Kansas: one out of five

Last month we drove up to Kansas City for the wedding of a former student of mine. On the way back home on April 25th we came south through Kansas along US 169, and after I saw some wildflowers I felt compelled to stop in two places. I ended up photographing five species, of which only one turned out to be native. That’s a terrible average, but I guess I should be thankful for the one native: Baptisia australis, known as wild blue indigo, blue wild indigo, and blue false indigo*. One characteristic I noticed about this species is that the plant’s stems feel stiff and rubbery.

Last year I posted two pictures of Baptisia alba, white wild indigo, from our visit to Illinois.

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* Those names are zero for three in color accuracy, at least for me, because my eyes and brain see the color of these flowers as violet or purple.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman