MN Scientific and Natural Areas (SNA) protect the last remaining habitat for Minnesota’s rarest plants and animals. Recreation is limited to protect this habitat and natural diversity.
Vivid orange crustose lichen drapes the bedrock shores and crowns the cliffs of this site near Grand Marais, located within Cascade River State Park. Butterwort Cliffs SNA consists of a narrow, 43-acre strip of land between Highway 61 and Lake Superior, with wet rocky shore and dry bedrock shore communities, fringed by aspen-birch forest.
Butterwort, for which this SNA is named, is an insectivorous plant that grows in fragile mats. Its leaves are equipped with two glands: one that secretes a sticky solution that traps insects and the other, the enzymes to digest them. It is recognized by its blue-purple flowers appearing singly on slender stems arising from a basal rosette of yellow-green leaves, often found clustered in overlapping patches. Look closely, you’ll likely see insects that have met their match.
