For several days prior to our family reunion, we stayed with my wife’s sister and her husband, about 45 minutes north of Minneapolis. One of the spots we photographed was the nearby Shurburne NWR. This refuge is ~31,000 acres of rolling plains and a wonderful “Prairie’s Edge Wildlife Drive”, a 7+ mile auto tour route. Along the route are several areas that have been reseeded into natural prairie lands. There are also several lakes and impoundments around the refuge, supporting ducks, geese, and other aquatic birds. This post will be the first of 2 posts that highlight some of the blooming wildflowers we experienced.
The first wildflower we ran across was a new wildflower to me. Using my Wildflower ID books, I identified this as Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata), which was growing eveywhere (by the way, if this is an incorrect ID, please let me know):
An interesting feature of this wildflower is that it’s flowers blooms from the bottom, upward:
After driving a short distance, we came upon this Blue Vervane with a Bumble Bee:
Also in abundance, was the Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium pupureum):
In upcoming wildflower post #2, I will highlight some more wildflowers, as well as some interesting creatures we found among them.
This post is #5 in a series of posts from a weeklong trip to Minnesota. If you missed the previous posts, you can click on these links to view them: