Friends of the Wildflower Garden
A web of present and past events
These short articles are written to highlight connections of the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with different time frames or outside connections. A web of intersections.
This month details two Wildflower Garden projects, hybridized Chickadees, a white lobelia and the history of cranberries in the Wildflower Garden plus a historical Garden photo.
This Month
Garden Projects Update - One done, one to come.
Problems with Chickadee Hybrids
Cranberries of the Wildflower Garden
Garden Projects Update
We are approaching the last weekend to visit the Wildflower Garden this season - October 26 and 27th. You can see the now finished Garden tool and storage sheds and perhaps see the beginning of the new fence construction.
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) funded and began construction of the two sheds in April. These provide much needed space for the Garden’s equipment, most of which currently sits outside.
The fence replacement project is being funded by the Friends of the Wildflower Garden. In the winter of 2021/2022 MPRB funded replacement of a section of the old upland fence and in so doing, incorporated additional space into the Wildflower Garden.
The current project extends that fencing all the way to the back gate area and incorporates additional acreage into the Wildflower Garden.
You can view a map of this area with some photos of the current fence area showing what will be replaced and views of the area to be added within the new fence at this link.
Problems with Chickadee Hybrids
The concept of grouping living things into species is to separate life forms that do not interbreed and produce hybrids. Mostly. Hybridization is somewhat common with our avian friends. Our chickadees are particularly good at it - to their detriment apparently.
The recent article in the October Scientific American covers years of research, particularly by Robert Curry, about what happens when they do interbreed. Our midwest native Black-capped Chickadee interbreeds with the Carolina Chickadee from the southeastern United States along the line where their ranges overlap. Caroline Chickadees do not like winter temps below -7 degrees Celsius, but the overlap area is rapidly moving northward and westward as climate warms. The studies show that while the hybrids are hardly distinguishable from the pure species visually, they have a changed song, poorer hatching success and poorer memory. Our Black-capped also interbreeds with the Mountain Chickadee in the west.
You can get the full article on the Scientific American website (https://www.scientificamerican.com/) and more information about Chickadees at the Cornell Lab - all about birds site. (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/)
A White Lobelia
Eloise Butler was probably acquainted with more natural areas in the state than any other resident of the Twin Cities.
Her sources for plant collection cover most of the state and I’m sure she had more help than was disclosed in the escapades memorialized in her writings. Her October trips of 100 years ago provided considerable car mileage while providing plant material from Cedar, Savage, Anoka, Bemidji, Minnetonka, Wells - all in Minnesota - plus six species from Grand Forks ND.
The trip to Wells in Faribault County provided some of the blue bottle gentians (Gentiana andrewsii) plus a new plant to her preserve - the Pale Spike Lobelia, Lobelia spicata. If you visualize a Cardinal Flower or a Great Blue Lobelia, you will recognize that the Pale Spike is of the same genus only white. It likes sunny mesic habitat (moderate moisture). Because it is white, it can be confused with Dortman’s Cardinal Flower, but that roots in shallow water, and also with Indian Tobacco, but there the flowers are arranged differently. See our information sheet for a comparison.
The flower spikes are not as densely filled with flowers as with the Great Blue or the Cardinal Flower, but the brilliant white really sparkles. This plant is not rare in Minnesota except the western part where soils and conditions are a bit too dry.
More plants of the species were added to the Wildflower Garden in the following years with 1950 being the last known planting. Should you be interested in history, the genus Lobelia is an honorary for the Flemish botanist Matthias de l'Obel (1538-1616), who, when he moved to England as physician to James I, anglicized his name to Matthew Lobel, hence “Lobelia.”
Cranberries of the Wildflower Garden
Yes, cranberries in the Garden. The wildflower garden has cranberries of two species and once had cranberries of three other species, five in all.
It was logical that Eloise Butler would plant cranberries in her wildflower reserve. She wanted it to be a showcase of the plants of Minnesota and the four she planted were native to the state. Three grew in the metro area (and still do) and one only in the northern counties.
