Photos by Carla Wells
Prairie Smoke is a perennial, native wildflower in Wisconsin. It grows six to 16 inches tall. The flowers form in groups of three or six droopy, reddish brown, bell-shaped flowers, 3/4 inches long, growing on each stalk. Each flower has five-pointed petal-like sepals that alternate with narrow bracts and five very small petals. The plant has basal leaves that are four to nine inches long and divided into many small-toothed leaflets. It grows in dry prairies. (EW)
Additionally:
April blooming Prairie smoke(Geum triflorum) is a great native flower for a Midwest urban yard. It’s one of the few native full/part sun prairie perennials that blooms when the early bumble bee queens are emerging from hibernation. Bumble bee queens are the primary pollinator, as the flower and plant evolved together to mutually benefit from the bumble bee ability to buzz pollinate. The queen hangs upside down under the hanging flower anthers and vibrates her powerful flight muscles until the anthers open and release pollen onto her abdomen. She uses the pollen to provision her nest to feed her first brood of young. The flower also produces nectar for queens that urgently need to replenish their hibernation depleted body fat stores. Queens are one of the few pollinators strong enough to pry open the closed flower and harvest the nectar.
Prairie smoke is low growing, with flowers reaching about 1 foot tall. It’s beautiful as an understory plant in a diverse layered garden. Ours grow well in sun and part sun, and are drought and deer resistant. They spread slowly, forming a lovely semi-evergreen green mulch in our garden that turns red in fall, beautiful grown as green flowering mulch with wild strawberries, native violets, blue-eyed grasses, Prairie pussytoes and Wood betony. We grow them in garden borders, in our sunny street terrace, and as green mulch growing into the understory of native plantings and also into our pollinator grass aisles. They are in the rose family, with lovely understated pink flowers that are showier when they finish blooming. The seed heads form spectacular long gorgeous clouds of the pink “smoke” they are named for- a mature plant in full smoke seed form is spectacular, glowing in the sun.
Extremely valuable to queen bees, lovely year round, low growing, low maintenance, long lived, grows in a variety of soil types including clay as long as the soil is well drained during summer, drought and deer resistant.