These short articles are written to highlight the plants, history and lore of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden to past and contemporary events and may include personal commentary of the writer, not necessarily related to the Wildflower Garden. A web of present and past events.
January 2026
Articles
Clasping-leaved Venus' looking-glass
Bee and bird play and learning
Recent work of the Greater Eloise Stewards
Clasping-leaved Venus' looking-glass
How about that for a plant name! Have you seen it? Have you even heard of it? Perhaps you have walked by one without a clue that it had that fancy name. Venus’ looking-glass is one of our wild native annuals, found in all the U S States except Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii.
In Minnesota it is spread around the state a bit. You will find it in 16 counties including Hennepin and Washington in the Metro. Years ago it may have been more widespread and you would also have found it in the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. Eloise planted it in 1926 and Martha Crone in 1947, both plantings were from seeds as that is the only way to obtain the plant unless you come across one just as the seed capsule is ready to open.
Clasping-leaved Venus’ looking-glass (Triodanis perfoliata) is in the Bellflower family (Campanulaceae) and as such it has showy violet blue bell shaped flowers, similar to other bellflowers found in the wildflower garden today. The stem is hairy and only 4 to 18 inches high with rounded, scallop-edged leaves that clasp the stem. As a annual that survives by re-seeding, you usually find it in disturbed places, including cracks in sidewalks, wall foundations, etc.
It has one other characteristic that places it in a unique group of plants - those that have two kinds of flowers - ones that open and are pollinated by various means and those that do not open and self pollinate. The latter type are referred to as “cleistogamous.” This is a trick of nature to insure survival. If pollination of the open flowers fails, the non-opening flowers can produce seed. Some of the other plants that have this trait are the stemless violets, jewelweed, and northern sea oats.
Now as to that name: Clasping-leaved is self-evident from form of the leaf. Venus’ looking-glass is more obscure. It seemed to some observers in years past that the tiny seeds have a shiny reflective coating and a lover of beauty could see their reflection, but you may need a magnifier as those seeds are really tiny, needing 800,000 to make an ounce.
Eloise writes a history
One hundred years ago Eloise Butler began a history of the Wild Botanic Garden. It was never finished but it was an eloquent statement of why there was a need to preserve our native flora.
She began:
“In the early ‘80s Minneapolis was a place of enchantment – a veritable fairyland. Along the river banks grew in profusion trillium, bloodroot, wild phlox, anemones, Dutchman’s breeches, and hepatica; the meadows were glorious with Indian paint brush, both red and yellow, with gentians, purple fringed orchids, and royal clumps of blue violets.”
Years earlier a writer had written in the 1907 Glenwood Park News about the founding of the Garden:
“There was a time, and not so long ago, that some Minneapolis families could pluck these rare wild flowers almost from their back doors, but when too many people took a hand in the culling and the plucking became a massacre, the plants grew discouraged and disappeared.”
Eloise then proceeded in her history to lay out the reasons why a particular spot in Glenwood Park had been chosen for the Wild Botanic Garden and how it would be administered. In a few years it would be expanded in size and she wrote to Theodore Wirth in 1914:
“Within a space of twenty acres may be seen in an hour what would be impossible to find in traversing the state for several days.”
Eloise concludes this first (and only) part of her history with “It was soon found that the term “Wild Botanic Garden” was misleading to the popular fancy, so the name was changed to “Native Plant Reserve.”
Parts of Eloise's text appeared in a 1929 history of the Wildflower Garden written by Mrs. John Jepson. Later still, parts of the text appeared in the Minnesota Clubwoman following the death of Eloise in 1933.
Bee and bird play and learning
Back in 2022 we showed you a video of bumblebees having fun. They join a larger group of animals that display play activity. The bumblebee activity is also a learning activity - a means of improving life skills. More work has been done on this including much work with Corvids of which our common crows are members.
Bumblebees have recently been shown to differentiate color by learning which color leads to more reward. Corvids also do this. Equally interesting is the old marsh mellow test, often applied to children. Would you rather have one marsh mellow now or wait a bit and get two marsh mellows for being patient? The test for crows was have a piece of cheese now or wait a bit and get mealworms. Crows appear to have the same traits as humans in this test - some have patience and some do not and grab the cheese.
If you have 3 minutes, watch this video of a crow demonstrating learning skills.
3 minute video:
https://www.nathab.com/blog/video-crows-the-ultimate-problem-solvers Scroll down the page on this link to see the video link
You can also still see the previous 1.5 minute video
at this the link below. The last 20 seconds is the best part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8btoEv4HUI
Below: Still shots from the video of bees having fun with balls.
Recent work of the Greater Eloise Stewards
Last October we gave you an update on the latest work of the Stewards (formerly FIPAG) in the north meadow. Work has continued there by the volunteers during the fall and winter and for an update we are copying Jim Proctor’s recent memo to the Stewards which explains the current work and the plan for the first half of 2026.
