"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
This nice patch of Baptisia sphaerocarpa was found back in May of 2021 at Rick Evans Grandview Prairie WMA in Hempstead Co., AR. Although this species is found in a few of our southwestern prairies, most consider these to be introductions and not a native plant of Missouri.
More from Sand Prairie Conservation Area. These members of the bee fly family (Bombyliidae) were owning this patch of blooming Stylisma pickeringii (Convolvulaceae). Be sure to check out the image of a male coming in to spit game at a female that was not giving him the slightest bit of attention.
I finally got to spend some time at Roaring River C.A. this past spring when Casey and I made a trip to the southwest of the state. This location is easily seen driving to and from Roaring River State Park. At this time, the Castilleja coccinea (Indian paintbrush) and Camassia scilloides (wild hyacinth) were the stars of the show, accenting the hilly glades and savannahs.
This year I was fortunate to meet with all three members of Missouri’s Lilium species.
Up first and by far the most common is the Michigan Lily, Lilium michiganense. This species blooms in June and July and can be found throughout the state except for the southeastern lowlands. This individual was photographed in Reynold’s County.
Up next is Lilium superbum, the so-called “Turk’s cap lily.” The largest native lily found in the U.S., These photos were taken in the only known population of this species in the state in Perry County.
Last of all was an unexpected finding of a Lilium philadelphicum, or wood lily. Like L. superbum, this is a very rare species in Missouri, only occasionally found in prairies in the north-western portion of the state. Unfortunately, the plant was not yet in bloom and I did not have the opportunity to travel the nearly 4.5 hours to visit again when the plant was in bloom.
I finally had a good chance to photograph these spectacular flowers at peak bloom. Photographed at Don Robinson State Park, Jefferson County, MO on 28, Aug, 2021.
Here is my last new orchid for the season. It is also probably the orchid I had to work the hardest to find in this entire project. Platanthera flava var. flava is classified as S2 (imperiled) in Missouri due to the very few remaining populations. This is an orchid that likes its feet wet and can be found in a variety of habitats containing moist to wet soils. After trying unsuccessfully in 2020, Pete and I went back to the same location this year – a wet prairie in southern Missouri in early June. This was very tough searching as the high temps, strong sun and saturated air created a potentially dangerous heat index. We tried our best, slowly slogging through the already quite thick prairie. Just when it looked like Pete was wanting to throw in the towel, we came across a patch of less-dense vegetation with water about ankle-high. Here we found young orchids that numbered in the hundreds. Unfortunately, most were on the early side and were not fully flowering but we did find a few that made us happy. We also found that many of the orchids in this group had grazed top leaves – most likely from white-tailed deer that usually find orchids to be very appetizing.
There is another variety of this orchid, P. flava var. herbiola that is also found in Missouri. Recently Pete and I tried to find this in most of the known locations but came up short. As of now my quest stands at 33 of 36 orchid forms that can be found in the state (36 is my accepted number and others may disagree). In addition to P. flava var. herbiola, I also need to find Coeloglossum viride (Long-bract Frog Orchid) – this species is known from a single location in the state but apparently does not flower and Epipactis helleborine, the broad-leaved helleborine – the exotic orchid that is becoming naturalized in this state but originates in Asia and Europe. Finding these three remaining orchids should be quite the task and I look forward to attempting these next year.
I have run into a couple other circumstances in our orchid flora where intermediate forms have caused problems in determining the identity of a plant or population. Where these two varieties overlap, as they seem to do in Missouri, there are intermediate forms between these two varieties as well. I will hope that when I do find a potential herbiola variety that this will not become a problem.
Eryngium prostratum is an odd little member of the Apiaceae family that is found in the southeastern most part of Missouri. Along with it’s blue flowering heads, its closet living relative in Missouri is the relatively gigantic E. yuccifolium. These plants were photographed at Charleston Baptist Association Prairie in Scott County, MO on June 27, 2021.
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 