And, I'm not asking for a friend, either-- I can't figure out which one it is!

Okay, here's the backstory on this. I was out earlier this week enjoying this gorgeous stretch of weather we've been having and went on a 3-mile hike with our dog, Asher. We were walking along a lovely country road just west of Rochester, not too far from our house, and I was minding my own business when I noticed this particularly brilliant flower growing amongst the other prairie grasses and plants.

A few years ago, I saw signs along this same area that noted the area was part of the Minnesota Native Prairie Bank, a program administered by the DNR to help control runoff and other issues.

But, while I haven't seen those signs along this stretch recently, it looks like the prairie and its native Minnesota wildflowers are doing just fine. Because I couldn't stop looking at this purple flower.

Of course, I took a picture of it (which you can see above and to the left-- and, yes, I'm old enough now to start taking pictures of pretty flowers, apparently) but I'm not quite sure which wildflower it is.

According to the Minnesota Wildflowers site (and, yes, there really is one) and its list of purple wildflowers, it looks like it could possibly be a either a Dotted Blazing Star (that'd be your Liatris punctata) or maybe the Prairie Blazing Star (which is, of course, the Liatris pycnostachya).

But I don't know nearly enough about our native wildflowers (or have enough of a green thumb maybe) to know for sure.

Do you know which flower this is?

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

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