Orchids Are Blooming!

The weather in Grand Portage has suddenly switched to summer, and the spring flowers are giving way to the summer flowers. One sign of this that I watch for is a patch of yellow lady's slippers (Cypripedium calceolus) on the old highway. This is one of the forty two species of orchid that are found in Minnesota, and one of the most beautiful.

The majority of Minnesota orchids are small and inconspicuous, and most of us pass them by without notice. I recently found a tiny patch of early coral root (Corallorhiza trifida) on the edge of my lawn that I must have passed dozens of times without seeing. I would provide a picture of them, but they had already finished blooming - maybe next spring now that I know where to look.

How You Can Do Science In Your Own Back Yard

Project BudBurst 2009 is a way for all of us to contribute data to a serious study on climate change. The National Phenology Network is reaching out to people around the country to record the growth stages of their local flora and report it online.

The advent of technology such as digital cameras, GIS, Google Earth and social networking sites like Facebook have allowed ordinary citizens to be amateur naturalists and take photos of the first flowering of different species and upload them to a database. This will allow scientists to track changes over time of when flowers bloom in different locations and cover a far larger area than the scientists could possibly do by themselves.

So dig out your cameras and join me in searching out the local flora. Together we can make a unique contribution to the science of climate change.