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| Purple prairie-clover, a Kansas wildflower |
I visited my brother and sister-in-law in Kingman County, Kansas, this summer, and as always, I enjoyed going to check the cattle with my brother on his 4-wheeler. I saw a number of big clumps of this pretty purple wildflower, growing along the pasture roads we traveled.
The plants can be sprawling. I think that the persistant southwest winds of Kansas lays them down, unless they happen to grow in a sheltered area. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the clump in the picture above, but I did my best without completely lying down. (I'm not as spry as I used to be.) That's a wild plum thicket in the background.
I remembered these flowers from my Nebraska childhood, but I did not know their name. Identifying the plant via the internet was easy, because the blooms have such a distinctive shape. This is purple prairie-clover. It is a perennial wildflower of central North America that requires full sun. It's a nutritious plant that is good for livestock and for the birds and small animals that enjoy its seed heads. It's also a pollen source for butterflies and bees. Though it's a legume, it's not a true clover.
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| A clump of purple prairie-clover along a pasture road |
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