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| Cuckoo-flower is very rare in Wisconsin but grows in the McGilvra Woods. |
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| McGilvra Woods topo map. Click map for larger version. |
There are no real trails there – the one leaving from the parking lot peters out about 20 yards into the woods – so this definitely is a bushwhacking hike. Fortunately, the forest floor is open, making that easy. To avoid damaging any plants, try to locate and stay on deer trails running through the 72-acre site.
To reach the natural area, from Baraboo take County Road W west. Turn right/north onto Fairview Road. Drive until the woods ends then turn right/east into a small parking lot.
Sugar maple and basswood dominate the forest, and make an impressive sight in autumn. The tree bases show many above-ground roots, as the topsoil here is shallow. This makes for little underbrush, an ideal condition for several spring flowers.
First flowers
In early spring, the forest floor bears a good display of trout lily. Also known as yellow dog-tooth violet, the trout lily is a striking albeit common flower. On each stalk is a hanging yellow flower, about an inch wide, with three petals and three petal-like sepals that curve backward. If you spot this plant but no flower in spring, don’t be surprised if you still see no flower the next year; it sometimes needs up to seven years to mature enough to bloom. It is found in a majority of Wisconsin counties but more commonly in the southern half of the state.
Another early wildflower bloom each spring is the sharp-lobed hepatica. It keeps its leaves through the winter and when spring arrives quickly blooms before the trees above it have a chance to grow leaves that shade it out. Its flowers consist of five to nine petal-like sepals that range from pale blue to lavender, pink or white. Each flower is just a half-inch to an inch wide. Sharp-lobed hepatica grows across Wisconsin but is more common in the southern half; its cousin, the round-lobed hepatica, is more common in the northern half.
Cut-leaved toothwort blooms early in spring before the leaves in the tree canopy can grow large enough to block sunlight. Each white or pale lavender flower has four petals and is a mere half-inch across. The flowers grow in groups of three to 15 per stem. The plant hosts the Checkered White butterfly caterpillar.
Mid-May blooms
By mid-May, several other wildflowers have bloomed. Among them are hairy Solomon’s-seal, wood phlox, nodding trillium, Jack-in-the-pulpit, red baneberry, mayapple, wild geranium, spring-beauty, Virginia waterleaf, bellwort, and several orchids.
Hairy Solomon’s-seal is an impressive-looking plant, its leaves alternating on a long, usually upright stems. Its hanging, greenish-cream bell-shaped flowers grow in rows, typically on arching stems. The flowers last for more than a month and once pollinated yield small, blue to black grapes that are a favorite meal of birds. Able to clone itself, Solomon’s-seal often grows in clumps.
Wild blue phlox, also known as wood phlox, usually blooms around Mother’s Day. Quite fragrant, it prefers dappled sunlight. Each five-petaled purple flower is about an inch across; sometimes their color can be white or dark blue. Phlox grows across the southern Wisconsin.
Trilliums, mayapples
Blooming from spring into summer is the nodding trillium. The flower is a whorl of three wavy white petals that droops beneath the plant’s leaves. Don’t pick any part of this plant, as the leaves then may not be able to produce enough sugar and starch for a bloom to appear the following year. It’s one of seven trillium species that grows throughout Wisconsin.
Jack-in-the-pulpit blooms in spring. Its erect 2- to 3-inch long flower sits inside a green or purple hood at the top of a single stalk. American Indians cooked its below ground stem as food, so it’s sometimes referred to as Indian turnip. The plant contains calcium oxalate crystals, however, so no part of it above-ground is edible, as it causes a burning sensation in the mouth.
Red baneberry blooms in spring. Its teensy white flowers, each a mere quarter-inch wide, form a dense round cluster that can be up to three-inches wide. The flowers produce red berries that cause extreme illness if eaten. The plant grows 8-24 inches high and is common throughout Wisconsin.
Another spring wildflower in the woods is the mayapple. Its waxy white flowers consists of six to nine petals. It’s sometimes called the umbrella plant because the leaves form an umbrella shape that shades the flower. The mayapple grows in the southern half of the state.
Geraniums, merrybells
Another pretty spring wildflower here is wild geranium. Lavender to purple in color, it has heavily veined five petals about 1-2 inches wide. Colonies in natural woodland openings are formed from long-lived clones of an individual plant. Wild geranium grows all across the state.
Carolina spring-beauty blooms from April to June. Each of its half-inch wide flowers
consists of five white petals with pink-purple veins. It’s very common in New England, the Appalachians, and the Upper Peninsula. In Wisconsin, it grows mostly in the northeast, on the north side of a line from Bayfield to Door counties. McGilvra Woods definitely is south of where the flower usually is found.
Each white to light blue flower of the Virginia water-leaf blooms is tiny, a miniscule quarter- to a half-inch long, and consists of five petals fused in a bell shape. The flowers blossom in clusters. The forb grows in large mats across the woodland floor, as their underground roots shoot up through the ground and form new plants. It is found throughout Wisconsin except the state’s northern boundaries.
Large-leaved bellwort, also called merrybells, yields a drooping bell-shaped yellow flower is about 1-2 inches long with up to six petals. The long-leaved is one of two bellworts that grow in Wisconsin; four other species grow in eastern North America. Its found throughout the state.
Rare wildflowers
Two rare species thrive in McGilvra Woods as well – the cuckoo-flower and the putty-root orchid.
The cuckoo-flower blooms April through July. Its pretty white flower consists of four parts and ranges from a half-inch to an a full inch wide. The flowers usually grow in clusters on the stalk. The plant mostly grows in eastern Wisconsin but can be found in isolated spots in northern and southern parts of the state.
Putty-root orchid, also known as Adam and Eve flower, spreads underground by growing tubers that then form large colonies. Its leaves appear in late November and remain until March. By late May or early June, a flower stalk emerges. A single stalk yields several white-purplish flowers, each only a fraction of an inch across. The plant gets its name from a sticky sap that comes from its crushed tubers.