Below: Work in the north meadow began in early fall with clearing masses of buckthorn. All photos here by Jim Proctor and group.
Jim wrote:
We’ve identified a narrow band of high-quality native vegetation just upslope from the marsh. This pattern makes sense: it occupies the lowest upland area, where conditions remain wet enough throughout the year to support wetland-adapted plants while also inhibiting buckthorn establishment. Immediately upslope from this band, however, buckthorn dominates. Its expansion is a clear indicator of disrupted wetland hydrology—conditions have become dry enough to favor buckthorn over native wetland species.
Over the years, groundwater springs and seeps in this area have declined, peat stored in the soil has decayed, drainage channels have formed, and buckthorn has taken over. Together, these changes create reinforcing feedback loops that “de-water” the soils and eliminate wetland vegetation. We need to stop these losses and reverse these trends. The good news is that we can—and we must—begin taking steps now. Ultimately, professional expertise will be required (and we are actively advocating for that support), but action at this stage is still crucial.
Many buckthorn are high cut and either leaf-stripped or treated. Some have roots loosened to reduce re-growth vigor.
We are already consulting with ecologists, including Dr. Rene Dommain, a peatland restoration expert from Germany who has worked on projects around the world. Dr. Dommain completed his degree at the University of Minnesota studying the patterned peatlands of northern Minnesota. His view is unequivocal: protecting and restoring these wetlands is imperative, and the most urgent reason is climate change. That statement carries weight coming from an ecologist whose first love is plants—you might expect biodiversity or ecosystem function to top his list, yet the climate implications are even more pressing.
Much of the carbon-rich peat that once filled these soils has already been lost. When soils are no longer saturated to the surface year-round, peat begins to oxidize and decay, releasing carbon rather than storing it.
But there is peat left to protect. The key is to re-wet the system. How?
- You guessed it: remove buckthorn. Buckthorn acts like thousands of tiny pumps, pulling moisture from the ground and releasing it into the air through evapotranspiration. Reducing this woody vegetation lowers water loss.
- Reestablish herbaceous wetland plants. These species evapotranspire far less than buckthorn, their root systems retain soil moisture, and their annual dead material can help reinitiate peat formation over time.
- “Act like beavers.” As groundwater inputs have declined, the next step is to slow water losses. Installing small structures such as check dams in existing drainage channels can help retain water on the landscape. These structures—often called beaver dam analogs—slow flow, spread water out, and restore wetland hydrology.
Below: Part of the area of around the water channel in the north meadow has been cleared and here a small log has been embedded cross-stream to form a small pool which has attracted birds.
The Plan
Winter work (while the ground is frozen)
Frozen ground allows larger volunteer groups to move through the wetland without damaging the soil. During this period, we will begin high-cutting a continuous swath of buckthorn within and along the band of high-quality vegetation—from one end to the other. Opening the canopy here will increase sunlight for the native plants, allowing them to expand upslope. Over time, this zone may also become a valuable source for collecting native seed.
We will also bundle cut buckthorn into “wattles” and stake them into the drainage channels. These will act as small flow-slowing structures, helping retain water in the system.
Summer work (preemptive seed control).
In summer, motivated individual volunteers equipped with muck boots and eye protection will enter the areas we expect to clear in the next 1–2 years. Their task will be to cut and drop any berry-producing buckthorn before the berries mature. Because most buckthorn seeds germinate in their first year, stopping seed production now will save enormous work—and prevent thousands of seedlings—from occurring later.
Dealing with the high stumps of living buckthorn
High-cutting will leave many living stumps.
These will need to be addressed in stages:
1. Manual recutting or digging out a portion of stumps to reduce their vigor.
2. Advocating for professional assistance for targeted herbicide treatment on the remaining stumps. (Volunteers are not authorized in Minneapolis Parks to use herbicide).
This combined approach has several benefits:
1. It reduces total herbicide use.
2. It makes herbicide treatments more effective because the buckthorn has already been weakened.
3. It avoids years of repeated re-cutting.
4. It lowers the physical burden on volunteers while accelerating long-term restoration.
2026 - A happy or sad year?
For the superstitious, 2026 has the maximum number of Friday the 13ths - February, March and November.
On a cheerful note 2026 is a “happy year number.” Happy years are when the square of each digit in the year number are added together and the same operation is applied to resulting number and so on, and when you end up with “1” it is a happy year number. Thus: 2026 = 22 +02 + 22 + 62 = 44; 42 + 42 = 32 and so on to the remaining results of 13, 10 and 1. Sad numbers end up in a loop.
For the game theorists, 2026 is the minimum number of moves needed to solve the Magnetic Towers of Hanoi game when starting with 8 discs.
No - 2026 is not a prime number, but next year will be.
These useless facts courtesy of Spektrum der Wissenschaft and Scientific American.
Historical Photo
The exit road from the Garden parking area on January 27, 1951, from a Kodachrome by Martha Crone. Photo ©Friends of the Wildflower Garden.
