Prairie Gardens

Also known as: common pasqueflower, cutleaf anemone

Often the first flower to bloom in the spring, crocuses grow between 8-12cm tall. The leaves and stem are covered in a white fuzz which helps protect the plant from cool weather. The flower is typically a light purple with a bright yellow stamen.

Like other pasque flowers, the prairie crocus is poisonous when consumed and irritant when contacted. Still, some First Nations used crushed crocus leaves as a counter-irritant, similarly to the Canada anemone. This species is the provincial flower of Manitoba.

Also known as: ball cactus, bell cactus, cushion cactus, spinystar, viviparous foxtail cactus

This small perennial cactus grows low to the ground and can often be missed when not flowering. These plants prefer rocky or sandy soil and south-facing hills. Flowering after rains, flowers are pink in hue and last briefly.

Also known as: hairspine cactus, panhandle prickly-pear, plains prickly-pear, starvation prickly-pear

Flowers from June-July with numerous showing blossoms with a distinct waxy lemon/yellow colour. The blossoms produce an edible spicy-sweet berry. This cactus grows on the open dry prairie and is edible.

The fruits of this plant are edible (once the seed is removed), and have been eaten raw, cooked into stews and soups, or dried for later use.

Also known as: Arctic sage, fringed sagebrush, prairie sagewort

Pasture sage is a perennial flowering plant of the composite family and found throughout North America, including the dry grasslands. It is a food of the sage grouse.

Although most sages cause allergic reactions, they have found use as a medicine and treatment for many purposes. As well, its smudges repel insects and have found ritual and practical use in many First Nations.

Also known as: sticky sagebrush, silver wormwood, hoary sagebrush, dwarf sagebrush

This perennial woody shrub is a true sign of the prairies. Small dusty yellow flowers that bloom in July and August. The feathery achenes give the plant an overall woolly appearance. Flowers appear in August. Sage is distinguished by its distinctive aroma.

Although most sages cause allergic reactions, they have found use as a medicine and treatment for many purposes. As well, its smudges repel insects and have found ritual and practical use in many cultures.

Also known as: ashly goldenrod, soft goldenrod

The velvety goldenrod is common on dry prairie land and roadsides growing 20-50 cm high. The entire plant is covered with very fine, short velvety hairs.

Goldenrod plants have found use in salads, soups, stews, and teas, as well as many medicinal uses. They are, however, a common allergen to some.

Also known as: prairie flax

This drought-resistant perennial produces narrow stems and dark blue-green leaves. It flowers in June-July, with multiple pale blue flowers blooming on each stem. The flowers only last one day, but flax continually produces flowers for weeks.

Flax has been made into flour and meal, has been used as a treatment for rashes and burns, and has been cultivated in modern times for its seeds to make oil and its fibres to make linen.

Blue Grama, 20-50 cm tall, is an erect densely tufted perennial growing from fibrous roots and is common in the dry prairie habitat. Each stem has two, sometimes three, flower heads. When the heads first emerge they look like miniature combs and upon maturing, they resemble false eyelashes.

This species is the state grass of Colorado and New Mexico.

Also known as: Silver-leafed Milkvetch

This member of the legume family is common across the dry prairies. With grey-green pinnate leaves and clusters of purple flowers that start blooming in June, these plants are a burst of colour on the plains.

The Two-grooved Milkvetch is poisonous.

Also known as: bullberry, thorny buffaloberry

This tall perennial shrub has brownish-yellow flowers that appear in May-June. The bright red berry is harvested and used to make jelly.

The buffaloberry has found many uses as a medicine—such as to treat flu and indigestion—and especially as a food. The Blackfoot (Siksikaitsitapi), for example, have eaten buffalo berries fresh in summer and dried in winter, preserving them in jellies or cooked with sugar to make pudding.

Also known as: silverberry

This perennial low growing shrub blooms in June with tiny fragrant blossoms. Produces a silvery mealy berry containing a large seed. Grows in the moisture draws of the prairie.

As the wolf willow’s berry is dry and dispreferred, its berries are often overlooked (except in times of famine) in favour of its bark, which has been used as a medicine, such as to take away the sting of a frostbite or a sunburn.

Also known as: bird cherry, bitterberry

The Chokecherry is a tree/shrub species in the rose family that is well-known in Saskatchewan for its fruits and distribution throughout the province. The plant can grow up to 6m tall, and its white flowers appear May-June. Its ripe fruit is a deep purple to black small cherry.

Like other cherries, the flesh of the chokecherry is well-known for its tart taste, which has been eaten raw, dried, or added into many other foods, such as pemmican, pies, soups, and stews.

Also known as: bush cinquefoil, golden hardhack, kuril tea, shrubby five-finger, widdy

A common bushy shrub that can reach a metre or more in height. Yellow flowers appear from June through August. The flowers measure 20 to 25 mm in diameter and have five petals. Some field guides refer to Shrubby Cinquefoil as Potentilla fruticosa.

The shrubby cinquefoil has found use as a tea, a tinder, and a treatment for body aches.

Also known as: prairie smoke, old man’s whiskers

This wildflower is a low, colony-forming perennial with soft hairy stems. In May-June the torch-like flowers are pink to purple produced in groups of three per plant at the ends of the stems. It is also known as prairie smoke.

Avens have found use as a medicine in numerous ways, being known for their astringent properties.

Also known as: interior rose, mountain rose, pearhip rose, prairie rose, Woods’ rose

Pink flowers appear in June-August. The wild rose produces a fruit called a rose-hip. The rose-hip becomes bright red when it is ripe. This low branching shrub grows in uncultivated areas throughout the prairies.

Wild roses have found medicinal and practical use over time, as well as culinary use (as most parts of the plant are edible). Its relative, the prickly rose, is the provincial flower of Alberta.

Also known as: common gypsophila, panicled baby’s-breath

Also known as: bluebell, Scottish bluebell

Found across all manner of habitats from grassland to boreal forest to sand dunes, the harebell is identifiable by its thin stem and 5-lobed, purple-blue bell shaped flowers that bloom from July-September. These slender perennials grow from 10-80 cm tall, and the blossoms are turned down to protect the pollen and nectar from the elements.

Northern bedstraw has white flower heads and stands 20-50 cm high. It was once used for stuffing mattresses and pillows because of its faint fragrance. The northern bedstraw, in particular, can be found in meadows, prairies, and open woodlands across Canada.

When dried and roasted, the seeds of this plant can make a coffee substitute because this plant belongs to the same family as the coffee plant (the bedstraw family is also called the coffee family).

Also known as: scarlet globemallow

This is a low growing plant with salmon coloured flowers. The leaves are green-grey and hairy. The scarlet mallow is commonly found in dry waste places and on roadsides.

Mallow leaves have been eaten raw, cooked, and used in soups and teas, though their most common use has been in medicine—mallow is known for its anti-inflammatory properties.