Lead Plant

The lead plant (also spelled leadplant and lead-plant, also false indigo because of its resemblance to the indigo plant) appears throughout the central portion of the United States and Canada. This native Kansas perennial grows to three feet in height. The weight of the leaves and flowers cause the plant to droop. With age, it becomes woody, where not disrupted by fires or browsing from animals. The young stems and leaves are light green and covered with white hairs. New plants can be propagated from the stems.

Lead Plant, Butler County near El Dorado Lake

The small purple flowers are arranged along spikes, about 2-6" long, giving the appearance of a feather duster. The color ranges from light to deep purple. Each flower has a tubular petal.The reddish to orange stamens and yellow anthers are showy.

Lead Plant flower

Lead Plant flower

The young stems have a similar appearance to that of the unrelated fern except that the leaves alternate along a central stem. The are light green and covered with white hairs.

Lead Plant leaves

Lead Plant leaves

Native Americans used the leadplant leaves to make a tea with which they would treat pinworms, eczema, rheumatism, neuralgia, and cuts. Some tribes smoked the dried leaves and buffalo fat, believing that it could attract buffalo to the person that had it on their clothing. These tribes called the flower "buffallo bellows" as the flowering occurred at the time of year when the buffalo was in rut.


See USDA, Leadplant. 

Small Bluets

Small Bluet, Tiny Bluet, Star Violet

 
This tiny low growing blue flower is to be found in fields and pastures, along roadsides, and in other open sunny places, including cemeteries and lawns, sometimes painting an entire lawn blue in early spring. This patch of Small Bluets was found just outside Brownlow cemetery in Butler County, Kansas.

Small Bluet, Brownlow cemetery, April 2014

Flowers are smaller than a dime, resting at the top of a slender stem often poking up from a bed of dry grass; 4 petals, blue to purple-violet or white with a reddish-purple center and a yellow throat; always looking skyward. Blooms March-April.

Small Bluet, Kansas Wildflower

The tiny bluet is also known as the Star Violet or Tiny Bluet. It is a member of the genus Rubiaceae and Madder family.

There are even smaller species found in wet areas along creeks and river banks.

Prickly Pear Cactus in Bloom

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.

That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table in his bachelor apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the species of cacti, and was provided with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion...

Read more of O. Henry's short story The Cactus.

Prickly Pear Cactus in bloom

A conclusion for O'Henry's short story might be that love demands the truth.

Prickly Pear Cactus in bloom

This is a group of yellow and red flowers from a prickly pear cactus is in full bloom. After flowering, the succulent red fruit develops. This photo was taken in a Sedgwick County park in June of 2014. No, I am not going to tell you where.

The photo was taken with an iphone 5 while I was out for a run. Excuse my finger in the first shot.

Prickly Pear Cactus in bloom

 Moral of the story, be prepared and take your phone along with you when run.

Catalpa

Catalpa flower

 

Catalpa Flower

Be quick

Enjoy the Catalpa’s beauty

For its beauty is too brief.

A mass of white flowers in May

And then no more for a year

A flower at first sight

Like a cotton ball then an orchid

Do I see
In its beauty

The eye of a witch

Delicate and inviting

Bewitching all comers

Its odor quite enchanting

Until, I find this strumpet stings

A wasp buried in its trumpet
This bitch just bit my nose

That brings me to my senses

One of the prettiest flowers in Kansas grows on the Catalpa tree, native to Kansas and much of the south. The flower gives the appearance of a white Iris or orchid.

Put your nose up to the blossom and smell the fragrant odor. But beware, the blossom attracts all sorts of insects and especially wasp whose bodies are perfectly matched for the flower.

Catalpa tree along stream bank, Butler County, Kansas

It is found along stream banks, lowland wooded areas, requiring moist but well-drained soils. It is an ornamental tree and therefore is used in landscaping. It flowers in May and June and by October produces long seed pods.

Catalpa blossom, Butler County, Kansas

Another interesting feature are the large tear-drop leaves, which can be 6 to 12 inches long, and almost as wide. The color is bright green. In fall the leaves turn dark brown or black from frost and drop to the ground soon thereafter.

Catalpa flower and wasp

Learn more Kansas Wild Flowers

Showy Evening Primrose

The flower of the Showy Evening Primrose opens in the evening or on overcast days, remaining open through the morning but closing during the heat of the day. Hawk moths, hummingbirds, and bees pollinate the flowers. The plant flowers in May and June and is found along roadside and in hills in dry rocky soil. The flower has four petals and is white with an occasional pinkish tinge.

Showy Evening Primrose

This image was taken on a roadside in southern Butler County near Douglass, Kansas in early May 2014.

Cucumber Beetle, Showy Evening Primrose

 The flower can make good food for the Cucumber Beetle. It can also take on a pinkish hue.

Crustose Lichen

A lichen is not a flower, but it can be interesting and pretty enough to take a picture. These photographs were taken in April of 2014 on a walk through Pawnee Prairie Park in Wichita, Kansas.

Lichen, crustose with spore pods (capsule)

Xanthoria parietina, whose color ranges from golden to orange, is conspicuous on rocks and trees often forming a thick shield. Observe the dark grey to black portions of the lichen which are dead.

Xanthoria parietina with spore pods (capsule)

A lichen is not one but two symbiotic plants, usually a combination of fungus and algae. The fungus surrounds the algae protecting its cells and providing water and nutrients. In return, the algae, as in plants, reduce carbon dioxide into carbon sugars to feed both symbionts.

Xanthoria parietina lichen on tree bark

Lichen forming crusts firmly attached to the rocks and trees, on which they grow so that they can't be removed without damage are called crustose lichen because of their crust-like appearance.

Wild Violet

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

Paul Simon, April Come She Will


[Click on the link to listen to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sing April Come She Will]

wild violet, kansas

wild violet, kansas, white and blue

Wild violet is a low-growing perennial found either singly or in clumps. It has waxy dark-green heart-shaped leaves that can cup toward the petiole and form a funnel shape. The flowers range in color from deep purple to pale blue and even white. The flower has five petals in the shape of an upside down star. The flower stem is shaped like a hooked cane. 

The plant has a fibrous root system and spreads by rhizomes and seeds. 

Kansas, Wild Violet, April 2014

Wild violet grows best in shaded, fertile sites and prefers moist soil. In woodlands when a bit of sun allows, it often is seen poking up from a pile of leaves. The violet is an early spring flower, first seen in mid-April. 

wild violet, blue and white

The violet flower connotes a delicate love. Roman and Greek myths tell the tragic story. Diana's (Artemis) nymph companions had sworn to stay maidens. One nymph was chased day and night by Apollo, Diana's twin brother. To protect her modesty, Diana changed the nymph into a violet. The term “shrinking violet” connotes a shy girl.

wild violet, five petals, cane shaped stem

Perhaps this is why Romans shower a spring salad with the pretty purple flower. 

Other recipes and uses of the Wild Violet.