Friday Fabulous Flower - Compass Plant

As mentioned yesterday, the prairie is in bloom, and given the reasonably abundant rain, the vegetation is lush and tall.  The compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) is one of the prairie emergents whose inflorescence emerges above the other prairie vegetation at least at this time of year.  The inflorescences are around 6-6.5 feet tall and it is just beginning to flower, and as this image shows it is quite stunning.  Each "flower" is actually an inflorescence typical of the sunflower/aster family.  The image of a flower, and without question the image floral visitors react to is the whole "bloom", is presented by the ray flowers around the periphery each with a strap-like corolla lobe and the central disk flowers each with a smaller 5-lobed corolla.  Each "bloom" is around 3 inches across.  This is a common enough strategy; when you have small flowers, cluster them together for a bigger display. 

Prairie - early June status report

Already the tall vegetation part of our research prairie has vegetation shoulder high (1.5 m) and so dense just finding the plots becomes a problem, and of course one of our experimental treatments is nutrient augmentation! So the cool wet weather had produced a bumper crop of vegetation. Pale purple coneflower, black-eyed susan, wild quinine, false indigo, and green-fringed orchid are all coming into flower now. Unfortunately an invasive legume, Lespedeza cuneata has continued its relentless spread and this does not bode well for this little restored prairie, which otherwise is very high quality. A very rare and seldom seen orchid in this area, Liparis loesii, green twayblade, was recorded in one of out plots, a first. It had been 12 to 14 years since last seen, of course, it's 4 inches tall. Recording the species growing in each meter square plot takes quite a bit of time, and so our efforts will continue for another week or so. We could use some student help, short ones, so they're closer to the ground, but then keeping them tied together so they don't get lost is a pain. The real challenge is identifying the grasses & sedges when they are not in flower! Oh yes, some fun!