July 5, 2020 - Sax-Zim Flowers

Last Thursday, Diana and I went to the Sax-Zim Bog, northwest of Duluth, MN. This is a famous winter birding area, but in summer there are many other things to see. Here are some flowers we found along the roads in the bog.

Fireweed was evident throughout the bog. It’s one of the plants that stretches out its blooming over an extended period of time. That gives it the best chance of being pollinated at some point in the cycle. The flowers that are currently open are obvious and the ones that are waiting to open are higher on the stem. Below the open flowers, look for the thin, stick-like appendages. Those are flowers that have finished blooming and have closed up to form seeds inside them. In fall, these seed pods will burst open and send seeds out to hopefully form new plants.

FireweedSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

White Campion flowers were not quite open yet.

CampionWhiteSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

Bright red Elderberries were already found on the bushes. They are not yet ready to eat, however. When ripe, they will be dark blue, almost black.

ElderberrySambucusracemosaSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

Cattails are growing in the moist areas of the bog. Even though they don’t look like traditional flowers, the upper, golden parts of this cattail are the male flowers. The lower, green parts are the female flowers. After the female flowers are pollinated, the male flowers fall off, leaving the lower part to develop into the brown cattail that is familiar to us. The small gap between the male and female flowers indicates this is a Narrow-leaved Cattail. The other cattail found in Minnesota, the Common Cattail, has no space between the male and female flowers.

CattailsSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

Evening Primrose, like Fireweed, opens only a few flowers at a time

PrimroseEveningSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

This Goat’s Beard seed head looks like a Dandelion, but it’s much larger; 3 to 4 inches in diameter. The yellow flower also resembles a dandelion, but it can be hard to see. It lasts only part of a day, opening in the morning and closing again by afternoon.

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Toward the end of our drive, Diana spotted a few Turk’s-cap Lilies. The bright orange flowers stood out from the green plants around it.

(One of my sharp-eyed readers mentioned to me that this is more likely the very similar-looking Michigan Lily. Unfortunately, my photo doesn’t show the underside of the blossom where the green “star” is visible in the throat of the Turk’s Cap.)

LilyTurk'scapSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

We also found one Turk’s-cap Lily that hadn’t opened yet. It’s easy to see how this bud would split open at the bottom and the 3 petals and 3 sepals would curl back to form the flower in the last photo.

LilyTurk'scapSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702

These Dogwood flowers came with a bonus, a Fritillary Butterfly. I thought it was an Atlantis Fritillary and that was confirmed by the folks at BugGuide.com.

ButterflyFritillaryAtlantisDogwoodSaxZimBogLouisCounty20200702