More spring flowers!

These are some pictures from another hike my sister Joanne and I took last week, on April 18, at Champ County Park in north Florissant, off Old Halls Ferry Road. You drive through typical suburban streets, and then all of a sudden the street continues through some trees and you get to a park. There's a gravel parking lot with an open grassy area off to one side - but if you go the other way you find yourself walking through the forest, immersed in a natural setting that seems to have been hidden away from the miles of neighborhoods you just drove through to get there. It's a well-kept secret, but one worth sharing.

We saw some of the same flowers we saw at St. Francois State Park the week before, but some new ones as well.

Right at the edge of the forest where we had parked, we could see this tree blooming. It was small, an understory tree... Sassafras! We could even spot a few leaves with the classic "mitten" shape - and when we scratched at that bark, the unmistakable spicy aroma provided definite confirmation.

Spring Break, part 2

Here are the rest of the pictures, from the other half of my trip to St. Francois State Park on Sunday, April 12.

As I mentioned in the first post, my sister Joanne and I have developed a tradition of going out to St. Francois every spring in early April. (Our parents would come, too, but they have developed a tradition of going on a long train trip to Texas at around the same time each year!) We always drive down by the river, then go to the campground and hike the trail to the bluebells. We drive back to the picnic area at Coonville Creek, eat lunch by the creek, and then take our second hike, along a section of Mooner's Hollow trail.

This is where we see our second set of wildflowers - some of them are in both areas, but this is drier terrain, going up into the rockier ridges above the creek. A different ecological zone, where different plants grow.

There were a lot of dogtooth violets growing near the creek on the other side. Another name for that flower is "trout lily" - just like the ones I saw in Michigan last year, but white instead of yellow!

I spotted some toothwort but couldn't think of what it was called until Joanne saw some much later in the hike.

Spring Break, part 1

A little over a week ago my sister Joanne and I drove down to St. Francois State Park to look at spring wildflowers. This has gotten to be a tradition, we try to go down the first or second week of April so as to catch the bluebells at their peak. These photos were taken April 12.

It was a really pretty drive down, with lots of redbud and dogwood trees blooming along the rural highway. Then as we drove into the park, we could see wildflowers on the hillside along the road: orange-yellow puccoon, neon purple verbena,  bigger clumps of light- purple sweet William, and a glimpse of purple that were probably bird's-foot violets, which we hadn't seen there before. There were mayapples off in the woods, and as we drove along the creek toward the river, a carpet of spring beauties along the roadside...

We could see a few bluebells blooming along the bank of the creek, too - just a hint of what was to come.

We drove around the loop before stopping at the campground. Through the tallgrass prairie, then getting out at the picnic area to look at the river.

You can just make out a few green treetops, the ones that got their leaves early, off in the distance behind the grass stems.

The ground was carpeted with spring beauties (see above), purple violets and dandelions.