Strange and Beautiful

We discovered a new wildflower a few days ago. Check out this Catclaw Sensitive Briar:

Here's a closer look at the flowers:

They are really cool. We also have prairie larkspur blooming all over. Kansas Dad is going to mow soon because the grass near the house is about knee-deep, but we've decided to leave open the space in front of the driveway so we can continue to enjoy all the wildflowers (and frankly, it would take a month to mow it all with the push mower he's going to borrow).

More Fun Wildflower Identification

I think this is Hedge Bindweed.

The two above are Pale Poppy Mallow.

Don't these look strange? They're Blunt-Leaf Milkweed (or Sand Milkweed).

I'm pretty sure this is Violet Wood Sorrel. The pictures of the flowers are at different angles, but the leaves look the same.

I'm pretty sure the two pictures above are Purple Poppy-Mallow.

Above we have some patches of Yellow Sweet Clover.

The kids and I picked a few of the wildflowers for a bouquet. They don't always survive the trip indoors and into a vase very well, but it's fun (especially for First Daughter). Above we have Goat's Beard (unfortunately, all closed up so you can't see how much fun it is), some of the Violet Wood Sorrel (most of which did not like the vase very much), Prairie Larkspur (one of my favorites though we don't seem to have a lot of it here on the Range), and Annual Fleabane.

I'm glad I took pictures of these flowers. We've had a lot of rain recently so our grasses are growing quite wild. We'll be having the "lawn" mowed soon and will loose most of the flowers when we do. I'm tempted to leave more of it for them, but it also harbors ticks and bunnies, so all the stuff close to the house will be sheared off.

Kansas Dad's Discovery

Kansas Dad spotted this praying mantis a few weeks ago and, in proper homeschooling fashion, ran back outside with First Son and the camera for a nature lesson.



On a related topic, this is the third flowering vine on our trellis. I believe it's a different kind of clematis than on the other side, something like this. There may also be a fourth vine, maybe one that doesn't flower. It's a bit overwhelming to me, and the first clematis, the one I like the best, has been mostly overgrown by the other vines, so I'm tempted to cut them all back to the roots and see if we can sort them out a bit. I know one of the others is a honeysuckle vine, which brings back fond memories of my youth so I'm inclined to keep it as well. Anyone know if these types of vines can be transplanted? (Not that I know where else we'd put them.)

Our Chinese Lanterns

This little plant is growing wild in one of our front beds. I took a few pictures of it the other day because it looked so interesting to me.



It seems to be a Chinese lantern (Physalis alkekengii or Physalis longifolia, I'm not sure which), and will eventually look like this. How cool is that?

You can find more information here, here, here, here and here.