My sister, Marie kindly took me to Dowagiac Woods on Tuesday April 22, 2025. We saw wildflowers, thousands of wildflowers! In March of this year, Dowagiac Woods suffered a major wind event. Most trails have been made passable, which I’m sure was a lot of work. Luckily, we were able to wander for some 3 1/2 hours on a beautiful spring day around this nature sanctuary.
Spring is starting to spring here in Ottawa County Michigan! Marie took me on an adventure yesterday March 24, 2023. We went in search of Harbinger of Spring, the plant. We found several blooming at Hager Park.
Marie spotted the first plant just barely open then as we looked closer, we saw several more Harbinger of Spring blooming. We also checked on the spring flowering Witch Hazel. It was also blooming.
There is a creek nearby that I enjoy visiting. The creek is part of a local park. I stopped in for a visit, just to see what was blooming. I saw Marsh Marigold, Wood Anemone, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Golden Saxifrage, violets. I found barberry when I hunkered down to take a picture, ow! But it was blooming too. Frogs jumped into the creek, deer rushed away, I didn’t hear the road noise only the breeze through the trees.
We have had three days of 90 degree weather, before this it has been mostly a cool Spring. Leaves popped out, the Serviceberry bloomed like big puffed popcorn kernels! Flowering Dogwood is flowering, along with different types of cherry, everything is now green.
This creek has soggy edges where many plants grow. I was seeing roundish, green, hairy leaves in the wetter places. I saw these here last year but thought they were the early leaves of Foamflower. I’m no expert, and I’m not particularly good at noticing differences in plants.
This time I could see a tiny spike of flowers coming up from these leaves. As soon as I saw them up close I knew it was Naked Miterwort something I had only seen in books. It was exciting to find this plant growing and actually flowering. If it hadn’t been flowering I would not have identified it at all.
I went back to this place again the next day and found several more of this miterwort blooming! As I walked along to leave I came to a small mound of moss and there was the other type of miterwort blooming, Two-leaved Miterwort.
Here is a look at Aman Park Wednesday May 4, 2022. We have had several cool, rainy days but today was forecast for sunny, warmer, and no rain. Betsy and I walked 3.5 miles at Aman Park, and it was a perfect day. Here is some of what we saw!
