By Amie Adams

Bernt Olaf Wolden (1886-1968) was a naturalist, botanist, and birder known as “The Observer.”

Writing under this pen name, he contributed a regular column called Nature Notes to The Estherville Daily News for almost forty years. In his column, Wolden educated and delighted readers with stories and lessons on plants and birds, and with his many observations of the natural world. In addition to his newspaper column, Wolden published papers with American Botanist and The Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science.

He was a member of the Iowa Academy of Science, a researcher at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, and a member of the Iowa Ornithologists Union. In an interview for The Estherville Daily News, he cited his upbringing on a farm at High Lake in Emmet County as the source of his passion for the natural world. He was free to explore the lakes, groves, and prairies during these formative years and learned as much from the land as he did from his textbooks and schoolteachers.

Together, the experiences of his rural childhood instilled in him a lifelong desire to know, to love, and to care for the natural world. His stories offer a window into a pivotal time in Iowa’s environmental history and remind today’s readers of the urgency with which we must work to protect the places we love. As you enter into these stories from Septembers past, ask yourself, what stories are unfolding around me today? 

The Goldenrod Deserves the Title “Miss America”

September 4, 1930

The goldenrod is a peculiar American flower. We may say ‘the’ goldenrod, for although there are numerous species, almost any of them can be recognized at sight as a goldenrod if we are familiar with the general appearance of the common species. There are about 125 species total, all of which are native only to the Americas—except two or three which belong to Europe. About 85 of these are found in the United States. No wonder there has been a strong sentiment in favor of making it the national flower when it is so almost entirely American in its distribution.

Goldenrods are mostly tall herbs with wand-like stems, usually with large terminal panicles of numerous small heads of yellow flowers. The early species—beginning to bloom in July—are followed by later-flowering varieties which continue to bloom until frost. In September they blossom everywhere on pastured prairie hillsides, in odd corners, in ditches, and along fences.

Probably no flower has received as much attention from American poets as has the goldenrod, and many of the allusions are to its golden plumes. Referring to its role of roadside flower are lines like “Along the roadside / like the flowers of gold / that tawny Incas for their gardens wrought / heavy with sunshine drops the goldenrod.” (John Greenleaf Whittier.) But it is also a flower of hills and wooded slopes, so someone else sings, “How deepening bright / like mounting flame doth burn / the goldenrod upon a thousand hills!” (Richard Watson Gilder.) 

In our vicinity are found eight species of goldenrod. Some of these are difficult to distinguish from each other, but a few are fairly easily recognized when some of their characteristics are pointed out. The Canada and the smooth goldenrods are our most common and our tallest species, growing almost everywhere. Perhaps the most distinct species is the stiff goldenrod of dry prairies and open woods and banks. This is quite stout with thick, rough leaves and large heads in a dense cluster. Along high wooded banks and shady slopes grow a woodland species with wide leaves and flowers in clusters in the axis of the upper leaves instead of in a terminal panicle. A person not familiar with it might not think of this as a goldenrod unless he knows that a few woodland species have flowers arranged in this manner.

The Wonder of the Many Little Things in Nature

September 27, 1961

If we have once become aware of the wonder of little things in nature, we never get done learning about them, looking at them and for them. Learning about them does not mean acquiring a scientific knowledge of them, or how to classify them scientifically, but to take the time first to notice them, then to observe their beauty and to see the unusual and strange things about them. There are folks who make but little progress when they walk through a wood because at every few steps they see something to wonder about. And in our vicinity there is much to see even though we do not have mountains, waterfalls, or seashore. Not only the state park, but the large woods across the river from our city and other natural woods in the area are replete with the small wonders of nature.

On the ground or on logs and stumps are many curious forms of plant life to be seen at every season, except when the snow lies deep. There are lichen forms on every tree trunk—shades of yellow, green, olive, or gray. On the soil in upland woods may be cup lichens like tiny fairy cups, large hair-cap moss, and beautiful beds of smaller mosses, raising their marvelous spore-bearing parts. There are brightly colored fungi of many sizes and shapes, among which are the orange scarlet Peziza and the earth stars which do not seem to belong on the ground. Most folks know about the wild flowers, appearing almost after the melting of the last snow and continuing often till the earliest snow fall, both in woods on our scant prairie remnants, but there are those who seldom take time to notice them.

The wonders of the insect world are unlimited. We see oddly-shaped, wonderfully-colored, or strangely-marked insects—bugs to most people, and many of them are bugs, but some are better called by other names. In the quiet pools are strange forms like skating water striders and around such places flit strangely-colored damsel flies and numerous kinds of other insects. During the past summer it has been interesting to learn how many people occasionally see the large and colorful night-flying moths, as several specimens have been brought to us during the summer. The statement is sometimes made that they have never seen anything like it before, and it is true that we do not see too many of some of these gorgeous moths in a lifetime.

The numerous tiny birds are also objects of wonder when we watch their many ways. Each summer we see the smallest of the birds, the hummingbird, and marvel at its mode of flight as it darts from flower to flower, sometimes hovering like a helicopter, remaining stationary in the air again and again, and as if reversing its motor, darts backwards.

Another memorable sight is what Burroughs called the spring reunions, or the mating festivals of the goldfinch. This is when in May or early June numbers of these birds gather at one spot, or on the ground and in bushes and trees above, singing their melodic song as they continually flit about. This may be along a river bank or right on a street in town, as we saw it on our street in May forenoon some years ago. These are but a few of the little wonders in nature, but such could fill a book. 

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A selection of 100 of Wolden’s Nature Notes and an accompanying biography can be found in The Observer: The Life and Writings of Bernt Olaf Wolden (2023). To learn more about the book or to purchase a copy, please visit www.amieadams.space/the-observer. All proceeds from book sales go to Emmet County Conservation to support nature education and conservation. 

Reprinted with permission from The Estherville Daily News.
Copyright © 2024 by Amie Adams
Photographs courtesy of Amie Adams, Kaleb Mortenson, Christina Rumpf and Zdenek Machacek.