Dickinson provide a range of others in their excellent Weeds of the Northern U.S. and Western Canada: Devil's Paintbrush, Orange Paintbrush, Red Daisy, and Missionary Weed (which I doubt is in any way complimentary to the message-spreading zeal of those good folks...)

In its pamphlet on Orange Hawkweed, the USDA Forest Service adds to that list Red Daisy, Flameweed, Fox-and-Cubs, and oddest of all — perhaps from its black-haired buds? — Grim-the-Collier. That pamphlet also explains the common name, Hawkweed:

"Pliny, the Roman naturalist, believed that hawks fed on the plant to strengthen their eyesight and thus it became the Greek and Latin name for this and similar plants, called hawkweed."

That range of names gives some idea of how prolific and invasive Orange Hawkweed can be. And though I would not transplant it as an ornamental, the colours of Orange Hawkweed still make me smile.

Orange Hawkweed, Grim-the-Collier, Devil's Paintbrush....  A weed by any name.  © SB

Prairie (really, Parkland) Wildflower: Orange Hawkweed  (Hieracium aurantiacum)

Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: July 15 and 16, 2014. 

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Strawberry Spinach, aka Strawberry Blite

Strawberry Spinach  © SB

This summer, I had the opportunity to taste a new-to-me (to eat, at least) native plant: Strawberry Spinach, also known as Strawberry Blite, or Chenopodium capitatum.

By any name, these members of the Goosefoot family are edible, and the berries have a slightly spinach-like — and far from sweet strawberry — taste. 

I can see adding a handful of bright red Strawberry Spinach to a salad, perhaps with a few young leaves. 

And I brought some seeds home to test this theory next summer... Now, if I could only remember where I packed them... Then again, these native plants spread very freely, so perhaps my co-gardener will be grateful if I do not try... 

Vance/Jowsey says that Strawberry Blite is widespread across North America, growing in moist areas such as the edges of gardens and roadways.

They also say the red flesh is part of the flower, i.e., its ripening sepals... So where is the fruit? Royer-Dickinson explain that the fruit is the black specks throughout the berries. This is a very seedy eat!

And as for the petals themselves, these apparently are small and inconspicuously green, and long gone by the time the berries appear.

Strawberry Spinach  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Strawberry Spinach or Strawberry Blite (Chenopodium capitatum)

Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo Date: July 20, 2014. 

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Western Canada Violets in Shade Beside a Field

I love stumbling (sometimes literally) over prairie wildflowers that are new to me, but well known to many others, flowers like the Western Canada Violet that I found in a shady spot at the edge of a farmer's field.

White or pale pink, with yellow centres and veins of deep purple, these flowers are less than an inch wide and appear in June to August. Vance-Jowsey says Western Canada Violets are "probably the longest flowering and most commonly observed violet."

And last month, I saw a few of these native Western Canadian plants for my first time.

Western Canada Violets. All violets remind me of fairy tales, 
in which teeny magical creatures live at the heart of flowers. © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Western Canada Violet (Voila Canadensis -- it's a Canadian plant!) 

Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Date: July 16, 2014. 

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Alfalfa Flowers by the Roadside

Walk along a Saskatchewan grid road in June and July, and you may pass masses of blue and purple Alfalfa flowers. 

Introduced as a forage crop, Alfalfa has become a common prairie wildflower — one that I saw attracting butterflies and dragonflies. The flowers range from about a quarter of an inch to half an inch long, and are typically legume-shaped. 

Stop and look closely: the intricate details multiply, deeper and deeper into each cluster. 

Alfalfa flower cluster   © SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Alfalfa (Medigo sativa)
Location: Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo Date: July 5, 2014. 

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Alumroot: Saskatchewan Prairie and Parkland Wild Flower

Close-up Alumroot    © SB 

Okay, so Alumroot is not the most stunningly gorgeous Prairie wildflower — instead, it falls into the "look carefully, or you won't even realize this is a flower" category.

But there is a strange, almost ethereal beauty to these purplish-green spikes.

