Rose Pogonia, photo by Lorraine A. Anderson

July 21st, 2004 - Report by

Today we saw more of one orchid than we have ever seen, solved a two year old "Mystery Plant" saga, saw a plant we hadn't seen in probably five years and saw a plant we don't think we have seen before!!!! What a day!!!

We started off planning to be explorers - exploring the county next to us, Lake County. Just going up County Road #6 on the roadside we saw some sunflowers that we haven't seen in our county. We had heard from Stuart who read about it in the book "Wildflower Safaris by Car" that there were many Rose Pogonias (beautiful, small orchid) accessible by car in Lake County. Well, he was right seems like there may be 100. One of us stayed on the road with field glasses while the other two donned our boots and went in the bog with our cameras. Also, in the bog we saw Sundew in bloom, Cotton Grass (a different kind) and Small Cranberry. What a treat!

As we drove along we saw, in bloom, Spreading Dogbane, Evening Primrose, Black-eyed Susan, White Water Lilies and Bird's-foot Trefoil cascading along the roadsides.
We had lunch at a picnic table overlooking the lake, in the shade and in the breeze at Dumbell Lake Campground.

We had noticed in the above mentioned book that there was another orchid, Dwarf Plantain on the trail to Manitou Overlook, just one block in. Well, we didn't find that but were treated by seeing Common Wood Sorrel (not at all common to us, maybe we saw a couple plants about 20 years ago). There were many plants and the flower was white with pink lines in somewhat like Spring Beauty except a bit larger.

On Highway 61 on our way home, out of the corner of our eyes we saw something blue and not the blue of Lupine. Well, we were late coming home but this warranted making a U-turn to see it more closely. We haven't seen this for about 5 years and figured it was gone due to road construction but here was a batch, larger than ever of Viper's Bugloss. Out came the cameras again.

After we parted I had one more thing to check. I went above Maple Hill Cemetary to see if the "Mystery Plant" from two years ago was blooming. We had gone there many times last year and - nothing. Well, here popping up all over the forest floor was our solution - Pinesap. Cindy Butler, a year ago, had seen the picture and e-mailed me that she thought it was Pinesap and I have lost her name but she was right. We have never seen that in our county!!!

See what we found last year at this time of year!

Be sure to stop back throughout the Summer to see our weekly wildflower reports from Lorraine Anderson of Grand Marais, Minnesota.