As if I would
ever run out of birds to learn about by walking around the park, there's always plants. And where I'm at right now, plant identification makes bird identification seem easy. But you've gotta start somewhere –and I remember feeling the same way about birds just a few year back. In the past year or so I've picked up a lot of tidbits from other, more experienced people and now I have at least a dozen or so plants that I can remember –be they native or invasive. The first plant pictured here is one I've been fascinated with for a while actually. The reason is that in the dead of winter time, I would often find it's dried up, spikey seed pods still hanging from trees. I always thought they looked kind of "alien" because of the spikes I guess. I wondered for a long time why I never noticed them growing in other seasons.
I guess the answer is simply that I wasn't looking hard enough. The plant is called
Wild Cucumber and grows as a vine that can crawl and sprawl quite a distance over other shrubs and trees. Now that I know to look for it's little creamy-white flowers I've finally spotted the spikey fruits as they are growing. They tend to look like a tiny little watermelon with spikes and this one was about an inch in diameter. Another plant that I've become more familiar with recently is considered an "invasive" called
Purple Loosestrife. This can be found in a lot of areas of the park but I see it most often in wetter areas where cattails are also growing. In fact it more often than not seems to be situated just behind the cattails, versus along the edges of the trails for some reason.
You can spot it by it's brightly colored purple flower shoots. I don't know a lot about this plant other than despite how attractive it is, it spreads like crazy and can be nearly impossible to eradicate. In Minnesota it is listed as a "prohibited noxious weed" which means it cannot be cultivated or sold at any nursery. The last plant pictured here is something that I thought I was more familiar with, but now I'm not sure. I'm believe this is a type of
Thistle but I've never seen one quite so "swirled" in this pattern before. I reached out to touch it and sure enough I got poked pretty good so I would assume it's a thistle of some kind.
There were a couple more around it in the same swirly pattern so I wonder if maybe it's a specific type. I will have to keep my eye out for more and do some comparing.
I guess the answer is simply that I wasn't looking hard enough. The plant is called Wild Cucumber and grows as a vine that can crawl and sprawl quite a distance over other shrubs and trees. Now that I know to look for it's little creamy-white flowers I've finally spotted the spikey fruits as they are growing. They tend to look like a tiny little watermelon with spikes and this one was about an inch in diameter. Another plant that I've become more familiar with recently is considered an "invasive" called Purple Loosestrife. This can be found in a lot of areas of the park but I see it most often in wetter areas where cattails are also growing. In fact it more often than not seems to be situated just behind the cattails, versus along the edges of the trails for some reason. 
You can spot it by it's brightly colored purple flower shoots. I don't know a lot about this plant other than despite how attractive it is, it spreads like crazy and can be nearly impossible to eradicate. In Minnesota it is listed as a "prohibited noxious weed" which means it cannot be cultivated or sold at any nursery. The last plant pictured here is something that I thought I was more familiar with, but now I'm not sure. I'm believe this is a type of Thistle but I've never seen one quite so "swirled" in this pattern before. I reached out to touch it and sure enough I got poked pretty good so I would assume it's a thistle of some kind. 
There were a couple more around it in the same swirly pattern so I wonder if maybe it's a specific type. I will have to keep my eye out for more and do some comparing.
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