Tagged: Ozarks

Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Field Pansy

Field PansyThere is the term “shy violet”, which would suggest that a violet is quiet and unobtrusive. Well this cousin of the violet, the Field Pansy, is even more quiet. Yet is seems to be everywhere. Take a walk in a field in late March or April and watch your feet. In between the dandelions and dead nettle are these little pale lavender flowers. They don’t grow in thick patches, rather you’ll just find them sprinkled here and there. And here and there. And seemingly everywhere. Once you spot them you wonder how you missed seeing there were so many of them!

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginicaVirginia Bluebells, also known as Mertensia virginica are a spring ephemeral. That means the plant grows in the spring but doesn’t last through the summer. The foliage will die back by midsummer and the plant will go dormant. This strategy is common in spring plants and serves to protect them from the harsh dry conditions of late summer on the forest floor.

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Trip report: Backpacking at Piney Creek Wilderness – April 2012

A girl, woman, and man sitting on a log for a picture during a spring backpacking trip in Piney Creek Wilderness in the southern Missouri Ozarks.

One of the more problematic aspects of an outdoor-loving lifestyle is that you have to either find someone to take your kids while you go play or you have to bring your kids with you. We finally have two kids old enough to leave at home. But our youngest is still a bit young so we’ve been working on getting her interested in the idea of going on backpacking trips with us

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Toadshade

Toadshade, Trillium sessileOn the forest floor in the spring we know to look for pretty, delicate little wildflowers like Rue Anemone or bright patches of color like Virginia Bluebell. But there is a quiet and subtle wildflower that charms me with its geometric symmetry and patterning. It’s the group of flowers known as Trillium. During my hike this week on the Sac River Trail the Trillium that’s blooming is the one known as Toadshade, or Trillium sessile. A rather awful sounding name, I think, but it does grow in the damp forest shade where you might expect to see a little toad hopping around.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: False Garlic

The last few springs I’ve noticed these sweet little light yellow flowers but never could find out what they are. That’s because I thought they were an Allium, a member of the onion family. And I’m not the first person to make this mistake because the common name is False Garlic. In reality, Nothoscordum bivalve is a member of Lilaceae, the lily family.

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Ozarks Hikes: Sac River Trail

Girl sitting in the middle of the Sac River Trail in the fall, surrounded by trees.

There’s a little-known trail just north of Springfield, within the city limits, that will give you miles of moderately rugged hiking and exposure to streams, woods, and open fields. The Springfield-Greene County Park Board owns the 300 acres that contain well over 8 miles of natural surface single track. The trail is rocky in places, muddy in places, and winds back and forth an amazing amount. There are no steep climbs but the trail goes up and down enough, and has many small seasonal stream crossings and plenty rugged rocks to give you a decent hiking workout.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Least Bluet

Least Bluet, Houstonia pusillaI must admit that I’m partial to blue flowers and they always catch my eye. Even when they’re so tiny that nobody else ever sees them. And this is the case with the Least Bluet. They grow in full sun and I typically see them on the wet gloppy part of a glade, in between the stones. These Bluets are quite uniform in appearance, being all the same size and all the same color and all the same height in any given location. They’re tiny. About 3/8″ across standing on stems about 2″ in height.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Bloodroot

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensisThis is the spring wildflower I always love to see because of the common name, Bloodroot. It just sounds so morbid. Indeed, if you break the tuberous root of this plant the sap is a bright blood red-orange color. The botanical name is Sanguinaria canadensis, which alludes to its blood-like qualities.The pure white flower has 8-12 petals around yellow anthers, often in a double row.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Rue Anemone

Rue Anemone, Thalictrum thalictroidesEverywhere you look in early spring you will see this little delicate flower. Rue Anemone is found in woodlands blooming about the same time as the redbud trees. Most of the time it’s white or very light pink, but sometimes you can find one that’s a more pronounced pink. The flowers are both single and often have a double row of petals.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Common Goldstar

Common Goldstar, Hypoxis hirsutaWhat a pretty little yellow flower! It’s called Common Goldstar and the scientific name is Hypoxis hirsuta. “Hirsuta” means hairy and you can see little hairs on the buds of this specimen. According to Missouri Plants, the amount of hair on the plant can be quite variable. I didn’t see a lot of these, but reference suggest it is quite common and can even invade lawns. The flowers are about an inch across and the leaves are grass-like. I found this on a glade near Taum Sauk Mountain.

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Ozarks Spring Wildflowers: Cutleaf Toothwort

Cutleaf Toothwort, Cardamine concatenataThis little gem grows all over the forest floor in the very early spring when the redbud is just starting and the spicebush is coming out. It’s sort of small, about 8-10″ high and has white flowers that are tinged with pink at times. Note how each flower has only four petals. The leaves make the common name of Cutleaf Toothwort quite obvious. The botanical name for it, by the way, is Cardamine concantenata.

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Sac River Trail – March 26, 2012

Strike while the iron is hot, they say. The weather was perfect and we just got back from a week’s backpacking trip to the St. Francois Mountains. We were eager to get a move on! Plus, the 12yo and 16yo wanted to get some exercise. Directly after school we filled water bottles and piled into […]

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Trip report: backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness – December 2010

Our first backpacking experience The kids were with their dad in Chicago. The forecast was for unseasonably warm temperatures. We had backpacking gear we’d not fully tried out yet. It had been nearly six weeks since our last camping trip. It was time. We were ready to go on our first backpacking trip!

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Trip report: Hercules Glades day hike with MDC

Hikers stopped for lunch at the Long Creek Falls, Hercules Glades Wilderness

We wanted to backpack in the Hercules Glades Wilderness, but we’d never been there. We decided to reconnoiter the Wilderness first, in preparation for our first ever backpacking trip. We found out that  MDC’s Springfield Nature Center was organizing a ‘Hiking Club’ trip to Hercules Glades, so we signed up to go. The group is limited […]

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Backpacking Trial Run – Weekend Camping at Berry Bend

This weekend we tried out our backpacking gear. Friday evening we took several kids to Kansas City for a church event. We needed to be on hand to collect them again Sunday afternoon, so we left Lanie in the capable hands of Ginger’s cousin, put Getzger in charge at home and once we’d dropped the […]

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Camping at Berryman Trail & Camp

Mark Twain National Forest sign for Berryman Trail and Campground

Today we were up early (despite my late night fishing trip with Tom yesterday) and drove the 250 miles to St Louis, where we left the girls with their father to spend some time with him in Chicago. We then headed off to check out some nearby campsites. We’re really getting the camping bug. Camping […]

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Weekend Camping at Big Bay Recreation Area, Table Rock Lake

Photograph of a Minivan and tent at the Big Bay Campground, Shell Knob, Missouri

We decided to go camping and try out our new tent for the first time. If all went well we’d take Alek and Lanie camping for a couple of days at Blue Spring. Ginger and I spent a lot of time searching the Internet for good campsites. It wasn’t easy, we couldn’t find any central […]

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Camping at Blue Spring Campground & Canoeing on Jack’s Fork River – May 2010

Photograph of a campsite at Blue Spring

This was our first ever camping trip and the catalyst for our love of outdoors recreation in the Ozarks. Some Friends invited us to join them canoeing and camping Memorial weekend. Needless to say we jumped at the opportunity. With climbing temperatures it looked like this was going to be an ideal time for us to have our first try at camping together and my first camping trip in over 40 years.

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