Spring Wildflowers in Stork Forest

Stork Forest is the wooded area of the Upper Arboretum just beyond the bridge over Spring Creek when you enter the Arboretum from Second Street. It's named after Harvey Stork, a former professor of biology at Carleton and a founder of the Arboretum back in the 1920s. In the Twenties, as local farmers were converting from wood-burning stoves to furnaces that burned fossil fuels, they saw an opportunity to convert their wood lots into arable land. As the farmers were clearing their land, Carleton's legendary groundskeeper, D. Blake Stewart ("Stewsie") drove around the countryside collecting wildflowers from the doomed woods to transplant in Stork Forest. The bloodroot, hepatica, trout lilies, and rue anemone found there today are the legacy of Stork and Stewsie.

Hepatica

Bloodroot

Trout Lily