Prairie Crocus (Anemone patens)

The true harbinger of spring for me is the prairie crocus. As a wildflower geek, there’s something exhilarating about discovering the first one of the season. It tells me winter is over… snow from now on is called a spring storm. It tells me I can soon start to look for other wildflowers… everywhere. It tells me hiking season is here… dust off those boots.

I usually start looking for prairie crocuses in early to mid-April when winter’s snow has melted, but since we had such mild temperatures in most of March, I wondered if they had peeked through the dead grass on hillsides around here a little earlier. Last Friday Jan and I walked in Nose Hill with our noses to the ground, but no fuzzy purple flowers were to be found. Sunday I walked along the path behind our house and up through the coulee, not really expecting to spot any, but a little voice inside me kept whispering “maybe.” No. Monday I walked in Confluence Park by Harvest Hills with my eyes peeled on both sides of the path at the top. I had gone down the hill to the path by Nose Creek when I decided “enough of this” and started to look for other things to take pictures off. I found a bush with wrinkled red berries on it, and intertwined in its branches were the tufts of wild clematis seeds from last year. So even though it wasn't what I had hoped to take pictures of, I was happy to take some shots of last year’s faded glory.

As I made my way back towards the parking lot, the path took me by a south-facing slope, and I thought to myself “if they are out, this is where they will be.” And no sooner had I finished that thought when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Four little clumps of purple! I broke into a big smile and said aloud “there you are!” If anyone had seen or heard me they would have thought me a little odd, I’m sure! But to me it was like I had found the treasure on a map marked with X. Save for one other small clump a little further along the path, this was the only place I laid eyes on my prairie crocuses.

This furry little perennial is actually not a crocus, which is in the Lily family; it’s really an anemone, in the Buttercup family. Early settlers called this native anemone the “prairie crocus” because it reminded them of their early crocuses back in Europe [http://plantwatch.naturealberta.ca/choose-your-plants/prairie-crocus/].

I’ll leave you with this lovely quotation:

“The name of ‘gosling’ given the downy buds by prairie children is eminently suitable, but the Indian name is even better. The Indians… had a perfect genius for choosing the most poetic and significant name for things about them. ‘Ears of the Earth’ they called these furry ears which, so soon after the snow drifts melt, the prairie thrusts up to listen for the first faint rustle of summer.”
A. Brown. 1970. Old Man’s garden. Gray’s Publishing Ltd., Sidney, B.C.