Prairie Smoke, Old Man's Whiskers, Geum triflorum, Native Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Prairie Smoke	Geum triflorum Pursh	Rose	Upland	Spring
Other names and notes	(Old Man's Whiskers). A plant of the moist to dry prairies and wood fringes, growing from the crown and forming dense colonies. Stems and leaves hairy, height to 16". The very early 5-parted flowers are nodding and appear to never open. The pink to purplish petals are an inch long, the bracts recurved. Most leaves are basal, pinnately divided into leaflets that get progressively larger to the tip. Stem leaves are few and small. The reddish bud can appear quite early in April if the weather is warm, but as the season progresses, the heads turn upward showing long seed heads that resemble smoke plumes or long whiskers, hence the common names. The plant then dies down above ground. Read Eloise Butlers notes below.


Above: The emerging plants of a newly planted colony.	Above: The nodding flower heads of mid to late April.

Above and below: Flower heads of late April to early May	Above and Below: Seed heads with the characteristic plume.

Notes: Eloise Butler's records show that she obtained plants of this species as early as April 4, 1909 and again on Oct. 5, 1913 during a trip to the prairie area near Minnehaha Falls. The species was on Martha Crone's 1951 inventory of Garden plants but must of died out at some point as it was absent in recent years until Susan Wilkins replanted it in 2006. Native to most counties of Minnesota except those in the NE quadrant and counties in the tilled agricultural belt of south central Minnesota south of Hennepin and Wright.

Eloise Butler wrote: "Nearly contemporaneous with the pasque flower, and likewise on the prairie, grows the Avens, or three-flowered Geum (Prairie Smoke). It bears a tuft of fern-like, interruptedly pinnate leaves, each leaf consisting of divided leaflets arranged along the stalk like the parts of a feather, interspersed with still smaller leaflets. The plant has a single flower stalk with three branches at the top, each terminated by a rosy, pensile bell, looking like a flower bud, decorated with slender, recurved bracts. One would wait in vain, however, for these debutantes to appear otherwise. “Buds” they will seem to be throughout their season. Opening the five closed petals you will find attached to them five creamy petals and many stamens. In the center of the flower are innumerable pistils, which finally form a lovely claret-colored ball of gossamer plumes, each serving to waft through the air the little seed-like fruit." Published May 28, 1911, Sunday Minneapolis Tribune.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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