Minnesota Wildflowers

Minnesota Wildflowers is an online field guide to plants found growing wild in Minnesota, both native and non-native.

The Minnesota Wildflowers online field guide is the "go to" place to identify and learn about plants growing wild in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. The project was started in 2007 as a private endeavor by an amateur, in response to the lack of both quality and quantity of information about Minnesota plants available to non-botanists. For the first seven years, all work was done on a voluntary basis and most expenses paid for out-of-pocket by the volunteers. It now profiles over 1700 species of forbs, trees, shrubs, grasses, sedges and ferns, with the ultimate goal of profiling all 2100+ plant species in the state. Minnesota Wildflowers became a nonprofit organization in 2012 to provide some security for the project as a public resource in perpetuity.

The website has become an important botanical resource for natural resource managers, educators, gardeners, and nature lovers of all experience levels--anyone interested in the answer to: What is that plant - and is it a weed or not? In 2020, over 1 million users were served, viewing 6.4 million web pages.

In 2014, the project received partial funding from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which was extended for another 3 years in 2017 and ended June, 2020. The funding covered all publishing plus field work within Minnesota and allowed our tiny staff of two to dedicate their full resources to the project. At this point in the project we're down to the last 300+ species left to publish. Your donations help cover this and other operating expenses. It also allows us to build a safety net for the future as well as work on upgrades to the website itself.

If you find Minnesota Wildflowers is a useful resource, your donation will help us make it bigger and better.

Thank you for your support!

Katy Chayka
President and Creator
Minnesota Wildflowers