The trails and natural areas of Leelanau County are filled with eye-catching scenery all yearlong, but perhaps one of the most interesting parts about the land are the plants, flowers, insects, and animals that inhabit it.
Leelanau Conservancy Land Steward Emily Douglas said depending on where you’re hiking in terms of habitat type, such as the sand dunes, forests, or wetland properties, people can find everything from common plant species to endangered and invasives that frequent areas. The forest already had its show of spring ephemeral flowers, but hikers might still have a chance to view harebells, which are little purple flowers that resemble a bell-like shape. Mints of all varieties frequent the forests as well as plants like bluestem goldenrods.
At this time of year, Douglas said she likes to step away from the forests and tries to go to the wetland properties where plants are more likely to be full and blooming. Swamp rose, cardinal flower, more mints, swamp milkweed, and black elderberry are just some of the plants that walkers might come across this month.
“So there’s just really cool stuff in wetlands this time of year — like the beardtongue foxglove you can catch around wetland edges, and Joe-Pye weed, which will be out soon because everything this year has been two weeks earlier,” Douglas said. “There’s this incredible equisetum which doesn’t have a flower and they’re related to a fern, but they’re really beautiful this time of year and they’re a really neat wetland plant, and they can sometimes be in the forest too.”
If you are near the dunes, the endangered and native Pitcher’s thistle can be found, along with wormwood, harebells, and the sand cherry. Just walking by roadsides and transition zones between fields and forests will ensure beautiful sightings of the flowering and vibrant staghorn sumac that have been thriving during this particularly rainy season.
“We’ve just had an awesome year for plants and their growth potential, they (staghorn sumac) can be seen on the roadsides or as you’re hiking and heading towards woods, it likes more open areas,” she said. “Black-eyed Susans’ would be in those same areas, and raspberries and blackberries… Coreopsis, which is a beautiful yellow flower, yarrow, and of course the common milkweed is going crazy right now, so anywhere where it’s a little disturbed and open, milkweed loves that.”
Common milkweed, like so many plants that grow in Leelanau, are vital to pollinators and especially for the endangered monarch butterfly.
“I always think ‘let the flowers be the ones that are out in the woods and growing in nature’ because all the insects and pollinators are using those for a food source, which then in turn feeds everything else,” she said. “That’s why I think just let all the flowers be when you’re out hiking because if you’re not sure what something is then you don’t know if you’re doing harm, so it’s best to just look and observe and let them be in the beauty that they’re in.”
Invasive species plants are hard to maintain in certain areas, so people are also likely to see the purple loosestrife near Lake Leelanau and through the narrows. Garlic mustard and autumn olive are big shrubs that frequent lands, and a vine known as oriental bittersweet can take over trees and uproot them in the process.
Douglas recommends people visit Teichner Preserve if they want to take in the best views of blooms this month. The little preserve off Lime Lake Road includes a boardwalk through a wetland, where bright red cardinal flowers like to frequently grow. Kehl Lake in Northport is yet another great location for wetland plants once you make your way to the platform where swamp rose and lily pads are visible. Palmer Woods and Clay Cliffs are great for seeing raspberries or gooseberries, and the DeYoung Natural Area features a small, but mighty edible food garden that includes native plants like gooseberries, black and red currants, and nannyberry.
“You won’t see as much on the forest side, but if you are near the water more you do see really showy plants this time of year,” she said.
Leelanau County resident Bob Jones has been photographing the natural environment and its unseen wonders for decades. Whether it’s in his backyard or anywhere in nature, he loves to take a minute to snap a photo of the flowers, plants, insects, and animals that he comes across.
“I take my camera everywhere with me and if I see something, I take a picture of it,” Jones said. “Nature is my entire inspiration. Our neighbors own the property around us and they’re very good friends… so we’re just fortunate that way because we have a lot of woods around us and an old apple orchard, so it’s like a cross section of habitats.”
Jones tends to check out the many diverse habitats in Leelanau depending on what he wants to capture in his photography. Dragonflies and butterflies are some of his favorite subjects, but he also loves the opportunities he gets to take pictures of landscapes and the insects and pollinators enjoying the blooms.
“It could be anywhere or anytime that I want to snap a photo,” he added.
Ann McInnis, a member of the weekly Leelanau hiking group “Walkie Talkies,” is another resident that loves soaking in the beauty of the county through the outdoors. Instead of snapping photos though, she said she likes to focus on making observations when she heads out on a hike.
With plants, for example, McInnis will look for marks on the leaves to see what’s been munching on it, noting that it’s a good thing if part of it is being eaten by bugs and insects.
“Plants are the base of a food chain,” McInnis said. “But I like to look at that, and I look underneath leaves to see if there’s any little critters under there that might be interesting.”
Other things McInnis will take notice of on hikes are the mushrooms on the trees and ground and the seeds on plants and flowers. McInnis said the tiny observations result in her coming up with questions to better understand and learn about her surroundings and how nature works.
“A lot of the spring flower seeds are distributed by ants… birds, bears, small mammals,” McInnis said. “I can’t seem to walk through the woods without listing something and then I ask my questions and I try to make potential answers that I might want to do further research on.”
Using your senses, specifically smell, is one way McInnis says people can learn about the area and unique ecological communities, too.
“It adds to the experience when you’re kind of using your other senses,” she said. “If you’re walking through some wooded areas it smells quite different than if you’re out in a grassy area or open, hot sand dune kind of area… what I do know is that nature is very intelligent and from our point of view, we don’t always recognize that because most species have evolved a cartload of strategies to survive. Very often, it involves cooperation and most species are not individual and have helpers.”
