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Palmisano Park hosts an amazing variety of native flora. It also has an excellent balance of wildflowers and prairie grasses, along with having a nice stand of native reeds. Here are a few Ari documented on this day*.
*more photos from another day pending
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| Queen of the Prairie. This tall flower crowns itself with a fashionable pinkish puff. Despite being vulnerable, it's thriving and Palmisano in a few patches |
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| Leaves and stalk of the Queen of the Prairie. |
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| Pale Purple Coneflower, an iconic symbol of the prairie, with a Brown-belted Bumble Bee on it. Photo of stem and leaves pending |
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| Pale Purple Coneflower stems and leaves. Both are covered in rough hairs |
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| Showy Tick-trefoil, a very abundant and pretty species of flower at Palmisano |
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| Leaves and stem of Showy Tick-trefoil, showing a very basic but showy stem and leaves |
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| Slippery Elm sapling |
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| Nanking Cherry, an introduced species |
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| Great St. John's Wort |
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| Leaves and stem of Great St. John's Wort. While similar to its smaller, invasive relative (common st. john's wort), it is very tall and great |
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| Broadleaf Arrowhead, a common and very cool looking wetland plant |
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| Great Bulrush. Towering over anyone walking by in thick growths along the artificial river, this is a massive sedge. |
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| Unidentified wetland plant. Identification pending |
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| Spotted Lady's Thumb, an introduced plant |
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| Pale Smartweed |
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| Redtop grass, an introduced species |
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| Stiff-leaved Goldenrod |
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| Daisy Fleabane |
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Compass Plant. Towering over 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall, this sunflower relative is an icon of prairie, and
thrives across Mount Bridgeport |
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| Leaves |
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| Rattlesnake Master. With agave-like leaves and spiky balls of flowers, the rattlesnake master look like a plant straight out of the Sonoran Desert, yet it is found in Illinois prairie. Leaf photo pending |
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| Leaves |
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| Sideoats Grama, a very common prairie grass. Leaf and stem photo pending |
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| Blue Vervain |
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| Leaves |
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| Culver's Root |
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| Leaves |
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| Big Bluestem |
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| This very tall tallgrass of the tallgrass prairies is, well, a very tall grass. It abounds and is yet another icon of, well, tallgrass prairies |
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| Red Clover. Introduced, but an excellent pollinator plant |
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| Virginia Mountain-mint |
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| Prairie Rosinweed |
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| Leaves |
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| Canadian Milkvetch. The bee is a Golden Northern/Yellow Bumble Bee, a threatened species I have been seeing quite a bit at Palmisano in July |
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| Prairie Milkweed |
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| Wild Bergamot. This flower is Bumble Bee heaven. They just LOOOOOOVE!!!! it. |
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| Bur Oak |
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| The bur oak is one of the few trees that thrive in prairies. (To a point, of course. After all, if they truly thrived, it wouldn't be a prairie but a forest!) Unlike most other of the few prairie trees, oaks require their symbiotic root fungi to be mushrooms, particularly one that only partner with woody plants. These fungi normally only hang out in forests, but a few can tolerate prairies like the oaks they shadow underground. |
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| Royal Catchfly, a threatened species of native plant |
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Gray-headed Conflower
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| Leaves |
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| Ribwort Plantain, an introduces species. My sister and I have noticed that if you tug on the tall stalks on this plant, the part just below the top will go pale and limp. But only if you tug hard enogh without snapping the stalk. And only sometimes. |
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| American Trumpet Vine |
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| Butterfly Milkweed |
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| Illinois Bundleflower |
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