This web site is an on-line guide to the wildflowers of the Saylorville Lake Recreation Area and the Des Moines River Greenbelt in central Iowa. Please send comments to the author.
The Saylorville Lake recreation area is located in central Iowa, about eight miles north of the city of Des Moines. The area is characterized by the following features: Saylorville Lake, a 6000 acre reservoir that lies within the Des Moines River Valley and is contained by Saylorville Dam; the Des Moines River Corridor, below the dam, into which the reservoir flows; and the Recreational Land bordering Saylorville Lake, which is administered by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The recreational complex also includes two adjacent public areas: Lewis Jester, County Park, to the northwest of Saylorville Lake, and Big Creek State Park, to the northeast. The entire complex covers about 26,000 acres.
Two major vegetation zones are associated with the Saylorville Lake
Recreation Area: bottom-land forest along the Des Moines River, south of
the dam, and upland forest, from Saylorville Dam north to Big Creek Lake.
These wooded landscapes are periodically interrupted by ponds, oxbows, streams,
fields, parcels of planted and native prairie, roads, and the park-like
camping and picnic sites within the complex. These diverse habitats provide
the area with a variety of wildflowers throughout the growing season.
The Des Moines River corridor below Saylorville Dam, to the south, is particularly
rich in early spring flowers, which include intermittent stands of False
Rue Anemone, Phlox, Waterleaf, and other species. Later into summer and
fall these are replaced by a variety of sunflowers, Impatiens, and
an occasional American Bellflower.
The area above the dam, to the north, is frequented by the scattered presence
of wildflowers belonging to several plant families. Examples include Spring
Beauty, Toothwort, Wild Strawberry, Pussytoes, Columbine, Flowering Spurge,
Butter-fly Weed, Wild Bergamot, Compass Plant, and a variety of clovers,
sunflowers, and asters.
The Saylorville Lake Recreation Area enjoys many visitors, and has numerous
recreational facilities for water sports, camping, picnicking, hiking, and
bicycling. A multipurpose/bicycle trail extends for a distance of about
25 miles along the east side of the river and lake. The trail leads from
the Des Moines City Hall and Botanical Center, at its southern terminus,
to the northeast shore of Big Creek Lake, at its northern terminus. A journey
along this trail provides access to those habitats in which most of the
wildflowers presented here have been observed. These habitats include woodlands,
prairies, wetlands, fields, roadsides, and parks.
Many wildflower species present in the Saylorville Lake area also occur
in Ledges State Park, which lies in the Des Moines River valley at the northern
reaches of the Saylorville Lake flood plain, and in Dolliver State Park,
in the Des Moines River valley in Webster County (see Technical
References 5 and 7 ).
It is hoped that this web site will help the viewer become familiar with the wildflowers that occur in the Saylorville Lake Recreation Area as well as other natural settings along the Des Moines River.