White sage on a Wisconsin hillside

Photographed this week on the West Knoll of the Grady Tract of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, while on a hike with the Friends of the Arboretum.

I always prefer to hike and photograph on cloudy or overcast days when the diffuse light offers better images (IMHO) that those taken in bright sunshine with stark contrasts of light and dark.  

Intermixed with the sage are some young sumac plants sporting their October colors (parent plants in the background).  The hillside is a remnant prairie.

This sage is, I believe, a species of Artemisia, which is a bit different from the shrub-sized salvia in California - also referred to as "white sage" - which has been the subject of a report in Vice entitled The White Sage Black Market.

October is prime leaf-peeping season in Wisconsin, so I hope to continue with some additional posts in the weeks ahead.   This particular hike was a three-hour exploration led by Michael Hansen, the Arboretum's land care manager, who

discussed the glacial morphology of the land and explained what the University is doing to combat invasive species such as the bittersweet vines and the everpresent buckthorn.  "Rewilding" two hundred acres in the center of a city is not an easy task.