Midwest Nature Quote of the Week: Nov 20

True prairie was not a matter of location, but of composition. The lie of the land had nothing to do with whether it was prairie or not; if it was tallgrass prairie it included the tallgrass communities. Some prairie was flat, but much of it was rolling, and some was broken and rocky. But it needed tallgrasses if it was to qualify as true prairie—the most easterly of the great American grassland societies that sprawled between the Rockies and the eastern forests.

John Madson, Out Home

Plant of the Week: Nov 18

Wild strawberry

Fragaria virginiana 

Duchesne

other common names
: none known
Fragaria: from Latin fraga, meaning “having scent,” probably referring to the fragrance 
of the fruit
Virginiana: meaning “of Virginia”
Rose family: Rosaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

This week in Iowa Nature: Nov 16

November 16 - 19: Away from the city lights, scan the eastern horizon for the annual Leonid meteor shower, bits of cosmic debris streaking through the night sky.

Iowa Nature Calendar