Blue Mound State Park
What’s Blooming, Where and When

A walk on any park trail can be a new experience from week to week or even day to day, especially if you are observing flowering and growth of new foliage.

(Links marked * exit DNR)

From April and into early June, trees, shrubs and herbs display the best floral show of the year. Some of the early flowers common on many woodland trails in the park are bloodroot (pictured), mayapple*, anemones, buttercups, violets, hepaticas, jack-in-the-pulpit*, strawberry, wild geranium*, columbine*, Dutchman’s-breeches*, shooting stars, cherries, and dogwoods.

A few of the most common early flowers in maple forests (east and west ends of the Pleasure Valley Trail) are yellow ladyslipper*, trillium, wild ginger*, Dutchman’s- breeches, spring beauty, toothwort, and trout or fawn lily*. Most visitors to the park after June never see the last four listed plants since the entire plant disappears within a few weeks (ephemeral) after they bloom.

Park visitors often completely ignore early flowering of three common trees, white oak, red oak and shagbark hickory, since they lack colorful flower parts. Campers may notice these flowers littering the picnic tables.

Plants often bloom one to two weeks later on the north and east sides of the mound compared to the south and west sides because of a cooler and moister microclimate.

This cooler environment, especially along the Indian Marker Tree Trail, is the home for an abundance of several large fern species such as the interrupted fern and a few flowering plants that are common in pine forests of northern Wisconsin. A list of those plants includes star flower, blueberry, and bush honeysuckle.

From July to fall, hikers and their pets often leave the forest trails with sticktights attached to their clothing or hair. These sticktights (fruits or seeds with small barbs or hooks—nature’s velcro) spread the plants to new locations. These plants include agrimony, burdock, enchanter’s nightshade, sweet cicely and tick-trefoil and are most common in the oak/hickory forests on the north and south sides of the mound.

A second explosion of color occurs from July into September in the prairie rather than the forest. Visitors on the central part of the Pleasure Valley Trail can observe a tall grass prairie being restored. Two grasses, big bluestem and Indian grass, dominate the area along with the colorful sunflowers, blazing star, asters, goldenrods, compass plant, prairie dock, coneflowers (pictured), and black-eyed Susans.

In late September and early October, leaves provide the color. Maples provide brilliant yellow on either end of the Pleasure Valley Trail and the single-track bike trail off of the Pleasure Valley Trail. The Minix, Willow Spring, and Indian Marker Tree Trails also offer some yellows and also the deep crimson of the red oaks.

For More Information

Ask Karl Heil, manager, (608) 437-5711