And, a satisfaction in figuring out that these tiny husks, gently swaying in the breeze, are in fact rhe flowers of a native prairie plant.

As well as by its flowers, Alumroot can be identified by its large, leathery, dark green basal leaves.

Royer and Dickinson say that Alumroot's habitat is in moist grassland sites —  and that's where I saw these plants, growing among grasses and other wildflowers in a wet hollow at the edge of the road.  

Alumroot flower spike   © SB 

Alumroot in field, with large basal leaves  © SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Alumroot 
Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo Dates: July 13 and 14, 2014. 

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Wild Blue Flax Along Saskatchewan Roadsides

Close-up, Wild Blue Flax   © SB 

One of my favourite Saskatchewan flowers is Wild Blue Flax.

These pale blue prairie wildflowers, with lines of darker purple and oh-so-close to white, appear in June and July, waving on their slender stalks in the slightest breeze.

Here are three recent pictures of Wild Blue Flax that make me happy....

I remember seeing these delicate wildflowers dancing along the shoulder of grid roads near St. Peter's Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan.

Okay, maybe it's my eyes or imagination --
but these two Wild Blue Flax stalks really look like dancers!  © SB

Another angle on Wild Blue Flax flowers  © SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Wild Blue Flax 

Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: July 8 to 21, 2014. 

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Wild Peavine: Purple, violet and pink wildflowers

Wild Peavine © SB

Wild Peavines were in glorious bloom along the shady edges of several Saskatchewan grid roads and fields I walked along in mid-July, their purple, pink and violet flowers glowing in a tangle of wild growth.

Each of the flowers are about half an inch or smaller, so even a cluster can be easy to pass by... But if you stop and look closer, what beauty!

Wild Peavines are perennial climbing plants, whose habitat includes "margins of aspen poplar groves, and relatively open areas inside such groves." (Vance-Jowsey)

And yes, they are yet another legume, but their leaves are bigger than those of wild vetches, and the Peavines I saw also seemed to have bigger, brighter clusters of flowers.

I haven't seen these in the south, which makes sense as Budd's Flora explains that Wild Peavines are more common in the Boreal forest and Aspen Parkland eco-regions of Saskatchewan. (And yes, Muenster, the area where these pix were taken, is in the Parklands.) The same source says Wild Peavines were a valuable source of forage and hay in the earlier days of settlement in the northern bushlands. I hope people enjoyed their colours, too!

Cascade of bright purples and pinks, from Wild Peavine © SB

Wild Peavine's clusters of bright flowers, with wide oval leaves.  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Wild Peavine

Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: July 20 and 21, 2014. 

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Goat's Beard Flowers: in Bloom, and Seed Head

Goat's Beard flower gone to seed.   © SB 

To my eye, the seed head of Goat's Beard — a near softball-sized puffball — is far more attractive than its greenish yellow flower.

This white fluff is also the reason for the plant's name, a connection dating back to the third century BCE Greek philosopher Theophrastus, says a Montana State University leaflet. (These plants have been recognized among us for a long time!)

Goat's Beard is a prairie wildflower that's fairly common along roadsides and waste areas, in the city as well as in rural areas.

To see Goat's Beard flowers at their best, look for them early on sunny mornings, before they close for the afternoon.

Prairie Beauty says the flower aren't likely to open when it's cloudy or rainy, either.  Which makes sense, based on their other name: Yellow Salsify, as 'salsify' means a plant that follows the sun.)

Goat's Beard is not native to North America, but was a common food plant in Northern Europe in the middle ages, the MSU leaflet says. Prairie Beauty explains that the young leaves and roots of immature plants are edible. (Not that I plan to try this, but then, I don't appreciate the taste of Dandelion leaves, either.)

Goat's Beard flower, mid-morning on a sunny day.  © SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Goat's Beard
Location:  Top, Regina, Saskastchewan, Canada; bottom, near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: Top. July 4, 2012; bottom, July 21, 2014. 

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