Western Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas

[cohan]

native plants age into winter much more gracefully than exotic garden plants...

i couldn't agree with you more!  And I thought I was the only seed pod freak (I mean enthusiast) here...

Of course not all plants are as interesting at every stage, but I like every stage from emerging leaf buds to flower buds to full growth to fresh seed, ripe seed, dry seed, dying/fall leaf colour, to dried stems and overwintering seedheads, empty or otherwise, etc... of course the growing season is so short, that for months there is nothing to look at but  dried stems...lol... But even in Toronto, I would be so fond of photographing bare tree limbs over winter that I was almost sad to see them leaf out in spring..

Love the Plantago! Phemeranthus is cute too..

[Hoy]

Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta) and an excellent specimen of Wooly plantain (Plantago patagonica).  It seemed to like the relative lack of competition.  Now that you know what you are looking for, Trond, you can pick out a few leaves from this previous photo, too: http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=299.0;attach=34838;image

Thanks, Rick, I can see it! The woolly plantain is a striking plant even without blazing colours! You have shown a lot of interesting plants and landscape, Rick, thank you. Some of the plants are wellknown garden plants here and you can get them in every nursery.

However, my favorite would be the Prairie fameflower (Phemeranthus parviflora), totally unknown till now!