Edible cranberries - the ones we normally buy at the grocery store - are derived from the native Large Cranberry, (Vaccinium macrocarpon) which Eloise introduced in 1911 and which she planted numerous times as did Martha Crone up through 1950. Both Curators also liked the small cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) which both planted, Eloise beginning in 1915, but she had noted it already growing in the Garden wetland in 1908, which made it indigenous to the space. The third was the Mountain Cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) which is more commonly known those of Swedish ancestry as the Lingon-berry. This one is native only to the northern counties of Minnesota, but Eloise brought her specimen back with her on returning from a 1909 summer visit to Appleton Maine.
These shrubs have single flowers arranged in drooping clusters, small thick leaves and solid berries, not fleshy. All three are shrubs but inhabit moist sites, including bogs. For this reason, they no longer survive as the Wildflower Garden, as the boggy nature of the wetland has changed in the last 75 years, so back to the grocery stores for your supply of these fruits.
Of the two cranberries found in the Garden today, one is indigenous and still there - the American Cranberry Bush, aka American Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum opulus var. americanum) This wetland shrub has broad flower clusters of small fertile florets surrounded by an outer ring of infertile florets that are quite showy.
Eloise Butler described them this way:
“Dame Nature, who practices economy when she can, had intended the neutrals for guide boards to insects that, in getting the food prepared for them in the numerous small perfect flowers, would do service in turn, by insuring fruit for birds and humans.”
The tall shrubs produce clusters of edible fleshy drupes that turn to deep red in autumn. Eloise noted: “The widely distributed highbush cranberry, is fortunately one of the native adornments of the Reserve. With showy inflorescences and bright red fruit, it vies in beauty with the famous flowering dogwood. The fruit, as acid as genuine cranberries, is esteemed for jelly, it hangs on the bushes late in the season, and the Bohemian waxwing may be seen culling from them his dessert for Thanksgiving.”
Below: The autumn fruit and leaf color of the American Highbush Cranberry. Photo G D Bebeau
The second remaining cranberry is the introduced European Cranberry (Viburnum opulus var. opulus) that was first noted on the 1986 Garden census. It had just arrived one day, apparently from neighboring areas of Wirth Park where it has been found during recent invasive plant forays. It will tolerate a more varied habitat and has been found in both the upland and the wetland. There are identification keys to distinguish the two plants, but in general it looks much the same in terms of flowers and fruit except the fruit is not considered edible. Both species of opulus have maple-like leaves and soft fleshy berries.
Eloise was acquainted with the European plant but was less concerned with the species than what had been done with it when she wrote:
“As you all know, the useless stupid garden snowball was produced from the European V. opulus, which is almost identical with the American variety, by converting the small fruit-bearing flowers into showy neutrals like those bordering the clusters, at the expense of beauty and food for man, bird, and bee.”
Here is the link to our American Cranberry plant information sheet:
Here is the link to our European Cranberry plant information sheet:
And, a link to Eloise Butler's essay Shrubs in the Wild Garden
Historical Photo
Seventy-four years ago on October 15, 1950 Martha Crone made this Kodachrome of the Garden office among the fall trees. We are looking at the west end of the office with the front facing right. The path in the foreground was called the "south path" and lead to the interrupted fern hillside, much in the same position as today.
Previous articles
September 2024 - Friends annual meeting and guest speaker
September 2024 -Nests of paper
September 2024 -Bee Survey Completed
September 2024 -A Favorite Aster
September 2024 -Brilliant Muscle-wood
August 2024 - Native flowers needed now
August 2024 - Friends meeting guest speaker announced.
August 2024 - New vistas around the Wildflower Garden
August 2024 - It's not an artichoke
August 2024 - Show-off Goldenrods
August 2024 - The pollinator meadow shines
July 2024 - Utility Building Construction
July 2024 - A Vagrant for the Garden.
July 2024 - How do Hummingbirds hover?
July 2024 - Catchflys and Campions
July 2024 - A Friend of the Wildflower Garden
All selections published in 2024
All selections published in 2023