Blog post and photos by Cam Mannino

Ben and I thought we’d do some shorter pieces in between the longer blogs, just to keep Oakland Township residents up-to-date on special birds, blooms and such that are here for a short time and shouldn’t be missed.  Hence the title:  Now Showing. So when Ben called to alert me to beautiful native wildflowers blooming at both Gallagher Creek and the Wet Prairie on the Paint Creek Trail, I hustled off with my camera to explore.

Wow.  At both places,  a rare and beautiful plant is blooming where it’s sunny and moist.  Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) is most commonly pollinated by native Bumblebees (genus Bombus), because they are one of the few insects that can thrust themselves inside these closed petals that never open. Bumblebees are effective pollinators because of their fuzzy bodies. This Gentian’s tiny seeds float on the wind so it doesn’t appear en masse. It’s a lovely surprise when you find one!

Bottle Gentian, an uncommon wetland wildflower, now showing at Gallagher Creek and the Wet Prairie.

Here’s Ben’s photo from last year of a native Bumblebee emerging from a native Bottle Gentian.  Nice that natives evolve with other natives and help each other out, eh?

A bumblebee pollinates bottle gentian

Both the Wet Prairie , Gallagher Creek Park and Bear Creek also now feature another wetland wildflower with the prosaic name, Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) which, in fairness, it does resemble.  According to the  Illinois Widlflower website, that extended lower “lip” of the blossom makes a nice landing pad for insects.  This wildflower blooms from the bottom to the top so this one was just getting started last week.

Turtlehead’s lower “lip” creates a landing pad for insects and it blooms from the bottom to the top.

The Wet Meadow features two more beautiful wildflowers right now. Fringed Gentian (Gentianopsis crinita) is quite a rare beauty. When it first blooms, its name becomes obvious.

Fringed Gentian in the Wet Prairies before its bloom opens.

And when its bloom opens, its petals form a rectangular opening that attracts native Bumblebees just like the Bottle Gentian does.  It also reseeds on the wind, or sometimes water.

The rectangular opening in Fringed Gentian that welcomes native bumblebees for pollination.

Grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassus glauca) is having a spectacular year! These white blossoms striped in dark green shine out from among the taller plants all over the Wet Prairie. They must have loved the downpours of early August.

Grass-of-Parnassus is having a spectacular year on the Wet Prairie after the August downpours.

I also couldn’t resist showing you a sort of  “candelabra” of Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa). It’s not rare and it generally blooms in dry prairies. But this adaptable native plant was putting on such a show as it seeded on the Wet Prairie near the Paint Creek Trail that I thought I’d share it with you.

A sort of “candelabra” of Butterfly Milkweed seeding on the Wet Prairie

So, keep a sharp eye out!  Autumn wetland wildflowers like the gentians bloom for only about a month and they’ve already been beautiful for 2 weeks!  Like the bees who appreciate their late season nectar, we have only a short time to enjoy their vivid colors and elegant designs.

*Footnote:  My sources for information, as well as Oakland Township Stewardship Manager Dr. Ben VanderWeide, are as follows: Stokes Nature Guides:  A Guide to Bird Behavior Volumes 1-3, Allaboutbirds.org, the website of the Cornell Ornithology Lab at Cornell University; Wikipedia; http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org; Herbarium of the University of Michigan at michiganflora.net.; various Michigan Field Guides by Stan Tekiela; Butterflies of Michigan Field Guide by Jaret C. Daniels; University of Wisconsin's Bug Lady at www4.uwm.edu/fieldstation/naturalhistory/bugoftheweek/ for beetle info http://www.migrationresearch.org/mbo/id/rbgr.html for migration info, http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info and invaluable wildflower identification from local expert, Maryann Whitman.