From 1843, when the first collections were made, until 1987, when an amateur botanist discovered the only known Iowa site for spring ladies tresses, thirty-two species of orchids have been recorded in Iowa. The state's wild orchids range in size from the three-inch-tall delicately blossomed nodding pogonia of the eastern woodlands to the three-foot-tall floral spike of the western prairie fringed orchid and in color from whites and pale pastels to buttery yellows and passionate pinks. Flower shapes run the gamut, too, from the tight-lipped parsimony of the fall coral-root to the cheerful...
From 1843, when the first collections were made, until 1987, when an amateur botanist discovered the only known Iowa site for spring ladies tresses, t...
June grass at sunset, Indian grass at sunrise, hawk moths and monarch butterflies nectaring on purple fringed orchids and rough blazing star, little bluestem and saw-tooth sunflowers and butterfly milkweed in hill prairies and sand prairies, and blue skies and one bright rainbow arching over them all. Bill Witt has been photographing Iowa s wild places for more than thirty years, and the result is this collection of splendid images that reveal the glorious beauty and diversity of the state s prairie remnants. Witt gives us close-ups of pasque flower shoots covered with ice in spring,...
June grass at sunset, Indian grass at sunrise, hawk moths and monarch butterflies nectaring on purple fringed orchids and rough blazing star, little b...