Category Archives: Prairie Plants

Buds in the Spring

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Spring is a good time to think about buds.  Most of us are familiar with buds on the branches of trees and shrubs because they’re easy to see – and at this time of year, they begin opening and exposing new leaves and flowers.  Most prairie plants, however start their spring growth from buds at or below the soil surface.

Blossoms and buds of a wild plum. The flower buds have already opened, but the leaf buds are still tightly closed.

Before I go any further, I need to thank Jackie Ott, who provided the background information and photo interpretation for this post.  Jackie is a PhD candidate, and one of a group of researchers at Kansas State University who are working to learn more about the buds of prairie plants and the role those buds play in the ecology of plant populations.  Just as the collective seeds in the soil beneath a prairie is called a “seed bank”, the buds beneath a prairie can be called a “bud bank”.  Jackie and others are trying to find out how those bud banks work, and (among other things) how they help plants and populations respond to stress.  I’ve enjoyed several opportunities to learn about buds from Jackie and her colleagues over the last several years, and will write a future post about some of what they’re learning about bud banks.  In this post, though, I present a short introduction (with photos) on the belowground buds of prairie grasses and wildflowers.

Buds of sand lovegrass (Eragrostis trichodes) - one on the left and two on the right.

Buds are essentially packages of plant tissue full of cells that can divide very quickly.  They are usually protected from moisture, temperature extremes, and other damage by a thick waxy coating.  All of the buds on grasses are located below ground, so all growth comes from there.  When a grass is clipped or grazed off, it just keeps pushing the growth up from the original underground bud.  Forbs start their growth each spring from buds located near or below ground too, but they can also grow “adventitious” buds at any point along their stems.  When a forb is clipped, it can create a new bud near the clipped tip and restart growth from there.  If it is clipped too close to the ground, it may start a new stem from a belowground bud instead of from an adventitious bud.

Western yarrow (Achillea millefolium), showing belowground buds and roots. There is one big bud in the foreground, and another one (very white) in the background.

According to Jackie, more than 90% of the stems you see in a tallgrass prairie each year started as buds, rather than seeds, that spring.  Buds allow the “parent” plant to provide nutrients to the new stem and support its growth – as opposed to a seed, which has a limited supply of food in its endosperm and then is on its own to survive.

Large stacked buds on a violet plant. In this photo you can still see the shape of the bulky buds at the base of each of the existing leaves/stems.

If you dig up a prairie grass or forb, you can easily find the buds around the base of the plant.  Generally, there are multiple buds – each able to grow into a new stem if/when needed.  Those buds represent the ability of that plant to produce new growth each season, but also following a disturbance such as fire, drought, or intensive grazing, that forces the plant to restart its growth mid-season.  The larger collection of buds among all the plants in a prairie represents the prairie’s “bud bank.”  The capacity of that bud bank to respond during stressful conditions is one of the most intriguing parts of what Jackie and her colleagues at Kansas State University are researching.

Buds on a spiderwort (Tradescantia bracteata) rhizome. Rhizomes are underground stems that allow perennial plants to expand their reach by stretching out and growing new aboveground stems at some distance from the parent stem. That new growth, though, still has to come from buds - such as these.

All of the photos in this post were taken in an indoor studio.

Pussytoes and Early Season Pollinators

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I drove out to our family prairie yesterday to look for some early spring activity.  I scared up a couple of turkeys and a big owl, watched a red-tailed hawk soar for a while, and listened to the western meadowlarks tuning up for the breeding season.  No snakes were to be found, but there were plenty of leopard frogs along the edge of the pond.  I’d hoped to see some wildflowers, but there weren’t many blooming yet.  Apart from abundant sun sedge (Carex heliophila) plants on the steeper slopes, the only blooms to be found were patches of pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta).  Not that there’s anything wrong with pussytoes!

Pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta) in the Helzer Prairie, south of Aurora, Nebraska

Our prairie sits right on the transition between tallgrass and mixed-grass prairie in Nebraska.  As such, it can be dominated by big bluestem and indiangrass, or by western wheatgrass, side-oats grama, tall dropseed, and other shorter grass species – depending upon recent weather and management.  Part of the property is unplowed prairie, but much of it was seeded in the early 1960’s by my grandpa soon after he bought the property.  The formerly cropped areas were seeded with grasses, but have also been colonized over time by many of the forb species from the hillier unplowed prairie on the site.

Pussytoes grows well in both the unplowed and seeded portions of the prairie.  It can be found in small patches consisting of a few individuals, but also in living room-sized populations.  The plant is considered to be allelopathic and reduces the height of surrounding plants, which makes large patches fairly easy to see.  It also seems to do well in the areas of the prairie favored by grazing cattle.  (Whether this is because the cattle are drawn to the shorter grass or because the pussytoes do well in heavily grazed areas I can’t tell – it’s likely both!)

Many of the pussytoes flowers were just starting to emerge, meaning that they were only an inch or so off the ground.

Regardless, the pussytoes had the wildflower blooming stage to themselves on this early April day.  I needed to scratch my itch for wildflower photography after a long winter, so I laid down with my tripod and focused in on a few plants.  As often happens when I take the time to sit down in a prairie, I noticed other things around me.  This time it was the buzzing of pollinators who had also noticed that pusseytoes were blooming.  As I watched, I counted at least 8 species of pollinating insects bouncing from flower to flower, looking for those with pollen-laden anthers.  Most of the insects were flies, but a few bees and a moth were among the visitors as well.  Elsewhere on the prairie I saw some orange sulphur butterflies too, but never actually saw one land on a pussytoes flower.

This was one of several fly species busily visiting pussytoes flowers.

Another fly species (about the size of a house fly).

A much smaller fly, wiping pollen off its leg with its mouthparts. (I assume - or wiping its mouthparts with its leg, who can tell?)

This was the only bee species I saw, though I thought I heard a bumblebee go by...

Since our prairie is a 106 island of prairie in a landscape consisting mostly of cropland, these pussytoes were not only the sole source of pollen in our prairie – they were just about the only thing to pollinators to eat for miles.  Not even the dandelions in the neighbor’s creek bottom had started to bloom yet.  I’d never thought of pussytoes as a critical plant for pollinators, but apparently I underestimated this low-stature plant.  I’m guessing it’s not the first time its been overlooked…

Yes, I know, this looks like the same fly species shown above, but I really like its face, and this photo shows it off better than the other one does...