Prairie

This page will contain updates on what's blooming in the Prairie and what you can do to help this Prairie and other prairies thrive. Photos and descriptions are provided by Prof. Skip Wittler (Biology).  In Fall he will be organizing seed collecting activities on the prairie.  The seed activities will  be announced by campus email and on this blog.

July 27, 2014

The Ceresco Prairie is beginning to show its colors.  Today I feature two plants each with bilaterally symmetrical flowers clustered together.

The individual flowers of bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)  have  five petals fashioned into two lips - two petals fused above and three fused below.  This arrangement is typical of the mint family.

Monarda fistulosa (G. Wittler)


The Canada Tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense) flowers have a single petal held upright (called the "standard") and the remaining four petals arranged below serve as a landing platform for pollinators.  Canada Tick-trefoil  is in the pea family.

Desmodium canadense (G. Wittler)


Due to heavy rains and a high water table, parts of the southeastern loop of the Stott Wetlands Trail are indeed a bit wet.  Hikers wishing to avoid the damp trail can still get up to the prairie using the north and central loops.


June 26, 2014
Goat's beard (Tragopogon) and the evening lychnis are found commonly along the Ceresco Prairie trails at the end of June.

Goat's beard 


The goat's beard "flower" is actually a dense cluster of many small flowers.  Plants with this type of flower clustering are members of the composite family (also known as the aster family).  Sunflowers, thistles, dandelions, and golden rods are other examples of composites.

Evening lychnis

The lychnis is in the pink family.  The five white petals have a distal notch as though they were snipped by pinking shears.

June 22, 2014
Summer Solstice has just passed and the prairie is once again in bloom!

Prairie rose


Rough-fruited ciquefoil

Two members of the rose family:  prairie rose and and the rough-fruited cinquefoil (Potentilla recta).  Both have similar flower form: five petals, numerous male parts and numerous female parts all inserted around a floral cup.

Canada anemone
Also, a member of the buttercup family:  Canada anemone ( Anemone canadensis).  As with the two members of the rose family described above, the anemone has five sterile elements (technically sepals not petals), numerous male parts, and numerous female parts.  But in the buttercup family there is no floral cup.
October 11, 2013


There will be two seed collecting activities this weekend for those who would like to help restore prairies in Wisconsin.




TIMES:  Saturday, October 12 at 1:00 PM and Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 PM

PLACE: Ceresco Prairie Conservancy – meet at the Kegel Outdoor Classroom

No need to bring collecting materials – I will have them.  Be sure to wear appropriate clothes for walking out in a tall-grass prairie.

We will not collect seeds in the rain.

For more information, please contact Prof. Skip Wittler, wittlers@ripon.edu



September 26, 2013
Enjoy the fall weather and Ripon’s wonderful prairie – help collect seeds.



Who: Anyone
What: Seed Collecting
When: Saturday, September 28, 2013, 12:30pm
Where: Ceresco Prairie Conservancy – meet at the Kegel Outdoor Classroom
Why: Each year Ripon College donates locally harvested prairie seeds to land owners restoring prairies on their land.




September 18, 2013
Although autumn is nearly upon us, there is still plenty of color on the prairie, the rough blazing star (Liatris aspera), stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida) and the New England aster (Aster novae-angliae) are all in bloom.  The tall grasses are also showing off their bronze, maroon, and rust colored flowers.

We will be sponsoring some seed-collecting activities over the next month.  This year the seeds will be going to three prairie restorations.  Prof. Skip Wittler will announce the times we will be collecting.

Please come visit the prairie.



September 16, 2013
The first wave of seed collection for 2013 took place during Family Weekend (9/14/13).  Among the seeds collected were compass plant and milkweed seeds, seen below.

Compass Plant in Seed (photo: G. Wittler)


Milkweed in Seed (photo: G. Wittler)


 Baptisia is an early blooming plant whose seeds will reach maturity any time now.  See the flowers and fruit of this beautiful plant below (then go for a walk in the Ceresco Prairie and try to find it).
Baptisia fruit and seed (photo G. Wittler)



As you head out to the prairie, you may notice a prolific vine that seems to be unusually abundant this year. 

The vine, wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata), is found in southern Canada all the way  to the gulf coast.  Considered an invasive in some areas, it can grew dense enough to choke out other vegetation.

The pictures included here are from the bridge at the entrance to the Ceresco Prairie Conservancy.  The male flowers are white, small, and numerous on erect branches.  At the base of each male branch a single female flower forms and hangs below the main stem of the plant.  The female flower eventually produces an inedible fruit that resembles a small watermelon with spines.  A large fruit can be seen in the photo below on the right.















In late August Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans) were in flower.

 Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)

The purple feathery structures, the stigmas, are receptive to windborne pollen and held upright.  These are the female parts.
The male parts are anthers which hang downward and contain thousands of pollen grains each.
Each fertile flower has two stigmas and three anthers.  Each fertile flower is paired with a sterile one.




Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans)

Similar to big bluestem (above) but the stigmas are white and the anthers a bright yellow.

No comments:

Post a Comment