What's Blooming in March?

For the rest of the country, April showers bring May flowers- but we lucky Floridians don't have to wait that long!

After a brief brown winter, Hillsborough County's plants are once again budding and blossoming. You'll notice lots of wildflowers along roadsides and fence lines this time of year, but why limit yourself to what you can see from the car? Get out to a Hillsborough County Conservation Park or Nature Preserve today and see your favorite spring wildflowers up close. 

Here's what's blooming this month in our gorgeous natural areas.

Pawpaw

Pawpaw flowers may not be colorful or flashy, but these demure buds create delicious fruit that feeds many wildlife species, from gopher tortoises to raccoons and even black bears. The larvae of the zebra swallowtail butterfly feed exclusively on the leaves of several pawpaw species. Of the dozen or so species native to North America, eight can be found in Florida, and all of these produce edible fruit.  Pawpaw has been used for food by humans for thousands of years, but it goes from ripe to rotten in only a few days - making it difficult to find ripe fruit before wildlife eat it themselves!

Meadow beauty

Delicate meadow beauty flowers peep through the brush along the sides of grassy trails. There are around a dozen species of meadow beauty in Florida, with flower colors ranging from pink and purple to white or yellow, and they tend to prefer sunny areas like pine flatwoods and prairie. Most of the blooms you'll see in our parks and preserves are purple or pink with graceful yellow stamens. Meadow beauty blooms from early spring to fall and provides food for many of Florida's pollinator species.

Milkwort

Orange milkwort and yellow milkwort bloom in areas with relatively damp and acidic soil. These showy, cylindrical orange or yellow flowers are easy to see on grassy trail edges- they're much brighter than the flowers of many other species of milkwort, most of which have delicate lighter-colored blooms. Orange and yellow milkwort flowers appear from early spring through late fall all throughout Florida, and their seeds are widely dispersed by several species of ants, which are attracted to an oil produced by these bright plants.

Prickly pear

Often found in scrub habitat (aka the "Florida desert"), prickly pear cactus looks spiny and uninviting for much of the year. That all changes in the spring, when these pointy plants produce large, intensely bright yellow flowers. You can't miss a blooming prickly pear! Look for them along trails through sandy, well-drained soil and in sunny, grassy spots. The bright flowers give way to richly colored maroon fruits, which provide a vital food source for Florida wildlife and also for humans. Watch out, though - the fruits have prickly spines and have to be carefully treated before eating.

Thistles

Spiny, colorful, and alien-looking, thistles are members of the family Asteraceae, one of the the largest families of flowering plants in the world. Although often thought of as a noxious weed by farmers and ranchers, Florida's native thistle species provide nectar for many pollinators, as well as being a larval host plant for several butterfly species. Thistles grow in a very wide variety of conditions, from flooded to bone-dry, so keep an eye out for them at just about any nature preserve!