Opuntia fragilis

[RickR]

Thanks, John.

Rick, the other plant in your picture - is it a grass?

Yes, the grass looking plants are a rhizomatous grass species.  Not sure which, though.  I would have thought the Plantago patagonica would be the more interesting plant...   

[Hoy]

Thanks, John.

Rick, the other plant in your picture - is it a grass?

Yes, the grass looking plants are a rhizomatous grass species.  Not sure which, though.  I would have thought the Plantago patagonica would be the more interesting plant...   

It is! I did believe that the plantago inflorescences belonged to the grass leaves

[cohan]

Great looking Opuntias, Rick! really nice globular pads! Do you think the flowers were pink, or just faded that way? All or nearly all, Canadian Opuntia have yellow flowers (I've heard a couple reports of pinks, but not actually seen evidence) but I know there are more colours in the U.S.
the Plantago is great too, I'm very interested in that genus.. what are the leaves like? Like Trond, I only saw the grass 'leaves'

[RickR]

Great looking Opuntias, Rick! Do you think the flowers were pink, or just faded that way?

I'm glad I am not the only one who wondered about that, because we have no wild Minnesota opuntias that bloom anything but yellow.  I thought maybe I "discovered" something!  But no: I found some pics on the web of blooming yellow opuntia flowers with old flowers on the same plant that faded to pink.  Those pads in the previous photos are hardly more than an inch long, so a hybrid with a non-native  pink blooming polycantha (in the rare case that someone grew one nearby) would be extremely unlikely, I would think. 

I am still collating photos of other prairie plants from that same trip to show here.  More About the plantago then...

[cohan]

I suspected that was the case with this flower, I've seen pinkish faded flowers before..
Looking forward to the other plant photos, I have to get over to the travel photos section, I haven't even seen the photos of Lori's spring trip yet- my internet connection has been so poor the last many weeks, but I think it may have got a bit better....
(its taking two or three re-connections to send this message)