Yellow Prairie Beauties

Yellow Sweet Clover

"The holy eye is the one who is able to see the extraordinary beauties of the ordinary days."  Mehmet Murat ildan  

ProfessorRoush came across this quote this week and thought it worth sharing along with a few photos of the current floral life of the Tallgrass prairie.   It's YELLOW out there, everywhere, as Spring begins to close out and Summer rushes in.   Even the birds are yellow, as evidenced by this American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) hanging upside down on my feeder.      

Yellow Sweet Clover

This airy yellow forb (and the one on the top left) is Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis), a biennial legume which is one of the first plants to colonize disturbed ground.  And if I wasn't an avid reader, or didn't know about kswildflower.org, I wouldn't know that its leaves release a vanilla odor when crushed.  I'm just not in the habit of crushing random plants, but perhaps I should learn.

Sulphur Cinquefoil

The bright yellow of Yellow Sweet Clover is mirrored by the yellow of the aptly-named Sulphur Cinquefoil (Potentilla recta) a non-native species which can become a noxious weed in some areas but seems to behave itself in competition with the prairie grasses.  This plant, a member of the Rose family, or Rosaceae, won't bloom but for a few weeks, but I welcome its "happy face" during late May and early June.

The purple-eyed yellow wildflower pictured on both sides here is another introduced species named Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattariais), another biennial which is, thankfully because it is a non-native, rare on my prairie.  This single specimen, in fact, was the only one I saw this morning, but it's delicate petals were easily spotted above the still-shorter grasses.  Apparently, it can have either pure white or yellow petals, but surprisingly, kswildflower.org doesn't mention this color variation in the text.  

The Wikipedia entry for Moth Mullein correctly describes the color variation, as well as the faint purple tinge on some petals.  Wikipedia also described an experiment by Dr. William James Beal, that, after 121 years of storage, had a 50% germination rate from 23 Moth Mullein seeds (which the skeptic in me questions because how do you get exactly 50% germination of 23 seeds?   Perhaps 11/23 seeds germinated and they rounded up?).

Goat's Beard

A final, easy-to-spot yellow nonnative "weed" blooming now is Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius), a tall and ubiquitous member of the Sunflower family that I am pulling up by the bucketfuls from my garden beds.  I leave it alone on the prairie, but, oh how I wish that it didn't spread everywhere by floating seeds similar to a dandelion.  Pulling it barehandedly, the sticky latex sap of this plant is a slight irritant to my palms and really gets my goat. Kswildflowers.org says specifically that it's not an aggressive weed, but I disagree.  Goat's Beard has a long deep taproot that grips firmly when the soil is dry and often just breaks off, but it will pull up intact and whole after a rain, if I'm careful.

Canada Warbler

I'll leave you today with one final spot of yellow, this very young Canada Warbler (Cardellina canadensis) that I found near the College sitting patiently on the ground as if it had fallen from a nest and couldn't fly.  You may be seeing more birds here in the blog, periodically, because this summer I'm on a bird-watching and bird-feeding journey and I'm noticing them everywhere now that I'm looking for them.  I hope you'll indulge my newest passion while I learn; I won't stop blogging about gardens, but every new enthusiasm makes me only better able to grasp and enjoy the "beauties of ordinary days."

June Native Wildflowers II

Oh dear, a potential obstacle has developed that might affect my plans to leave areas of the yard unmown so that I can "cultivate" the native prairie forbs this year.  I was walking the back garden last night with Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the Primary Rabbit- and Snake-chaser, when Mrs. ProfessorRoush suddenly realized that I have been merely cutting paths through the back yard and was planning to allow most of the native prairie grass to grow for the summer.  She was, to put it mildly, neither impressed by my ecological correctness nor amused when I tried to change the subject by getting her to notice a new rose.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush seems to care less about the potential for beautiful prairie wildflowers than she does about increasing her potential for encountering snakes, mice, chiggers, ticks, and other natural creatures.  So, enjoy the pictures below, because I don't know how long I'm going to be able to let these plants bloom!



A yellow wildflower that is just now coming into bloom are my stalwart Black-eyed Susan's (Rudbeckia hirta) that self-seed through my back patio bed and over the prairie.  In fact, the pictured flower just opened and is the first of many to come this year.  I have a few of these every year, and they bloom dependably through July, but seem sometimes to get a little mildew and the stems and leaves are eaten occasionally by an unidentified insect pest. These cheery little guys seem to be more prevalent than normal this year.  I can understand the cause in the patio bed since I haven't yet mulched that bed this year, trying to encourage growth of the self-seeders, but I can't explain why they're increased on the prairie. 

The delicate, but drought-resistant, Missouri Evening Primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa) is always a welcome sight, as is the related white form of the Showy Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa).  These almost translucent flowers open at sunset and close by mid-morning, so the best time for viewing them is while dew still coats the grass.  They face upwards when they first open, allowing themselves to be pollinated by a night-flying moth, and then turn their faces downwards after pollination, hanging their heads in apparent embarrassment after the sex act has occurred.  I guess the flowers at the right were still virgins.

The not-so-delicate Buffalo Bur (Solanum rostratum) will grab you with it's prickly leaves and spiny calyces (burrs) if you aren't watching out carefully.  This nightshade family member, also known as "Kansas Thistle," thrives on disturbed ground and is extremely drought-resistant and an aggressive self-seeder.  At maturity, the main stem breaks off and the dry bush is blown around the prairie like a tumbleweed, scattering seed as it goes.



The strangely named Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is eaten by grazers and the mature seed-head resembles a giant dandelion showing a large white ball of plumed seeds.   The edible roots of Goat's Beard are reported to taste like parsnip or oysters (do those taste alike?) and the plant contains a milky latex sap that was chewed as gum by our prairie ancestors. 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria) is another oddly named prairie forb that comes in both white and yellow flowers.  We consider it a Kansas native, although the species is actually native to Eurasia.  The individual blooms are a natural artwork of color and form when examined closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I've identified most of these forbs correctly so far in the last two posts, but I lose some confidence on the myriad of small yellow composite-form flowers that inhabit the prairie.  One of those blooming right now is (I think) properly named Prairie Groundself (Packera plattensis).  If I've got the name of this one wrong, I'm sorry.   This one can be poisonous to cattle, but is rarely consumed in enough quantity to cause a clinical problem.

 

 

 

 

   

And somewhere out there amongst the prairie grass, the Killdeer eggs are still incubating in the Kansas sun: