BiodiverseCity St. Louis

Ozark witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis)

Photo: Missouri Botanical Garden

Winter brings chilly temperatures and gray skies to Missouri, but keep an eye out for certain species that are about to bloom, such as the Ozark witch hazel! 

Native to the Ozark Plateau, from southern Missouri to northwestern Arkansas, this deciduous shrub thrives in the winter months.  

This shrub produces flowers in clusters that appear mid-to-late winter, January to mid-March in the St. Louis region. These flowers bloom in a variety of colors from pale yellow to dark red, almost purple. In the fall, Ozark witch hazel produces a capsule fruit that splits to release its seeds.  

The genus name comes from Greek hama, meaning “at the same time”, and melon, meaning apple or fruit, in reference to the fact that this shrub produces both flowers and fruit at the same time in the fall.  

Ozark witch hazel is well loved, not only for its winter bloom but also for its high tolerance to erosion, making it an excellent candidate for rain gardens planted for stormwater management. While many other rain garden plants go dormant this time of year, Ozark witch hazel thrives and brings winter interest to any landscape. The plant is incredibly winter tolerant, the petals curl up on cold days as an adaptive mechanism to protect themselves from frost damage. 

Learn more about Ozark witch hazel on Missouri Botanical Garden’s PlantFinder website.

—Hannah Gibson
Community Conservation Coordinator, Missouri Botanical Garden

A rare yellow cardinal draws eyes to St. Louis bird-watching

Save the date! The City Nature Challenge, a global bioblitz competition, is April 25–28

NPR Episode “Are biodiversity efforts keeping up with the effects of climate change?”

Biodiversity trends can tell us a lot about climate change effects, as in a recent National Public Radio podcast episode from their Consider This segment titled “Are biodiversity efforts keeping up with the effects of climate change?” 

This episode, hosted by Juana Summers, discusses the loss of biodiversity as one of the “worst effects of climate change on display.” 

Podcast guest and website editor Giuliana Viglione encourages listeners to view biodiversity as the “health of our planet.” The collective actions of human beings are responsible for decreases in biodiversity, which threatens many aspects of our daily lives including clean air, food, and water.  

This episode talks about the 16th United Nations Conventions on Biological Diversity hosted in Columbia last fall, in which world leaders gathered to discuss strategies to combat biodiversity loss. NPR’s Nathan Rott reports on this conference, challenging countries to go beyond their current ideas and rethink their economic impact on biodiversity. When asked why the loss of nature is a problem for humanity, Rott replies “We all breathe, eat, and drink water, right? That might be a good place to start.” 

I find it both inspirational and disheartening, at the same time, to think about how we’re all in this together. Living creatures, of all sizes and abilities, depend on one another. In this episode, we hear from chief scientist, Rebecca Shaw, who says there’s a chance the Amazon rainforest could tip to be a savannah or grassland, which would drastically change the biodiversity of the region, resulting in instability of our food supply. 

We’re all responsible, and yet, we all have the ability to make change. Learning that world leaders are getting together to generate ideas, and working intentionally to implement those plans, is just the beginning. It reminds me of this group, BiodiverseCity STL, a collaborative initiative to plan for biodiversity efforts in the St. Louis region. I am personally so inspired by the work we’re doing locally and inspired to hear there’s global discussions on biodiversity happening as well. Imagine what we could come up with and accomplish if we all prioritized biodiversity initiatives as a way to mitigate climate change. 

—Hannah Gibson
Community Conservation Coordinator, Missouri Botanical Garden