{"id":5107,"date":"2015-06-01T16:06:55","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T21:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=5107"},"modified":"2015-06-01T16:06:55","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T21:06:55","slug":"prairie-wonders-and-a-plant-id-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=5107","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Wonders and a Plant ID Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Flower 1<\/p><\/div>\n

Aldo saw things that others don’t:<\/p>\n

Every July I watch eagerly a certain country graveyard that I pass in driving to and from my farm. It is time for a prairie birthday, and in one corner of this graveyard lives a surviving celebrant of that once important event.<\/p>\n

It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered by the usual spruces, and studded with the usual pink granite or white marble headstones, each with the usual Sunday bouquet of red or pink geraniums. It is extraordinary only in being triangular instead of square, and in harboring, within the sharp angle of its fence, a pin-point remnant of the native prairie on which the graveyard was established in the 1840’s. Heretofore unreachable by sythe or mower, this yard-square relic of original Wisconsin gives birth, each July, to a man-high stalk of compass plant or cutleaf Silphium, spangled with saucer-sized yellow blooms resembling sunflowers. It is the sole remnant of this plant along this highway, and perhaps the sole remnant in the western half of our county. What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.—Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac, excerpt from\u00a0http:\/\/www.panojohnson.com\/leopold-quotes.html#silphium<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The abundant rain this spring postponed our KABT field trip but the upside is that the prairies are lush. \u00a0KABT members and naturalists in general should be getting out and checking on the ever changing floral display that defines our prairies.<\/p>\n

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Flower 2<\/p><\/div>\n

It is a beautiful time of the year and it changes daily. \u00a0The weather is cool. The birds are singing, and so are the 17 year cicadas.<\/p>\n

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The only downside is that you’ve got to watch out for ticks. \u00a0However, many of the sites you can visit have wide trails that make picking up ticks less likely. \u00a0I’ve made two trips to the Konza this week only 4 days apart and I’m astounded at the change in just that short amount of time. \u00a0Biology teachers and naturalists don’t want to miss out. \u00a0Get out to your nearest prairie and see if you can’t discover\u00a0the soul of the prairie.<\/p>\n

Carol went along on the last trip.<\/p>\n

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Not blooming but still identifiable: Flower 3<\/p><\/div>\n

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There are several prairies around that can be visited. \u00a0The Konza<\/a> leads the list but there is also the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve<\/a>. \u00a0In Lawrence you have have the KU Field station <\/a>north of town and the Prairie Park <\/a>on the east side of town. \u00a0Kill Creek Park<\/a> in Johnson county and the Prairie Center<\/a>\u00a0both have excellent remnant prairies to visit.<\/p>\n

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Flower 4<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s not hard to learn to identify many of the flowers with today’s resources. \u00a0Load up Mike Haddock’s Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses<\/a> web page and you’ll likely find the answer to most of the flowers you’ll come across. \u00a0Think of the flower images in this post as\u00a0a quiz to get you started. \u00a0If you choose to take up the challenge,\u00a0enter your answers in the comments below or on the KABT Facebook Page. \u00a0There are 11 flowers to be identified.<\/p>\n

The Konza is noted for its benches, defined by limestone members. \u00a0This is the Fort Riley bench.<\/p>\n

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This is the Fort Riley limstone with eroded cavities filled with plants—like a planter.<\/p>\n

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As Carol said in her Facebook post, this flower dominated the prairie, last week<\/p>\n

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Flower 5<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 6<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 7<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 8<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 9<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 10<\/p><\/div>\n

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Flower 11<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Aldo saw things that others don’t: Every July I watch eagerly a certain country graveyard that I pass in driving to and from my farm. It is time for a prairie birthday, and in one corner of this graveyard lives a surviving celebrant of that once important event. It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kabt-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5108,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions\/5108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}