What's Blooming on Campus?

Happy Monday everyone! So since the unseasonably warm weather has brought out some spring flowers early, I thought I'd do a post on the early bloomers. We had temperatures here in the mid 70s in the middle of March so all the spring plants took off way earlier than normal. Now we're back down to mid-50s/60s weather, but the plants are still going strong.

The plants I see blooming the most all over campus are the adorable little Scilla flowers.

 

This particular scilla is Scilla siberica which reproduces and spreads through seed, often producing large colonies that will blanket forest floors or meadows in early spring. They grow best during this time because they like lots of moisture and the melting snow makes the soil almost constantly wet; the perfect conditions for these little plants.

A carpet of blue in the woods on the St. Paul campus. 

There's also a bunch of magnolia trees blooming along the sidewalks on the main campus. I think they're Lily Magnolia (Magnolia liliiflora) but I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me. 

 

These beauties have been gracing the campus sidewalks for a few weeks and, sadly, are starting to drop their petals. The picture above was taken last week. 

Hopefully once we get further into April, the tulips plants that have been cropping up everywhere will start to flower and I can get some pictures of those up. 

Coming up this week I'll hopefully have two big updates. Thursday I'll have an update one what's going on in my Horticulture Lab. And then, this weekend, I'll hopefully (if I convince my family to go) be making a trip to the Como Zoo Conservatory. They have their Easter flower show going on right now, so if that happens I'll have a huge post of pictures for you all to enjoy for Easter.