Something amazing has happened to the cup plant that was destroyed in the ditch close to my house.  The cup plant has begun to sprout again!  I thought for sure that the cup plant was gone from this ditch, but it just goes to show the resiliance of native plants.  Since the root system of cup plant can go down 6 feet or more, scraping the soil a mere 3 inches is apparently nothing to this plant.  What’s even more is that none of the other plants that were in the ditch are growing back.  The other plants were ragweed, and some reed canary grass.  Both plants are invasive and could not handle the regrading like the cup plant could.

I collected some of the first seed from the prairie today.  Seeds collected were from; Indian grass, Rosinweed, Monarda, Yellow Coneflower, Canada Rye, and Virginia Rye.  If you recall, the seeds collected from the prairie will be scattered into an area that is right now, void of any native plants.  The goal is to fill this area with plants started from seed, which is collected solely from the prairie.

A check on the partridge pea out in the prairie revealed something amazing.  The partridge pea plants are loaded with brown seed pods that are starting to crack open and release their seeds.  Release is somewhat of a passive term as the pods more likely explode and shoot their seeds out.  The amount of seed that has been produced this year is going to make quite a show next year.  As partridge pea is an annual and can only reproduce through whatever seed germinates next year, I believe this section of prairie is going to just glow with yellow flowers.  In addition, some plants showed up outside of the original seeding area, so these new areas will help to fill in some of the gaps between the two plots.

While checking out one of the liatris aspera remnants, I came across a plant that was going to seed.  It was one of the prairie clover species, either purple or white, I can’t tell since it isn’t flowering.  And to my amazement, there was alot of it there!  I went back to my car and grabbed a can and began to collect seed.  I almost filled up a 32 ounce can with seed from all of the plants here.  Prairie clover is a plant that grows in a dry prairie and is a very valuable plant for my prairie.  I never expected to find this plant, and in such quantity is just extrordinary.

Over the last few days, I have several more remnant spots containing liatris aspera.  All of these new sites are within Marseilles.  One of the spots spans both sides of the road growing along a hillside.  Another spot is even larger and contains little bluestem and stiff goldenrod as well.  How could I have missed all of these areas in past years is beyond me.  The important thing though is that I have found them now, and in years to come they will be growing in my prairie, and then introduced into new sites in the county.