T
his
is the beginning of our 23rd
year of looking at wildflowers
in Cook County, MN. We are three
senior women who just love to
get out and explore and learn
new things. We are even getting
together all winter but don't
find too many flowers at that
time, but no matter.
Wednesday, May 12th, 2004
This is the beginning of
Spring in Cook County and the
most of the small wildflowers
are to be found in the Maple
woods. We tried some new woods
rather than visiting our old
friends. We went up the
Arrowhead Trail to the Tower
road and went on that quite a
ways, saw no 
flowers
and the road was getting worse
so we turned around, continued
up the trail to the Jackson Lake
Road, went in there about a mile
and first saw a patch of Bloodroot.
We got out of the car and
tromped around in the woods,
finding more Bloodroot and also
Carolina Spring-beauty.
If you get your nose close to
the Spring Beauty it has a
lovely smell.
We then took #313 going from the
Arrowhead to the Gunflint Trail
stopping for lunch at a
beautiful spot on a river. The Marsh
Marigolds are in bud and if
we have warm weather we will
probably see some next week
P.S. On Wednesday we could
see buds on the trees quite
easily and by Thursday because
it was warm they all popped open
and when I looked up the
hillside above Grand Marais it
was beautiful with the light
green of the new large buds and
the dark green of the
evergreens.
Click
here for the most recent report!
Here
are some early bloomers to look
for in the
area:
Anemone,
Wood - Anemone
quinquefolia
Arbutus,
Trailing - Epigaea repens
Bloodroot
- Sanguinaria canadensis
Dandelion,
Common - Taraxicum
officinale
Dutchman's
Breeches - Dicentra
cucullaria
Early
Sweet Coltsfoot - Petasites
palmatus
Hazelnut,
Corylus
Marsh-marigold
- Caltha palustris
(Cowslip)
Pussytoes, Field - Antennaria
neglecta
Red
Maple
- Acer rubrum
Spring
Beauty - Claytonia
verginica
Strawberry,
Common - Fragaria
virginiana
Violets
Be sure to stop back
throughout the Spring and
Summer to see our weekly
wildflower reports from
Lorraine Anderson of Grand
Marais, Minnesota.
