By Max Kornetzke, land manager

 By late August, I usually start to see the first hues of autumn. Gray dogwoods hold their wine-colored leaves the whole season, with contrasting porcelain fruits adorning their tops. This year, silver maples in the area began turning their brilliant shade of scarlet in August as well. Open prairies like our Henry Wetland oscillate with hues of plum and sunshine yellow as the colonies of big bluestem, sweet black-eyed Susan, and goldenrod weave together.

One of my absolute favorite colors now dotting our trails is that of the Bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii). The saturation of blue usually varies within a population or even individual plant. Sometimes they are a deep phthalo blue with subtle magenta mottling other times they are a ghostly, sun-bleached blue. The bottle gentian is a harbinger of fall, a welcome sight to passersby and bumblebees alike.

Bottle gentian flowers are unique in that they look like they’re just about to unfold their petals but never do. Various species of bumblebees are the sole pollinators as they’re the only insects strong enough to pry open the petals and sneak into the flower. If you’re lucky, you may see one rolling around the interior collecting pollen, buzzing around to the next flower, and making sure these beautiful plants persist on our landscape in perpetuity.

Photo by Nancy Nabak