Yesterday afternoon a group of Prairie Enthusiasts collected seeds at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie. The weather was perfect and the seeds were plentiful. In addition, we were all rewarded by the best display of flowering blazing stars we had ever seen at this prairie. I assume the very wet weather in early summer was (at least partly) responsible.
Seed collecting is probably the most fun of the various tasks involved in prairie restoration. And collecting seeds at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie is a joy, because it has such a wide, interesting variety of species, and access is so easy. Although a superb dry prairie remnant, this isn't one of those steep bluff Wisconsin prairies. The prairie is on relatively level ground, an unusual situation. See this link for details on the prairie.
Seeds we collected today included lead plant, tall prairie cinquefoil, big bluestem, rosin weed, thimbleweed, side oats grama, prairie brome, showy sunflower, butterfly milkweed, and coreopsis.
We are planning another seed collecting workday for Sunday, Sept. 21, when more species should be ready, plus more at later dates. Anyone interested should fill out the contact form on this web site.
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