This Week in Iowa Nature

On May field trips, beware of poison ivy, stinging nettles, ticks, and chiggers.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Plant of the Week

Blue-eyed grass
Sisyrinchium campestre Bickn.
other common names: prairie blue-eyed grass
Sisyrinchium: a name once used for another plant and later transferred to this genus
Campestre: from Latin campestre, meaning “of the fields”
Iris family: Iridaceae

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