Wildflowers of Autumn
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A county where wildflowers can be enjoyed for around seven months of the year must be very special, and Door County is such a place. Even though spring is often rich with wildflowers before the dense, leafy canopy of the woods develops, blocking out most of the sunlight, far more species can be seen elsewhere during the fall months. Now is the time you begin exploring roadsides, the sunny edges of woods and large openings, fallow fields, stream banks and especially shore areas away from sites having dense stands of invasive plants such as phragmites.
It’s when the goldenrods and asters come into flower that I’m reminded of my Kewaunee High School colors, purple and gold. Red-stemmed, Silky, and New England are the names of some of the more common purplish asters of this region. Even though the New England Aster tends to be uncommon toward the lake in northeastern Wisconsin, the plant is highly worth obtaining from a plant or seed dealer. What a spectacular complement they are to some of the large flashy goldenrods including the Canada, Showy or the Grassleaf.
Lest some of you readers begin to ridicule my fondness for goldenrods, the scientific community, including doctors, has proven irrefutably that the pollen of all goldenrods is too heavy to be carried by the wind. It must be transferred from flower to flower by insects. Furthermore, unlike two of the worst culprits, the Ragweed and Kentucky Blue Grass (yes, many folks’ lawns!), whose pollen is such that it is highly irritable to many people’s nasal passages, that of goldenrods is not.
One of my favorites of all goldenrods holds its own very nicely into October: the Gray Goldenrod, also known as Dyer’s Weed. Due to the poor soil in the stony ditches where many grow, they are frequently no taller than eight to ten inches, dainty little plants with very fine hairs giving them a grayish cast. The plant is easy to recognize because of the tendency of the flower tip to bend over to one side.
There are several wildflowers whose autumn fruits are every bit as lovely, or even more so, than the earlier flowers, for example the fruits on the Blue Cohosh, Doll’s-eyes, Solomon’s-seal and Solomon’s-plume. The Blue Cohosh is very common within many county woods, while the Doll’s-eyes, Solomon’s-seal and Solomon’s-plume tend to favor the edges. What photogenic beauties they are.
One of the most truly wild and fussy wildflowers of this region, the gorgeous sky-blue Fringed Gentian, generally grows along wet and calcareous shore areas such as at The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor. Unlike the asters and goldenrods which, with minimal attention, are very easy to grow from seed, Fringed Gentians are extremely fussy, as wild as the wind, and don’t grow just any place.
Secondly, they are gypsies in that you can never accurately predict where they’ll be at their best from year to year. Don’t ever expect to locate these rare wildflowers where their feet can’t be constantly moist and cool. These two requirements alone are nearly impossible for most gardeners to duplicate. The dried plants often remain quite stiff after flowering so their infinitesimally small seeds can be scattered by the wind over hard crusted or packed snow.
There are several outstanding autumn wildflowers that favor the wet, sandy or limy shore areas. Included are the Shrubby St. Johnswort, which is a small woody shrub, Kalm’s Lobelia, and the Purple False Foxglove, a plant that for many years was referred to as the Purple Gerardia until the plant taxonomists decided to change names due to very minor technicalities.
Wet ditches or stream banks are where we go exploring for the tall, highly perfumed, colorful, butterfly-loving Joe-pye Weed. A wonderful Native American friend of ours in past years, Keewaydinoquay, an expert college-trained botanist and fine writer from the Beaver and Garden Islands area in northern Lake Michigan, shared with us what she considered to be a true story about this wildflower.
There was a very skilled Native American plant man, Zhopai (ZHO-pie), who lived for centuries with his people in New England and favored, among others, plants in the Eupatorium genus for making usable and effective medicines. One of those plants is what we call the Joe-pye Weed today. When Zhopai and his people were forced by the “white men” to move out of that area and head westward, the Native American tribe refused to allow Zhopai to accompany them because he had “cozied” up to the white men too much.
Through the years the white men, being very poor with the Native American language and pronunciation, gradually Americanized the old name of Zhopai to Joe-pye. Get to know Joe-pye Weed. You’ll love it. By the way, I never consider this plant to be a weed!
Take to the sunny openings in swamps and very damp and partly shaded stream banks in order to find the awesome Cardinal Flower. This has to be one of the most richly intense red wildflowers in America. Please keep the area where you have found them secret in order to ensure that they’ll be there next year when you return to enjoy them.
Spend more time this fall learning and enjoying the wide array of wildflowers of our great county and state. Many are very easy to find and will, unlike birds and butterflies, remain solidly in one place while you identify, photograph and relish them.
learn about wildflowers
My suggestion is that you purchase what I feel is the most up-to-date, complete and outstanding field guide for this tantalizing subject, Wildflowers of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region, by Merel R. Black and Emmet J. Judziewicz, both highly skilled Univerty of Wisconsin – Madison and University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point botanists. Be sure to get the second edition.
Study the introduction to the field guide and the excellent section dealing with Wisconsin Natural Communities. I especially like the pages describing the Great Lakes Beaches, Dunes, and Bedrock Shorelines, and the plants to be found there. This is truly an excellent learning guide to the plants of Wisconsin.
Photography by Roy Lukes.
