Early September is a wonderful time to take a drive out of town to see beautiful wildflowers along the roadsides. Let’s take a look at what’s blooming now.
Queen Anne’s Lace is a white lacy flat-topped flower. It is also known as wild carrot and in fact is the predecessor to our garden carrots. It is similar in appearance to a few other plants including water hemlock, an extremely poisonous plant. Look for a tiny black floret in the middle of the white flower to identify it positively. Queen Anne’s Lace grows from 1-3 feet tall and can become invasive. After bloom, the flower clusters dry and curl upward, giving the appearance of bird’s nests. The dried blooms are often used in fall floral arrangements.
Chicory has beautiful sky-blue flowers spaced along a tough wiry stem. They blossom in the morning but by afternoon each flower is finished with its bloom and the plant is rather ugly. Chicory grows 1-4 feet tall. Its roots can be roasted and ground and used as a coffee substitute. It has long, toothed basal leaves similar to a dandelion’s. They are high in vitamins and minerals, but quite bitter.
There are 20 types of goldenrod in Wisconsin. The one you will most likely see roadside is Canada goldenrod. Its bright golden flowers are in a plumy pyramid shape atop the plant. The leaves are narrow, up to 6 inches long and rough to the touch with toothed edges. If you are lucky you may spot stiff goldenrod. It has many small yellow flowerheads in flat clusters and the leaves are rounder and fleshier than Canada goldenrod.
There are many types of sunflowers and sunflower look-alikes blooming in September. You really need to check a wildflower identification book to be sure which one you are seeing. Some of the possibilities are tall sunflower, wood sunflower, ox-eye sunflower, downy sunflower, rosinweed, compass plant, cup plant and prairie dock. Prairie dock is the easiest to identify. It has huge basal leaves up to 18 inches long and 12 inches wide, and a straight stem up to ten feet tall that branches at the top into several stems holding bright yellow flowers. Before bloom, the buds are hard green knobby things about an inch in diameter.
Another yellow flower you might be lucky enough to catch sight of is the subject of many beautiful watercolor paintings, the coneflower. Again, there are many different coneflowers so a field guide is necessary for proper id. Some of the coneflowers you might see are gray-headed coneflower, green-headed coneflower, thin-leaved coneflower, and brown-eyed Susan. They all share one thing in common – their flower petals hang downward around a cone-shaped center.
New England Asters are one of the last flowers of the season. Their bright purple daisy-like flowers bloom long into the fall. Some of the plants are so big they appear to be shrubs. The nectar is a favorite for migrating monarch butterflies.
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