Nettles and claws

Here are two more wildflowers I saw at the Diamond Grove Prairie in southwestern Missouri on June 4. The first is horse nettle, Solanum carolinense. The second is catclaw sensitive briar, Mimosa quadrivalvis var. nuttalli.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Like a light in the dark

Here’s another picture from the Diamond Grove Prairie in southwestern Missouri on June 4. Scott Lenharth identified the wildflower as “One of the cinquefoils — I’m guessing the native Potentilla simplex.”

Two more native plants from southwest Missouri

The one above is Liatris pycnostachya. Its buds and flowers were still a long way off—this is a fall-blooming species—but look at the developmental patterns in this earlier stage. Below you see a lead plant, Amorpha canescens.

These pictures are from a June 4th visit to the Diamond Grove Prairie in southwest Missouri with Scott Lenharth, who identified the plants for me.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

A couple of other wildflowers in Missouri that were new to me

From the Diamond Grove Prairie southeast of Joplin, Missouri, that I visited on June 4, here are two more native wildflowers. The first is Tephrosia virginiana, known as goat’s rue. The second is Orbexilum pedunculatum, called Sampson’s snakeroot. You can see that both are in the legume family.

Thanks again to Scott Lenharth for taking us to this prairie and for identifying the plants there.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Gravelweed

From the Diamond Grove Prairie southeast of Joplin, Missouri, that I visited on June 4, here’s a flowering colony of gravelweed, Verbesina helianthoides. If the genus name is familiar, you may be remembering the Verbesina virginica whose wintry ice trick I’ve documented in these pages several times. Below is a closer look at the faded and frazzled buckeye butterfly, Junonia coenia, that’s not easily noticed in the overview above.

Thanks to Scott Lenharth for identifying the gravelweed, also known as yellow crownbeard, about which he added the following:

It’s having a great year.  My prairie reconstruction site has an increasing amount of it.  This is the plant several sources claim is a “savanna” or “open woodland” plant, but it thrives in many prairies.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Obedient

On June 2nd we left on a driving trip to the north-central United States that ended up covering over 3700 miles and lasting 21 days. On June 4th we met up with Scott Lenharth, a native plant person that we’ve known since his years in Austin. He’s now back in southwestern Missouri, and that’s where he took us to see the Diamond Grove Prairie several miles east of Joplin. The first thing I photographed was an obedient plant. Scott wrote later to say that it was probably “Physostegia virginiana.  I hesitate because P. angustifolia is virtually identical in this area of the country.  Both typically have thin leaves in SW MO, which is odd and unlike other parts of the country.  From plant lists the pattern seems to be that angustifolia prefers limestone-based drier prairies and glades.  All of that pondering aside, obedient plant is awesome.” May you all be duly awed.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman