Native Plant of the Week: Wafer Ash ~ Ptelea trifoliata

Wafer Ash (Hop Tree) ~ Ptelea trifoliata


Wafer Ash is a great native woody species that can be utilized as a large shrub or small tree specimen in the home landscape. Most often multi-stemmed, it can reach heights of around 20 feet in northern landscapes.

The flowers are tiny, light yellow to green in color and have either 4 or 5 petals. They are arranged in clusters that are about 2 inches wide.

Wafer Ash is relatively slow growing, especially in drier locations. Its native habitat includes thinner, dry soils on rock, or upland sites near riparian areas. It is tolerant of moist locations too so is a very adaptable native shrub to use in the home landscape.

In Minnesota, flowers emerge in early June. The interesting flat seed pods (samaras) develop and hang downwards in the clusters. They turn from light green to brown as they mature.

Wafer Ashes have 'leaves of three'. Young seedlings are often mistaken for poison ivy. The leaves are glossy and light green in color and very attractive.

Wafer Ash is native to southern and eastern North America. See map below for range.

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP).
2011. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill, N.C.

Native Plant of the Week: Buttonbush ~ Cephalanthus occidentalis

Buttonbush ~ Cephalanthus occidentalis


Buttonbush is a beautiful native shrub of wetland and riparian edges, and other low lying moist locations. It is named for the 1'' wide, spherical shaped white flowers that emerge in late June to early July.

Buttonbush has dark green glossy leaves that are oppositely arranged. It prefers partial to full sun locations in medium to moist soils rich in humus in the home landscape.

It can reach heights of 12 feet, but is more commonly found around 6-8 feet. The flowers are fragrant and are sought out by many types of native bees.

The fruit is a spherical nutlet, which turns from green to rusty brown in color as it dries and matures.

Buttonbush is native to eastern North America as well as California and Arizona in the west. See map below for range.

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP).
2011. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill, N.C.

Is That Species Native?

Guest Post by Michael Lynch
The question of whether something is native or not comes up a lot. Leave aside the question of how do you know what a given plant is, how do you decide if it grew here before European intervention. Often the label will say "Native" somewhere, but native to where. if a given species is native to North America, does that make it native to Minnesota? 
I will use a few examples to illustrate the confusion.


I will be using a set of maps aquired from the Biota of North America program. For more information on these maps and how to interperate them you can see my prior post here.


Bee Balm
There is obvious confusion with this plant with it's numerous hybrids and cultivars. Two species are important in horticuluture. Monarda didyma and Monarda fistulosa. 
Monarda didyma is a tall plant with bright red flowers and it grows well in shade and rapidly spreads to fill an area. It is promoted as a native and is very attractive to pollinators. What's more, it is easy to grow here. The question is, is it native to Minnesota? Not really.



M. didyma is native to the eastern US and the Appalachian Mountains. The closest its native range comes to Minnesota is Ohio or eastern Tennessee. 
Look at the other species of Bee Balm. 


Monarda fistulosa is a medium height plant with pale pink flowers that grows in full sun and does not spread by runners. It is also called native and is also very attractive to wildlife and pollinators. Is it native?


From this map Monarda fistulosa is widespread in most of the state of Minnesota. 


What about a more suprising group of plants that the purist in me did not expect. 


Coneflowers


There are three major species of Echinaceas in the US. E. angustifola, E. pallida and E. purpurea. I believed that at least one of them was native to where I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When you look at the map, you realize that's not true.

E. angustifolia is native to Minnesota, but it doesn't extend to the eastern two thirds of the state. It is a true Great Plains species and doesn't grow in our oak savannas or tall grass prairies.

E. pallida is not native to Minnesota at all, but it comes very close. It is native to the tall grass prairies just south of Minnesota.

E. purpurea is the most common species used in horticulture and herbally. However, it is not native to Minnesota either. It grows in the tall grass prairies to the south of us, and is scattered in areas east of the Mississippi river.


Obviously, there is nothing wrong with growing a plant even if it is not historically native to your area. Many insects still visit the flowers and birds will happily eat their seeds. But if you are a native plant purist seeking a representation of what your landscape would have looked like before the native plants were extripated, it is important to realize where those plants actually grew and more carefully select the plants you choose to grow in your garden or yard.

Native Plant of the Week: Northern Maidenhair Fern ~ Adiantum pedatum

Northern Maidenhair Fern ~ Adiantum pedatum


Northern Maidenhair Fern is one of the most delicate native woodland ferns. In Minnesota it often found growing on shady, cool, north or east facing slopes.

The stems develop a curve, sometimes almost a complete circle as the pinnae grow.

Another great feature of this fern is its dark brown to black stems. It makes a wonderful contrast to the softly textured pinnule.

Rusty red fiddleheads emerge in early to mid May. Ferns are great to layer in the native woodland garden with early flowering spring ephemerals such as Bloodroot or Hepatica.

Maidenhair fern spreads by rhizomes forming nice clusters. In the home landscape it needs a cool, shady location in compost rich medium soils. The fronds remains green late into the fall season.

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP).
2011. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill, N.C.

Northern Maidenhair Fern is native to eastern North America. See map below for range.

BONAP: Biota of North America Plant Atlas

Another guest post by Michael Lynch

I'd like to introduce more people to the Biota of North America Program. 

Biota of North America - North American Plant Atlas

www.bonap.org

The Biota of North America Program is an online database of maps of most of the native and naturalized species of plants growing in North America. It is a work in progress, and a valuable tool for learning about wild plants and their native range across the continent. 


I would like to go over their maps and give people an idea of how to use them.
The maps look like this.

They focus mainly on the United states, (hopefully they will eventually expand to Canada since we live so close.) Use herbarium records to collect their data, meaning that these are official records of plants growing in the wild, not in a garden, or escaped from human cultivation. These give good ideas of where a plant normally grows.



The list by genus is rather daunting, so you will probably want to have a plant in mind before browsing their long list of genera. They also use latin names only and they often have the most up-to-date latin names, so if you are looking for asters, you have to look under Symphotrychium. 



I like to look at their maps to see what kind of habitat a plant likes.
For example Mexican Hat. I am at the eastern edge of Mexican Hat's range in Minnesota. It is more common in the great plains and short grass prairie. In Minnesota, that means it likes it dry and sunny.

Large Flowered Trillium grows in climax forests. I am on the south west edge of it's range, meaning I should expect it to do well in a moist rich woodland. 


You can also see particular types of habitats across the country by looking at the range maps of species that have very specific habitat requirements.


Purple Pitcher plants grow in sphagnum peat bogs. By looking at the map, you get a pretty good idea of where in the country sphagnum bogs are located. 


For a plant geek like me, I have found these maps quite useful, and a rather fun waste of time browsing maps of everything I kind of recognize. They are also useful tool for a regular gardner who wants to know where their favorite wild flower grows.

Native Plant of the Week: Autumn Coralroot ~ Corallorhiza odontorhiza

Autumn (Fall) Coralroot ~ Corallorhiza odontorhiza


Fall Coralroot is a tiny native woodland orchid. I have only seen it twice in my area and recently discovered the second location at a local park.

Flowering in late summer (August - September)  the burgundy-brown color blends in perfectly with the woodland leaf litter making this orchid especially hard to spot.

The flowers rarely open on this orchid, they are tiny and white with small spots. To see a photo of the flower and a summary of other Coralroot, check out this post at the Get Your Botany On blog.

I have found Fall Coralroot growing locally in medium to dry, mature, maple-basswood and oak woodlands in part to full shade. Both locations were on slopes. It can grow to around 12 inches in height, but the clusters I've seen are much shorter.

Here's a recent photo of Fall Coralroot. It's much easier to spot with a little snow on the ground.

Fall Coralroot is native to eastern North America. See map below for range.

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP).
2011. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill, N.C.

Fragile (Brittle) Prickly Pear ~ Opuntia fragilis

This is a guest post by Michael Lynch - thank you Michael for your contribution!


When Heather asked me if I would be interested in writing for her blog, I couldn't think of anything sufficiently interesting. Fortunately I discovered my topic the next day I went hiking in Louisville Swamp Wildlife Refuge just southwest of Shakopee, MN. 



Fragile Prickly Pear/ Brittle Prickly Pear
 ~ Opuntia fragilis 

This is where the prickly pears grow.
The bedrock comes right to the surface and
the edges of the rock where the soil is too
thin for anything but mosses and lichen to
grow is where prickly pears do best.

Meet one of Minnesotas 3 native cactus species. (That's right, Minnesota has three kinds of cactus)
. It is a small and rather dainty cactus, but don't let that fool you, it is as tough as those spines hurt. 
It is one of the most cold hardy of the cactus species growing all the way into northern Minnesota. 


In the wild, they grow in thin soils on bedrock, or in very sandy prairies where other vegetation can't shade them out. They are called “fragile” because the slightest touch will break off the pads of this cactus and they will either stick to clothing, or the fur of bison and will hitch hike to a new spot to get established. Because they are so good at cloning themselves, they don't always flower like most other perennials. 



This is a patch of prickly pear cacti growing
on the mossy edge of the bedrock. The
background you can see the prairie, and in
the foreground you can see the edge of
the bedrock. There is only about an inch of moss
and lichen to support the cacti. 
Note the prickly
pears are reddish and shriveled for winter.


In the garden they like dry sandy soils and places where they don't have to compete with other tall plants. In their natural habitat that is provided by extremely thin soils on the edge of a rock. In the garden that means maybe the edge of a retaining wall (preferably where you don't need to weed).
A warning about the spines.

This is what Brittle prickly pear looks like in
June before it blooms. The pads are about 1-2
inches long and ¾ to an inch wide.

If you are unfamiliar with prickly pears. The spines are extremely thin, sharp and barbed. They have a habit of breaking off in your skin so you can't see them or pull them out, but make themselves known. (Ouch!)

Native Plant of the Week: Virgin's Bower ~ Clematis virginiana

Virgin's Bower ~ Clematis virginiana
Other Common Name: Devil's Darning Needle

Virgin's Bower is a beautiful native vine that can be utilized in the landscape to climb on many types of structures. In our yard, we have two 20' tall trellises on our garage that this vine climbs upon as well as a picket fence that I weave the vine through.

It is a fast growing woody vine, in moist years growing over 20 feet in length. For this reason, I cut my vines back to about 4 feet in height each spring.

I leave the tangled stems on the trellis for the winter as several types of birds (Northern Cardinals and sparrow species) like to roost there.

The tiny half inch wide white flowers emerge in late July to early August. Although each individual flower is small, they are arranged in branched clusters giving it an airy appearance. The 3 leaflets are attractive with coarsely serrated edges.

Fluffy seedheads develop in late September to early October, a nice late season feature of this vine.

Virgin's Bower prefers partially shaded locations with medium moisture. It will brown out and grow little in hot, exposed locations. The vine on the east facing side of our garage performs the best.

It is common locally, growing in lower lying areas in woodlands and edges. It will scramble over lower lying shrubs and weave its way through the understory. Like all vines in the human landscape, it will need something to climb upon.

This August, I spotted for the first time two Clematis Clearwing Borer Moths (Alcathoe caudata) in the yard. The larvae of these moths bore into the roots of Clematis to overwinter there.

Virgin's Bower is native to eastern North America. See map below for range.

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP).
2011. North American Plant Atlas. Chapel Hill, N.C.